Conferences like these are rarely for the faint-hearted: there's a good dose of solid, interesting, and often-times voluminous documentation to take home; not to mention a phalanx of elegant and gorgeous hostesses who, regrettably, look like they are clones of each other, what with the beautifully permed hair and the identical dressing. Do they honestly have to have teh same hairstyle?. How will you be able to tell the difference when you want to ask one of them about the fluctuating air-conditioning in the room?;-)
In any event, the summit started off with countries on six/seven rountables, with I believe Joy FM/BBC's Kwaku Sakyi-Addo opening the summit, and asking random people seated in front of sheets of paper of an AU country to describe the country, off-the-cuff, which they saw on their desk.
People described Sudan; Botswana; Mali; to name but three, and all very good general descriptions. The uncanny thing about it all was that the descriptions were ALL positive.
Not bad for a conference that aims to dissect a "re-branding" of the continent.
Ofcourse, that suggests that it had already been branded!
Off to be part of Day Two...
(regrettably, former CNN anchor Tumi Makagbo failed to turn up for yesterday's afternoon session; neither did John Sarpong--CEO of Africast; nor Dr.Messan Mawugbe, CEO of Centre for Media ANalysis; nor Thorsten Stamer, Managing Director of Africa Media Warehouse, who actually was there in the morning. I saw him this morning, too.
WOnder why that session was cancelled without any explanation.
It's starting...
Later!
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