Founded in 2018

MAMA’s Objectives and Its Expected Impact

Our basic objective is to successfully bring together peacebuilders and development professionals from around the world and across Africa to share best practices and build a strong network of networks to respond to violent conflicts.

The Africa Peace and Development Network (MAMA) derives its acronym from Swahili

“Mtandao wa Amani na Maendeleo Africa”

The mission of the Africa Peace and Development Network (MAMA) is to build a strong coalition of peacebuilders from the grassroots level across Africa to address sustainable development challenges around the world and across Africa through peace education,researchand activism leveraging Ubuntu and other nonviolent philosophies worldwide.

MAMA has its Headquarters in Mwanza,

Tanzania, East Africa.

While Pan-African peace and nonviolence initiatives on local and regional levels have been going on for centuries, the modern expression of explicit nonviolent direct action advocacy coalition work began in 2018 when the meeting in Vechta, Germany, helped found the Africa Peace and Development Network (MAMA).

The first international and multi-venue conference of MAMA, alongside other institutions, started in Arusha on 23 May 2024 and proceeded through the Serengeti to Mwalimu Julius K. Nyerere’s birthplace in Butiama after a brief meeting with a Maasai community grappling with land issues, and concluded in Mwanza on 27 May 2024. The conference was co-organised in collaboration with several peacebuilding and academic associations in Africa. The conference theme was “Ujamaa, Ubuntu and New Pan Africanism: The Future of World Peace”.

Our continental coalition – essentially a “network of networks” has emerged and been strengthened through cross-continental informational exchanges and solidarity support actions. Through the Ebola and COVID crisis, civil and regional wars, and genocidal activities in the Congo, the Great Lakes region (Eritrea-Ethiopia), the Sudan, and elsewhere, we have focused on grassroots, locally based south-south communication, support, strategy, and action to build local, regional, and continental capacity for progressive change.

In November 2022, MAMA was represented in the meeting of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation (IFoR) in Juba, South Sudan. As the IFoR held its first global Council meeting in Africa, many of our networks and groups took the opportunity to build deeper and broader networks– bringing in African and allied colleagues from Pax Christi International, the Association of Catholic Universities and Higher Institutes of Africa and Madagascar (ACUHIAM), The St. Augustine University of Tanzania (SAUT), the Africa Peace Research and Education Association (AFPREA) and others

Organisation Founding Date

&

Brief History of the Organisation

The organisation has its roots in the meeting of the MAMA co-founders, which was held at the University of Vechta, Germany, from 19-20 December 2018. The meeting was attended by Professor Dr.Egon Spiegel, University of Vechta, Germany; Professor Dr. Cheng Liu, UNESCO Chair, Nanjing University, China, and Dr. George Mutalemwa, St. Augustine University of Tanzania (SAUT). Prof. Dr. Lester R. Kurtz, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, USA, joined the team soon after.

The name “Africa Peace and Development Network (MAMA)” was first used during the conference of the Africa Peace Research and Education Association (AFPREA), which took place in Juba, South Sudan, on November 4th, 2022. On that day, an international MAMA WhatsApp Group was set up. Currently, the Group consists of 255 members from all

The Relevance of MAMA Today

The genocide in Gaza, and the special attention paid to it by South Africa’s taking the case to the World Court, spotlights both the importance of the moment and the potential African leadership has to play in promoting peace and justice. The singular “pro-genocide” vote of the World Court judge from Uganda, however, shows some of the work that must be done to look deeply at our own societies’ confusions and collusions. The often-ignored but no less tragic genocides taking place in the Sudan today and in the Great Lakes/Congo regions recently require much greater solidarity and spotlight. We believe that a special opportunity for African peacebuilding is upon us.

  • Our Expectations

  • Understanding

    A deepening understanding of the key, day-to-day experiences of those most affected by war in Africa and around the world, and what might be done to help

  • Engagement

    A special engagement with the Pan-African visions of Ujamaa and Ubuntu as practised in East and Southern Africa ; providing guidance for future African peacemaking and village socialist possibilities

  • Action

    A concrete series of action plans, coordinated as simultaneous event and otherwise, to increase pressure on war-makers and those promoting genocide

  • Connection

    A concrete series of educational plans, designed to connect our struggles for a better understanding within Africa and around the world of the connectedness of human rights, justice, sustainable development, and peace.

  • Education

    An educational programme which will enable especially low income students from Africa to obtain academic qualifications in African Peace Studies and train them to think and act as peace professionals.

 FAQs

  • Our strengths stem from our broad connections to a large constituency of groups across every region of Africa and the world, and our commitment to reach all peoples despite geographic distance and cultural difference.

    In the past years, we have done more effective sharing of best practices and helped inspire or coordinate local actions and activities. We have conducted over 150 educational, action-oriented, and networking webinars on a weekly basis with an incredible diversity of colleagues from every field and walk of life.

    With our connections to long-standing non-African international organisations in the field of peace, we are pleased to be part of larger discussions with allies and friends. But we remain committed to building a coalition which is Africa-based and Africa-centered (including peoples in the Diaspora and those dedicated to African liberation and human rights). This approach is unique and, in our estimate, deeply needed for a peaceful future for all.

  • Our leadership core includes representatives from East, West, North, Central, Great Lakes, and Southern Africa. Though our work is primarily conducted in English, we have French, Arabic, and Swahili-dominant speakers in our core, and are working to expand our language and communications capacities.

    We include Protestant, Catholic, Muslim, Jewish, and traditional African spiritualist traditions in our core, as well as those who do not base their work on faith or theism of any type.

    We are ideologically diverse, including peoples and groups who have lived under all manner of political-economic regimes. We are, however, explicitly anti-dictatorial, anti-colonial and neo-colonial, and anti-oppression of any people

  • The Network does not have any paid personnel. It’s an entirely volunteer-run process. The local organisational staff time, as well as many local services and hospitality, is being donated in-kind to the Network. However, some work, such as preparing and disseminating promotional material or doing proofreading, requires some funding. MAMA is grateful to the Ministry of Science and Culture of the State of Lower Saxony in Germany (MWK) for its generous grants.

  • There are two main evaluative measures planned:

    1. Individual evaluation forms by the first half of the year, gathering thoughts and recommendations regarding the strategic impact of the Network.

    2. An end-of-year Zoom will take place by the core organising team to review the survey and post-survey results and discuss and determine plans for the coming years.