Panel: The Permanent Forum at Five: Mandate, Achievements and Opportunities Geneva, 16 April 2026
Mme Chair,
Distinguished Moderator, Pastor Murillo,
Esteemed Chair and Members of the Permanent Forum, Excellencies,
Colleagues,
I would like to start by conveying heartfelt congratulations to the new Chair of our esteemed Forum Dr. Gaynel Curry and to express high appreciation to the Outgoing Chair Amb. Martin Kimani.
Five years ago, this Forum was an emerging promise; today, it is a well anchored voice.
As we reflect on “The Permanent Forum at Five: Mandate, Achievements and Opportunities”, I would like to focus on one central idea: this Forum and the African Union are not parallel tracks, but partners in the same journey—from recognition to transformation.
From the outset, the African Union has understood that the destiny of Africa cannot be separated from the destiny of people of African descent worldwide. The diaspora is not an afterthought; they are integral to our Union, our extended heartbeat, our Global Africa. Over the past years, the AU has intensified its work with Afro-descendant communities and regional groupings across the Americas and beyond. This is not only about symbolic inclusion; it is about diplomatic alignment and shared agendas.
In the span of one year from 2025 and 2026, that commitment has taken concrete shape. On 7 September 2025, the African Union convened the first in person historic Summit with CARICOM,
one that focused on reparatory justice, economic cooperation and people-to-people ties between Africa and the Caribbean. It came as a direct implementation of the MoU signed between the two organizations in 2024 on ‘upscaling engagement on people of African descent’, of which the Citizens and Diaspora Directorate (CIDO) is the focal point.
Then, on 21 March 2026, we met again in the framework of the Frist CELAC–Africa High Level Forum, linking Africa with Latin America and the Caribbean in a renewed partnership rooted in the realities of our peoples of African descent. These moments are strategic opportunities to weave the findings and recommendations of this Permanent Forum into the political fabric of two regions that together carry the heaviest legacy of enslavement and colonialism. If we do this well, the diaspora will not only be an expansion; it will be a co-author of continental and inter-regional policy.
These two gatherings in less than a year are more than meetings of leaders. They are a bridge between the two continents and regions. I always say the Atlantic is an ocean geographically but historically it is a river quenching the cultural thirst of tying our peoples across its two shores.
Mme Chair, Mr. Moderator, distinguished audience,
The second avenue is our relationship with this Forum itself. The African Union has now consistently featured the Permanent Forum in its own decisions and declarations, recognizing the Forum as a key partner in advancing the rights of people of African descent. This is not just a courtesy reference. It signals that the AU sees the Forum as part of the normative and political ecosystem in the implementation of Agenda 2063 and our Theme of the Decade on justice and reparations for Africans and People of African Descent which we adopted in the February 2026 Summit. The AU has also invited the Forum to nominate representatives for our own African Union processes, including the AU Committee of Experts on Reparations. This is a practical way to ensure that the intellectual and activist capital accumulated here at the UN contributes to the technical mechanisms adopted in Addis and convening throughout Africa.
We are now ready to take another major further step in this partnership. In the opening session of this fifth meeting, the Chairperson of the African Union Commission H.E. Mahmoud Ali Youssouf announced the AU’s keenness to host the sixth session of the Permanent Forum at AU premises in Addis Ababa. That invitation is not only about hospitality; it is about co-ownership. Bringing the Forum to Addis means bringing the conversation into the heart of continental decision-making, closer to our Member States, our regional economic communities and our continental institutions. It is a chance to make visible, on African soil, the global struggle of people of African descent, and to ensure that the recommendations of this body resonate directly in AU ministerial and summit halls.
Mme Chair, Mr. Moderator, distinguished audience,
But if we stop at references, nominations and hosting, we will have missed the moment. The next chapter must be about joint programs. We need to move from parallel reports to shared projects;
from side-by-side meetings to co-designed initiatives. That could mean, for example, collaborative programmes on anti-racist education as we celebrate the 25 years anniversary of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action, drawing on experiences from Africa, and people of African descent from all corners of the Globe; joint work on restitution and museums, linking African cultural institutions with Afro-descendant cultural spaces; as well as coordinated efforts on economic justice, from debt and illicit financial flows, structural reparations of global governance mechanisms to innovative financing for communities of African descent. The principle is simple: where our mandates converge, our actions should also intersect.
Mme Chair, Mr. Moderator, distinguished audience,
Allow me, therefore, to crystallize these reflections into three recommendations for deepening AU–Permanent Forum engagement.
First, let us institutionalize a structured dialogue between the Forum and the AU on civil society and diaspora and reparatory justice. Regular consultations ahead of each session—bringing together African and Afro-descendant organizations, national human rights institutions and youth movements—could generate a common “people’s brief” that informs both AU positions and the Forum’s debates. This dialogue should now also cover the implementation of the historic UNGA resolution declaring the Trafficking of Enslaved Africans and the Racialised Chattel Enslavement of Africans as the Gravest Crime Against Humanity”.
Second, let us make full use of the upcoming AU–CARICOM Summit and CELAC–Africa Forum as platforms for engaging further with the Forum’s. Thematic inputs from the Forum, and participation of its members where appropriate, would help ensure that the human rights of people of African descent are not a niche issue, but a core pillar of these inter-regional partnerships.
Third, let us design and launch a small number of flagship joint thematic and sectoral programs—on education, cultural restitution, and economic justice—that can serve as laboratories of implementation for the Second International Decade and for the future UN Declaration on the rights of people of African descent. In other words, let us create spaces where the Forum’s recommendations are not only read, but lived.
Excellencies,
At five years, this Forum stands at a crossroads: it can remain a powerful echo, or become an engine of change. The African Union, through the Citizens and Diaspora Organisations Directorate, is committed to the latter path. Together—with our civil societies, with our diaspora, and with our partners across the UN system—we can ensure that the next five years are not only well documented but well used.
I thank you.
