7. Logistical challenges and space for Africa
Other important things to note at this stage were the logistical challenges encountered by the ASF Secretariat in India.
Despite the fact that there was an advance party in Mumbai to deal with logistics, the hosts left some ends too loose to the extent that at the last minute, Taoufik Ben Abdallah found himself running round like a headless chicken in his efforts to sort out issues like equipment for simultaneous translation which the organisers had promised would be put in place at the earmarked venues.
Absence of translation facilities disrupted the set time schedules and gave the impression that time management was poor.
On two occasions, proceedings had to stop abruptly because the ASF had overshoot its time limit and other groups were demanding to use the same venue.
At the media centre where the Secretariat had secured space to house the editorial team that produced Flamme d' Afrique, the ASF daily newspaper, everything was again loaded onto Taoufik's shoulders and all efforts to offload some of these responsibilities proved futile as the organisers insisted that they needed his physical presence in order for some of the team's requests to be met.
In future, Africa should just secure its own space and make sure that all facilities are specified and secured well in advance to suit their requirements.
Similar challenges were encountered in Brazil in 2002 where proceedings took longer when we failed to secure simultaneous translation for the three working languages, English, French and Portuguese.
The Action Aid team from Africa had warned us in December during the Maputo strategic planning meeting and insisted that Africa must have its own tent and guaranteed spaces.
And even in Mumbai, they were still asking, "where is the Africa solidarity tent?"
But now with the benefit of hindsight, one does not hesitate to recommend that in future, we must secure our own space for the duration of the Forum in addition to the display stand, which by the way served as a very important reference point for Africa in Mumbai.
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