Nobel Peace Laureate Wangari Maathai Discusses Africa’s Challenges at the Wilson Center

WASHINGTON, April 6 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai‘s new book, The Challenge for Africa, offers a powerful and compelling look at the severe and wide-ranging problems facing Africa, from Darfur to HIV/AIDS, massive debt to election fraud, cross-border conflicts to environmental degradation.

At the Wilson Center on April 13 at 3 p.m., Maathai will discuss these roadblocks to Africa’s development, including population pressures and enduring hunger; the absence of peace and security; the lack of technological development; and the dearth of genuine political and economic leadership. She will stress the need for Africans to invent and implement their own solutions, rather than relying on foreign aid and Western visions of change.

Wangari Muta Maathai is the founder of the Green Belt Movement, which, through networks of rural women, has planted more than 30 million trees across Kenya since 1977. In 2002, she was elected to Kenya’s parliament in the first free elections in a generation, and in 2003 was appointed Assistant Minister for Environment, Natural Resources, and Wildlife. The Nobel Peace Prize laureate of 2004, she is the author of Unbowed: A Memoir.

RSVP/Live Webcast: http://tinyurl.com/maathai

What: The Challenge for Africa: A Conversation With Wangari Maathai

Who: Wangari Maathai, Founder, Green Belt Movement; Recipient, Nobel Peace Prize (2004)

When: Monday, April 13, 2009, 3:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.

Where: Ronald Reagan Building, Atrium Hall

1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C.

Media planning to attend the event should contact escp@wilsoncenter.org or (202) 691-4164.

The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars is the living, national memorial to President Wilson established by Congress in 1968 and headquartered in Washington, D.C. It is a nonpartisan institution, supported by public and private funds, engaged in the study of national and world affairs. http://www.wilsoncenter.org

Since 1994, the Wilson Center’s Environmental Change and Security Program has explored the connections among environmental challenges and their links to conflict and security. http://www.wilsoncenter.org/ecsp

    Sharon McCarter, Director of Outreach and Communications
    Phone: (202) 691-4016
    sharon.mccarter@wilsoncenter.org

SOURCE Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars