On 03 November 2016 the Founder and Executive Director of ACCORD, Vasu Gounden, was invited to host a Public Lecture at the UN Headquarters on “Convergance and Complexity: Africa’s crisis over the next decade”. The lecture was mainly attended by UN Staff from various departments.
In his presentation Mr Gounden reflected on the last twenty-five (25) years of multi-party democracy and conflict management in Africa, and examined what has been achieved and where the gaps are. Focusing on the root and structural causes of conflict, he argued that the coming decade could be Africa’s most difficult, bringing Africa close to a dangerous tipping point that can plunge the Continent into a proliferation of internal conflicts ranging between low-intensity protracted conflicts to civil wars. Both short-term mitigation and long-term development efforts are needed to reverse this trend. Africa is in a race against time through the convergence of factors that are driving complexity, presenting leaders with an ever decreasing set of choices.
Mr Gounden made similar presentations in Norway, Finland and Belgium during September 2016.
