Africa-Now Untold Stories Conference March 2005
The Canada Fund for Africa, CIDA, and Carleton University's School of Journalism and Communication, hosted the conference on March 11 and 12, 2005, entitled "Africa Now: Untold Stories".
The conference brought together young Africans and Canadians, media practitioners and development experts working on the continent to provide their perspectives on some of the most difficult challenges facing African youth today: HIV/AIDS, the environment, war-affected youth, and childhood development in refugee camps. The conference also examined the role of the media in reporting on these issues. The keynote speaker was Lt.-Gen. (retired) Roméo Dallaire, Fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Harvard University. Moderators and panelists include:
Allan Thompson, Associate Professor, Carleton School of Journalism and Communication;
Alexandre Trudeau, Journalist, Documentary Filmmaker and Chair of the Board of Canada World Youth; and Ken Wiwa, Globe and Mail columnist.
The audience were invited to participate in question-and-answer sessions with speakers and panelists. The forum was also open to the public and attendance was free. The forum ensured that there were feature exhibits.
Africa Now: Untold Stories Conference
Time: Friday, March 11, 3:00 p.m. – 6:30 p.m. Saturday, March 12, 2005, 9:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.
Place: Carleton University Bell Theatre, Minto Centre1125 Colonel by Drive Ottawa, Ontario.
AFRICA NOW: UNTOLD STORIES
When African Youth Challenged the World's View of Their Continent
A look back at the March 2005 Carleton University conference—and the lessons it holds for today's international development professionals
By Andrew Benson Greene's story of participation in a wider conversation about Africa, youth, conflict and the power of representation.
The Invitation That Opened a Bigger Conversation
Imagine entering a conference room in Ottawa in March 2005.
Outside, the Canadian capital is still in the grip of winter. Inside Carleton University's Bell Theatre, an important conversation is unfolding—one that brings together young Africans and Canadians, journalists, development specialists and people working to understand some of the continent's most difficult challenges.
The event is called Africa Now: Untold Stories.
Held on March 11 and 12, 2005, the conference was hosted by the Canada Fund for Africa, the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and Carleton University's School of Journalism and Communication.
Its purpose reached beyond the exchange of ideas. The gathering invited participants to reconsider how Africa was discussed, how its young people were represented, and how international development could better reflect the realities of the communities it sought to serve.
At the heart of the event was a question that remains relevant today:
Who gets to tell Africa's story—and what happens when the people living that story finally have the opportunity to speak for themselves?
For decades, international reporting about Africa has frequently concentrated on war, famine, disease, political instability and humanitarian emergencies. These subjects are real, consequential and deserving of attention. Yet when they dominate the narrative, something equally important can disappear: the initiative, intelligence, courage and creativity of the people working to change their circumstances.
Africa Now: Untold Stories offered an opportunity to examine that imbalance.
Its discussions focused on four pressing issues affecting young people: HIV/AIDS, the environment, war-affected youth, and childhood development in refugee camps. These were not merely separate development sectors. They were interconnected dimensions of a larger question about opportunity, dignity and the future of an entire generation.
The conference also examined the role of the media in reporting these issues.
That combination made the gathering particularly significant. It brought together people concerned with the realities of development and people responsible for communicating those realities to the wider world.
The keynote speaker was retired Lieutenant-General Roméo Dallaire, internationally recognised for his association with the Rwandan genocide and his subsequent work on human rights and war-affected children. Other identified participants included Carleton journalism professor Allan Thompson, journalist and documentary filmmaker Alexandre Trudeau, and Globe and Mail columnist Ken Wiwa.
The presence of journalists alongside development practitioners mattered. Aid programmes are designed, funded and implemented, but public understanding often determines whether they receive sustained attention and support. How a crisis is described can influence how it is understood, which solutions are considered possible, and whose expertise is taken seriously.
For a young African participant, this environment offered something more valuable than simply attending a conference. It provided a platform from which lived experience could enter a broader professional conversation.
For Andrew Benson Greene of Sierra Leone, participation in the war-affected youth discussion placed the experiences and challenges of young people affected by conflict within an international forum.
The significance of such participation should not be measured only by the prestige of the venue or the names on the programme. It should also be measured by the questions that participants were able to bring into the room—and by whether the people making policy were prepared to listen.
Sometimes, the first step towards changing a development agenda is changing who is heard.
Beyond the Headlines: The Human Experience Behind Development
To understand the importance of Africa Now, we must return to the challenges facing African youth in the early 2000s.
Across conflict-affected communities, young people were confronting disrupted education, displacement, family separation, limited employment opportunities and the long-term consequences of violence. In other settings, HIV/AIDS was reshaping families and communities, while environmental pressures threatened livelihoods. Children growing up in refugee camps faced uncertainty about education, protection and their futures.
Each of these challenges demanded resources, expertise and effective institutions.
But they also demanded something less easily quantified: an understanding of what life actually looked like for the people experiencing them.
War-affected youth: From victimhood to possibility
The subject of war-affected youth was particularly important in a conference that sought to uncover stories beyond familiar headlines.
When young people are described only as victims of conflict, the account is incomplete. When former child soldiers are discussed only in terms of what they have endured, the public may overlook the difficult work of rehabilitation, reconciliation, education and reintegration.
Recovery is rarely a single event. It is a process involving families, communities, educators, local organisations, public institutions and, where appropriate, professional psychosocial support.
It requires communities to address the consequences of violence without permanently defining a young person by their past.
It also requires international partners to recognise that local people are not simply recipients of assistance. They possess knowledge, relationships and capacities essential to the success of recovery.
The war-affected youth panel, which included Andrew Benson Greene, brought this broad challenge into the conference's international discussion.
The lesson for today's humanitarian and development professionals is straightforward: do not confuse the description of suffering with an explanation of how recovery becomes possible.
The first tells us what happened. The second helps us understand what must happen next.
HIV/AIDS: Development is also about dignity
The HIV/AIDS crisis demanded more than medical interventions and statistics.
It raised questions about access to treatment, prevention, education, stigma, community support and the ability of families to maintain their livelihoods while dealing with illness and loss.
For young people, these issues could shape the course of an entire lifetime.
Effective responses required cooperation among governments, health professionals, community organisations, educators, donors and the people directly affected.
The broader lesson is that development programmes are strongest when technical expertise is combined with local understanding. An intervention may be well funded, but it can still fall short if it fails to account for social barriers, community trust or the realities of everyday life.
The environment: The connection between livelihoods and opportunity
Environmental challenges also have a human dimension.
Where livelihoods depend on land, water and natural resources, environmental degradation can affect household income, food security, educational continuity and prospects for young people.
For development professionals, the challenge is not simply to identify environmental problems. It is to understand how those problems interact with employment, public infrastructure, social protection and economic opportunity.
Young people should be part of that conversation—not merely as a vulnerable population, but as potential contributors to local solutions.
Refugee camps: Childhood cannot be put on hold
For children growing up in refugee camps, displacement can interrupt education, separate families and undermine the sense of stability that childhood requires.
Food, shelter and immediate protection are essential. Yet children also need safe learning environments, consistent care, opportunities for development and the prospect of a future beyond displacement.
This is where emergency relief and long-term development intersect.
A child is not only a beneficiary to be counted in a humanitarian report. That child is a developing human being whose future can be shaped by the decisions made during a period of crisis.
Taken together, these four themes revealed a shared principle: development cannot be understood exclusively through budgets, projects or indicators. It must also be understood through the lives those interventions are intended to change.
Andrew Benson Greene and the Importance of Being in the Room
The historical significance of a conference is often found not only in its keynote speeches but also in the people whose experiences broaden the conversation.
Andrew Benson Greene's participation in the war-affected youth panel is a meaningful part of the record of Africa Now: Untold Stories.
The available conference-related material identifies him as a Sierra Leonean speaker and indicates that the war-affected youth panel received particularly strong evaluations. A referenced commendation document reportedly noted that the panel received the highest marks in the university audience's evaluations.
That detail deserves attention.
It suggests that a discussion centred on the realities of war-affected young people resonated strongly with those who attended. It does not, by itself, tell us precisely which arguments produced that response, nor should we attribute specific statements to Greene without a transcript or his original presentation.
Nevertheless, the documented participation raises an important professional question: what changes when people with direct knowledge of a challenge are included in the rooms where that challenge is discussed?
Consider the difference between two approaches to international development.
In the first, experts define a problem, institutions design an intervention, donors allocate resources and communities are expected to participate in implementation.
In the second, affected communities help define the problem from the beginning. Their experiences inform the intervention, their knowledge influences priorities, and their participation continues through implementation, monitoring and evaluation.
The second approach does not eliminate the need for technical expertise or accountable institutions. It makes those institutions more responsive to the realities they are intended to address.
This is especially important in post-conflict settings, where the distance between an international policy document and the lived experience of a young person can be enormous.
A strategy may speak of reintegration, resilience or social cohesion. On the ground, those concepts translate into practical questions.
Can a young person return to school? Can a family support that transition? Is the community prepared to accept someone associated with a conflict? Are there credible opportunities for employment? Can local organisations access the resources and partnerships needed to sustain their work?
These are not peripheral questions. They determine whether the objectives of a programme become meaningful improvements in people's lives.
For African professionals working in humanitarian response, public policy, journalism and community development, representation is therefore more than a symbolic concern.
It is connected to the quality of decisions.
The people closest to a problem may not possess every technical answer, but excluding them can leave decision-makers without essential information. Likewise, inviting them to speak is not enough if their contributions do not influence what happens afterwards.
The deeper challenge is to move from consultation to meaningful participation—and from participation to shared responsibility.
For international professionals, this means asking difficult questions about power, expertise and accountability.
Who defines success? Whose evidence counts? Who controls the resources? Who decides which stories reach the public? And who remains accountable when the promised outcomes fail to materialise?
These questions extend far beyond one conference in Ottawa.
They remain central to contemporary discussions about locally led development, humanitarian accountability, youth leadership and equitable international partnerships.
Africa Now: Untold Stories offers a historical point of reference for those discussions. It reminds us that the quality of an international conversation depends not only on the knowledge of those present but also on whose knowledge has historically been overlooked.
For Greene and the other participants, the conference formed part of a wider exchange between African experience and international professional attention. Its lasting value lies in recognising the importance of making room for voices that can challenge assumptions and deepen understanding.
From Ottawa in 2005 to the Development Agenda Today
The conference took place at a moment of heightened international attention to Africa's development.
On March 11, 2005, the Commission for Africa's report, Our Common Interest, was launched. The report called for stronger international action on African poverty and development, with recommendations covering governance, peace and security, health, education, infrastructure, trade and development assistance.
Canada's engagement with African development was also shaped by the G8 Africa Action Plan and the Canada Fund for Africa, a major Canadian initiative established in 2002.
The timing placed Africa Now: Untold Stories within a wider debate about how international commitments could translate into practical outcomes.
The Commission's report addressed the broad policy framework. The conference brought attention to the people whose lives were affected by the issues that framework sought to address.
The relationship between the two is an important one, even though the available evidence does not establish that the conference formally adopted the report's recommendations.
International policy is necessary. Funding matters. Strong institutions matter. Effective journalism matters.
But none of these works in isolation.
Five lessons for today's international development professionals
1. Treat local knowledge as an asset, not an afterthought.
Engage community members and young people before program design is complete. Their knowledge can reveal obstacles that are invisible from a distance.
2. Tell stories that include both challenges and agency.
Responsible reporting must not minimize suffering. It should also document the work of communities, the decisions of local leaders and the solutions people are developing.
3. Connect emergency response with long-term recovery.
Humanitarian assistance can save lives, but sustainable recovery often requires education, livelihoods, institutional capacity and social reintegration.
4. Measure participation by influence, not attendance.
A conference can bring diverse people together without changing a single decision. Meaningful engagement requires evidence that participants' contributions affect priorities, budgets, programmes or accountability.
5. Build partnerships that share responsibility.
International organizations bring resources and specialized capabilities. Local institutions bring contextual understanding, relationships and continuity. Durable results require both—and arrangements that recognise the contributions of each.
The story is not finished
More than two decades after the conference, its central question remains urgent.
Africa is not a single story. It is a continent of diverse societies, histories, political systems, economies and ambitions. Its challenges are real, but so are the ideas, institutions, movements and individuals working to address them.
The task of international development is not to replace one simplified narrative with another. It is to understand the complexity of people's lives and support approaches grounded in evidence, dignity and partnership.
For journalists, that means asking whose perspective is missing from a story.
For policymakers, it means looking beyond commitments to the quality of implementation.
For donors, it means examining whether resources reach the people and institutions best positioned to use them effectively.
For young African professionals, it means recognizing that their knowledge and experience belong in international debates—not as an exception to the rule, but as an essential part of informed decision-making.
And for all of us, it means understanding that listening is not the end of engagement. It is the beginning of responsibility.
Africa Now: Untold Stories was a conference held in Ottawa in March 2005. Its themes, however, reach well beyond that date and venue.
The event reminds us that the future of development depends partly on the questions we ask, partly on the resources we mobilize, and partly on whether we are willing to hear perspectives that challenge the assumptions with which we began.
The most important untold story may not be a story that has never been told. It may be a story that the world has not yet learned to take seriously.
A question for the LinkedIn community
For those working in international development, diplomacy, journalism, humanitarian response or youth leadership:
How can international institutions ensure that African young people's experiences influence not only the stories told about them, but also the policies, funding decisions and programs that shape their futures?
Share your perspective, and let us continue the conversation.
Historical note: This newsletter draws on the published description of the March 2005 Africa Now: Untold Stories conference, the Commission for Africa's report, and conference-related professional records. Specific quotations and detailed claims about individual presentations have been omitted where an original transcript or recording could not be confirmed.
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