Address by the President of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, on receiving the honorary doctorate from the Africa International University, Khartoum, Sudan
2 January 2005

I have decided to use this opportunity to speak about what the intelligentsia, such as is represented here and other African Universities, can and should do to assist the process of the renewal of the African continent.
We have to work for the renaissance of Africa inspired by the fact that for millennia the Nile, on whose banks this city rests, watered many civilizations which were possible because of the presence of an army of an extraordinary intelligentsia which engaged in advanced medical techniques, used their knowledge to revolutionize formal farming, introducing among others, an irrigation system, an intelligentsia whose engineering creativity and feats gave humanity the gift of the pyramids.
I would like to suggest that if any African University is to have relevance to the challenges of our day, it should have in its curriculum and as part of its central focus, the processes that are unfolding on the continent and use its research work and teachings to give more content and direction to the challenges and work of the African Union and its development program, the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD)….
We should do our work in these Universities driven by the belief that the African University should be a full participant on the effort to rebuild our continent. In whatever work we do as intellectuals and students let us use our talents and skills to:

• Help our people to find effective solutions to the problems of poverty, hunger and disease.
• Use research and teaching to improve food security dealing with issues such as improvements in food production, distribution and disease control;
• Use our skills to work comprehensively to defeat the serious diseases facing our continent;
• Strengthen our linkages with the industries and the productive sector, so that we can make a contribution to improve our agricultural sector, enhance the efficiency of the services sector and the capacity of our manufacturing industries;
• Strengthen our links with government and government agencies so that together we can increase the capacity and efficiency of the state so as to serve our citizens better;
• Contribute more actively to the removal of socio-political conflicts, civil wars and sub-regional disputes and the displacement of our people;
• Work effectively for a continent based on human and people’s rights, a continent that is democratic and is based on equality and justice, including the emancipation of the women.