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THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                July 10, 2009

EXAMPLES OF WHAT U.S. EMBASSIES IN AFRICA ARE DOING TO ENGAGE AFRICAN PUBLIC ON THE PRESIDENT’S GHANA SPEECH

  • The U.S. Mission to the African Union (Addis Ababa, Ethiopia) will host a screening/panel discussion at the African Union’s historic plenary hall for over 200 representatives of 53 African countries.
  • Embassy Cotonou (Benin) will bookend its screening for over 100 with video highlights from President Obama’s inauguration and the AF Bureau’s 50th anniversary celebration (October 2008).
  • Embassy Freetown (Sierra Leone) will host screenings for over 500 at community cinema centers throughout the country, as the centerpieces of its traditional/new media outreach that has reached the bulk of the country’s population.
  • The Somalia Virtual Presence post (co-located in Kenya with Embassy Nairobi) will host a screening/discussion with the 50 Somali officials/media that are scheduled to be in Nairobi that day.
  • Embassy Djibouti (Djibouti) will host its screening/discussion the Ambassador’s residence for 100 guests.
  • Embassy Pretoria (South Africa) will cap the new media outreach that has reached millions with screenings for over 1000 invited guests in Pretoria, Johannesburg, Capetown and Durban.
  • Embassy Lilongwe (Malawi) had to rent a hall and utilize its American corner to accommodate the 200 guests invited to its screening.
  • Embassy Luanda (Angola) will conclude the traditional/new media outreach that has reached tens of thousands with a screening/discussions at the Ambassador’s residence.
  • Embassy Brazzaville (Republic of Congo) will host a screening/discussion for 100 at its Villa Washington community center.
  • Embassy Abidjan (Cote d’Ivoire) will use its network of three American Corners in addition to the Embassy to screen the speech for over 500 guests.
  • The State Department’s African Regional Media Hub arranged for Safaricom, Kenya’s leading mobile phone network provider, to streaming the speech live from a VOA feed. Safaricom’s subscriber base is 17 Million, and it reaches into the most remote corners of the country.
  • Our Embassy in South Africa partnered with MXit, a continent-wide social networking service, to solicit question an comments for the president. Hundreds of thousands of Africans responded.

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