The Center for Humanities and Arts will host its 10th annual Program for Global Understanding Feb. 18-20. The international symposium will focus on “Globalization and Human Rights in Africa.” Approximately 20 distinguished artists, scholars and diplomats will come to Masters Hall at the Georgia Center for Continuing Education to join in discussions about the effects of globalization on human rights, religion and the process of democratization in sub-Saharan African nations.
At 8 p.m. on Feb. 18, Gertrude Mongella will deliver the keynote address. Mongella is a member of parliament in Tanzania, goodwill ambassador for Maternal Mortality Reduction in the African Region for the World Health Organization, and president of Advocacy for Women in Africa. She has served as a member of the UNESCO Council of the Future and the OAU Women’s Committee for Peace and as under-secretary special envoy to the secretary general of the United Nations on women’s issues and development.
On Feb. 19, at 9 a.m., Winston Nagan, Trustee Research Fellow, professor of law and affiliate professor of anthropology at the University of Florida, will make opening remarks. Nagan has served two terms as chair of Amnesty International USA and has been named a James B. Warburg Fellow in the University Consortium for World Order. He is co-founder of the Human Rights and Peace Center in Uganda. A native of South Africa, he has held visiting scholar appointments at Monash University in Australia, Leiden University in the Netherlands, the University of Cape Town in South Africa and Makerere University in Uganda.
An Ambassadors’ Roundtable, moderated by Lioba Moshi, director of UGA’s African Studies Institute, will follow Nagan’s address at 10:45 a.m. Participants will include Augustine Mahiga, Tanzanian ambassador to the United Nations, and four ambassadors to the United States: Barbara Masekela from South Africa, Faida Mitifu from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zac Nsenga from Rwanda, and Yusuf Nzibo from Kenya.
A roundtable discussion that afternoon, moderated by Amy Ross, UGA professor of geography, will address “Human Rights, Development and Democratization in the Age of Globalization.”
Roundtables the following day will deal with culture and religion. “Culture in the Age of Globalization” will be moderated by Marlyse Baptista, UGA professor of English, and will begin at 9 a.m. “Religion in the Age of Globalization” will be moderated by Kenneth Honerkamp, UGA professor of religion, and will take place at 10:45 a.m.
A performance by the African Cultural Dance Company is scheduled for Thursday night at 8 p.m.