Govt yet to receive report on $68M IDPAD conference
Following a four-day conference that was dubbed a success by stakeholders, organisers of the International Decade for People of African Descent (IDPAD) Summit 2018 are expected to hand over a full report of the event to the Guyana Government, which had allocated some $68 million in its 2018 Budget for sponsorship of the conference.
The summit was held in observance of the International Decade for People of African Descent and brought together more than 60 academics, Black activists and other expert speakers from around the world to focus on eradicating the issues of African descendants through the implementation of possible solutions.
A section of the gathering at the opening of the IDPAD Summit 2018 held at the Marriott Hotel
The four-day conference was held at the Guyana Marriott Hotel under the theme “Where we are, Where we ought to be, How we get there”. During his presentation at the opening ceremony, Second Vice President and Foreign Affairs Minister Carl Greenidge told the gathering that he was expecting a report from organisers so that he could brief Cabinet on the outcome of the conference.
“I can assure you that because of (President David Granger’s) abiding interest in this subject … I will be called upon to give account, if not necessarily blow by blow, an assessment of what has taken place during this event,” Minister Greenidge, who was at the time acting President, had stated.
However, when asked whether he had received such an update from the summit organisers, the Second Vice President replied in the negative, but added that he was expecting that information which was promised.
The Decade was launched by the United Nations in New York in 2015 to highlight issues relating to Africa and millions of African descendants around the world, including the 200 million people who identify as Africans in the Americans alone.
The conference served as a platform for participants to openly discuss the serious issues facing African descendants, as well as the solutions they envision to address the problems, and ways of implementing those solutions.
