Who We Are

Our

History

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The Collective for the Renewal Of Africa (CORA) is a a Pan-African intellectual collective was born following the publication of a letter addressed to African leaders on 13 April 2020. The letter called on leaders to consider the global challenge of the coronavirus pandemic crisis as an opportunity to ignite ‘radical change’ and to govern with intelligence and compassion. The letter gave rise to a collective commitment to garner intellectual resources in the development of knowledge that spurs progress. The CORA manifesto written in English, French, and Portuguese, clearly captures this commitment.

It conveys the urgency of a generational responsibility. The responsibility to create an environment where intellectuals can engage in constructive debate in an uninhibited atmosphere, to develop and contribute powerful and transformative ideas about Africa’s future, and to frame the terms of our engagement within the global system.

Intellectuals have historically played a critical role in guiding public action and shaping nations out of words and bold ideas.

Our

Goals

01.

To build a Pan-African intellectual collective reflecting the regional, and linguistic diversity of the continent and its diaspora and open to a wide-range of human resources and knowledge practices.

03.

To produce quality research, and recommend results as widely as possible to policy makers, national and regional institutions, international, civil society and media organizations, as well as support their implementation.

02.

To foster a culture of solidarity, constructive exchange and active participation in the service of African societies.

04.

To act as a sentinel with regards to the prevailing situations of the African continent, and its institutions, by making available ideas and expert knowledge in favour of qualitative change in the life of Africans.

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Members
Throughout the continent

They talk about us

Our

Research Axes

Africa in the world (dis)order

Key issues of interest:

What political, economic, and socio-cultural order should emerge from renegotiated terms of engagement between Africa and the rest of the world?

How should Africa frame a position that is not strictly wedded to a Western or Chinese vision, but to an alternative, more humanist way?

What regimes of solidarity should emerge, from Africa, between members of the Global South?

How can the African Union (AU) be reinvented as a competent, autonomous, and significant diplomatic institution capable of framing a new vision for the global order?

Economic Sovereignty

Key issues of interest:

How can the continent best manage the economic transition we are going through?

What alternative economic model would make it possible to mobilise the continent's resources in order to reduce its multifaceted dependencies and strengthen solidarity among African countries to collectively confront immediate and future challenges?

What conditions will enable Africa to offer the rest of the world another way of organising production and a more equitable distribution of wealth?

Rethinking the State and Citizenship in Africa

Key issues of interest:

What new/alternative principles can inform a reformation of a notion of state and citizenship in Africa?

What place should an exploration of the continent's past occupy in this endeavour?

How to reimagine political legitimacy from a democratic perspective, in a manner that enhances the citizen’s legislative control, and to go beyond the temporality of elections and the ideological confines of liberal democracy?

Arts, Education and Culture

Key issues of interest:

How can we rethink, and get out of the colonial education system and its epistèmê in order to make better use of endogenous knowledge in schools and university curricula?

What place should be given to artistic expression in educational practices?

How can Africa draw on the arts, literature, poetry and other artistic expressions to rethink a sustainable value economy?

What strategies are to be put forward, for the valorisation and dissemination of artistic, cinematographic, literary and scholarly production on the continent?

Science, Technology and Endogenous Knowledge

Key issues of interest:

What actions need to be adopted in order to support the local production of medicines in Africa, particularly for the most basic/common ones, in order to minimise dependence on imports?

What educational systems are needed in order to bring Africa up to date with global developments in artificial intelligence, robotics and digital technologies?

What types of animal and plant production are needed to sustainably feed Africa’s population, which is expected to represent about 40% of humanity by 2100?

What combinations of conventional and alternative energies should be developed in a world facing enormous ecological constraints?

What would be a pan-African strategy to deal with climate change and its foreseeable consequences on a continent that has so far contributed little to global carbon dioxide emissions but has become a dumping ground for the rest of the world?

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