To: All African Governments, African Private Sector Leaders & their Delegations
To: H.E. Moussa Faki Mahamat, Chairperson of the African Union Commission
To: Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State, U.S. Department of State
To: Muriel Bowser, Mayor of the District of Columbia
Cc: All African Ministers of Foreign Affairs
Cc: All African Diplomatic Missions in Washington D.C.
RE: OPEN LETTER TO AFRICAN GOVERNMENTS IN ATTENDANCE AT U.S.-AFRICA SUMMIT
Washington D.C., 12 December 2022 – On this historic gathering of African governments, private sector leaders and their delegations on the invitation of President Biden to Washington, DC from December 13-15, 2022, for the U.S.- Africa Leaders Summit, we issue this open letter with a call to action.
We, at the Most Influential People of African Descent (MIPAD), are calling for the delegations to Washington D.C. to support the economic empowerment of Black entrepreneurs by spending their dollars prioritizing Black owned businesses. The governments and private sector leaders from Africa must make it a policy to be patronizing Black businesses when they attend international events and have official visits outside of Africa to the Diaspora.
“It is estimated that the presence of these African delegations in Washington, DC during this period will contribute millions of dollars to the US economy with mandatory diplomatic travel & tourism spend including personal expenditures. We appeal to our African public and private sector leaders to become intentional about driving Black economic empowerment in the USA and across the Diaspora. The plan is to simply leverage their presence in these international cities to create a support mechanism and economic security for Black Entrepreneurs. This will help advance Black entrepreneurship and Black-owned businesses as many recover from the pandemic,” says Kamil Olufowobi, Founder & CEO, Most Influential People of African Descent.”
CALL TO ACTION: It is in this light that we, MIPAD, hereby call on the U.S. Department of State and the City of Government in the District of Columbia to coordinate efforts to have a readily available and current Black-owned business directory made available to invited delegations.
If you are a Black owned business and will like to be included in this global Black business directory, please click to ADD YOUR VOICE
A similar effort was coordinated by MIPAD, the City of New York and Office for Mayor Eric Adams of New York City during the annual United Nations General Assembly. Learn more about Black Entrepreneurs NYC (BE NYC)
ABOUT MIPAD
The Most Influential People of African Descent (MIPAD), a global youth focused civil society initiative leading the advancements for people of African descent worldwide. Since 2017, MIPAD has been working in support of the United Nations International Decade for People of African Descent (UN IDPAD). Proclaimed by the UN General Assembly Resolution 68/237, the decade will be observed from the years 2015 till 2024 in-line with three pillars: RECOGNITION, JUSTICE, DEVELOPMENT www.mipad.org
