Pan African Writers Association (PAWA)
The Pan African Writers Association (PAWA) hosted the 23rd International African Writers’ Day (IAWD) in Accra.
In a message of solidarity to the writers on the occasion, the African Union (AU) urged PAWA “to make it possible for greater numbers of writers, young and old, men and women, urban and rural, to find market and readerships for their works.”
Towards this end, the AU believes “the Union and our governments must therefore create the necessary policy environments to ensure that the creative industries flourish” adding that the Commission would continue to exchange ideas with organizations such as PAWA on how to achieve this and to strengthen the culture of writing and reading in West Africa.
The solidarity message was authored by the Chairperson of the Commission, Dr. Dlamini Zuma who noted that African writers have given expression to the diversity of African voices, telling the many African stories and celebrating the unity of the Pan African narrative adding that their expressions of the feelings, values and ideas of Africans have become critical to the realisation of the African Renaissance and Agenda 2063.
The ceremony took place at PAWA House where Prof Atukwei Okai, Secretary General of PAWA revealed that an abiding preoccupation of African writers had to do with the twin problems of publishing and low reading.
In this connection, he lauded the efforts of the Ghana Association of Writers (GAW), the Mozambican Writers Association (MWA), the Malawi Writers Union (MWU) and the Association Of Nigerian Authors (ANA) in particular, for their special outreach programmes to schools and the communities to encourage and nurture the interest of the youth in reading at a time when the new technology was also luring young people away from reading books.
Contributing at the ceremony, Nana Gyan-Apenteng, President of the GAW, stated that GAW continues “to mobilize Ghanaian writers for the task of nation building, economic development, the deepening of democracy, cultural assertiveness, freedom of expression, human rights and social justice asserting that the Association is at the forefront of the advocacy for greater literacy for all of our people, especially our youth.”
At their meeting in Cotonou, Benin in 1993, the African Ministries of Culture and Education, established that the birthday of PAWA, 7th November should be celebrated throughout the continent as International African Writers’ Day “not only as a recognition by our African people of the role of writers in the development of our continent, but also a moment of pause within which to reflect on the nature of that contribution.”