Throughout these historic sessions of the African-African American Summit open forums were held in which mayors of Ghana and mayors of The United States discussed common challenges, such as economic development for the people in African and American cities, financial management of our cities, and environmental challenges such as the need for water and solar energy technology. The meetings I chaired were open conversations, lively discussions, not boring. Indeed they were meaningful and productive as well as entertaining and enjoyable. It is unfortunate that your network decided against covering this African-African American Summit, the largest ever held on the African continent. Our government, over the past few years has been encouraging our local governments to reach out to our African counterparts at the local level.
African roots run deep in our American cities, counties and rural America.
Throughout our history since World War II and leading up to the end of the Cold War , we have witnessed on the five networks, NBC, CBS, ABC, FOX and CNN, broad coverage of Summits from Europe, the Middle East and Asia. For the mayors attending this Summit and to our constituents back home, we are astonished over your lack of concern of what is happening in Africa and in particular, the events in Accra, Ghana earlier this month. Our organization, The United States Conference of Mayors, will continue democracy-building, technology exchanges and promoting increased trade between the African nations and the United States. This act was passed by the House in 1998 but was not acted upon in the Senate and thus Congress has failed to enact its passage. In Ghana at the Summit, I called upon Congress to pass the African Trade Bill.