Celebrating The Africa Issue Of ‘National Geographic’: G+J Polska Hosts Africa Conference

When this month’s issues of the popular-science magazine “National Geographic” hit newsstands in 26 countries all over the world, every single one of them will be focused on one subject only:  Africa . For the first time in its over 115-year history, “National Geographic Magazine” is devoting an entire issue to a single continent. Reason enough for G+J Polska to host a conference about the “forgotten continent” in  Warsaw last Thursday entitled “ Africa – Continent of the 21st Century“. “ Africa is the problem continent, and ‘National Geographic’ simply wants to create greater public consciousness for this topic,” as G+J Polska CEO Oliver Voigt told. 

The conference in  Warsaw spotlighted a number of economic, political, cultural, and religious issues, especially in terms of how they will affect  Africa ’s future viability. Richard Mbewe of the Warsaw Investment Group posed the provocative question: “Can Africa ever be rich?” while journalist Adam Leszczynski spoke of the crushing challenge that the autoimmune disease AIDS represents for Africa, and Maciej Zabek of the Institute for Regional Studies explored the effects of humanitarian aid. The conference’s participants included representatives from numerous African nations, headed up by South African ambassadress Febe Potgieter-Gqubule – and high-ranking government representatives including Marta Kozlowska of the Polish President’s Office, and Krzysztof Plominski, head of the  Africa and  Middle East department at  Poland ’s foreign ministry, also joined in the lively discussion. A photo exhibition featuring photographs taken in  Africa by the famous Polish photojournalist Gonia Zdunczyk helped put participants in the picture about what reality in  Africa looks like.

In the run-up to the conference, it had sparked an intense public debate about the role of the Catholic Church in  Africa , especially in the struggle against AIDS. Accordingly, there was heavy media interest, and the TV channels TVP2, various radio stations including PR2, PR3, Radio BIS and Radio PIN, the influential daily paper “Gazeta Wyborcza,” the Polish Press Agency, the Catholic Press Agency and the Television Information Agency were among the many reporters who flocked to the conference venue in the former library of the University of Warsaw. 

“National Geographic Polska” also used the cover of the  Africa issue to draw attention to the singularity of the event. September’s cover bore only the title “Africa,“ three short headlines and a tiny satellite image of the continent; there was no large-format cover photo as is usually typical for the magazine. Marcin Jamkowski, editor-in-chief of “National Geographic Polska,” believes that campaigns like this can indeed bring about change: “’National Geographic’ has total worldwide circulation of ten million copies per issue and reaches 40 million people all over the planet.“