Uniting 34 African and diaspora nations, 97 participants, and international media, the Pan-African Progressive Front’s landmark conference advances the global reparations movement — setting the stage for a historic convergence in Geneva.
The Pan-African Progressive Front (PPF) has taken a bold step in advancing the conversation on reparative justice through its online conference held on March 30, 2026. Running for two hours, the event brought together influential Pan-African voices dedicated to confronting colonial legacies in all their enduring dimensions. Together with representatives from 34 African and diaspora nations, online participants and the conference’s organising committee shared a moment of intense solidarity, advancing conversations on reparative justice and colonial accountability with a clarity of purpose that left no ambiguity about the movement’s direction.
Positioned ahead of the Geneva Forum, the conference aimed to mobilise support and build momentum for meaningful discussions on reparations and accountability at the high-level process that will formally launch the PAPF-D Justice Task Force — a coordinated mechanism designed to advance structured work on reparative justice and colonial accountability on the world stage.
“The motion passed at the UN General Assembly is just the beginning. It would be a very sad situation if we just allow the UN Resolution to be passed and then we don’t move forward. So this is just the first step.”
— Kwesi Pratt Jnr, PPF Online Conference, March 30, 2026
The conference was moderated by the Head of the Public Affairs Directorate of the Pan-African Progressive Front, who guided participants through a dynamic exchange of presentations on a range of themes — each one reinforcing the central conviction that the time for symbolic gestures has passed, and that the reparations movement must now operate with the full weight of legal, political, and historical rigour.
Confronting History: The Educational Foundations of Justice
One of the conference’s most substantive early sessions addressed the necessity of formulating legal, political, and historical foundations for reparative justice, led by Comrade Kwesi Pratt Jnr. His address was both a scholarly intervention and a call to action, insisting that the project of reparations cannot advance without first dismantling the distortions that colonialism has embedded in African educational systems.
Kwesi Pratt emphasised the need to take bold steps in correcting colonial errors as part of laying the historical foundation for reparative justice. He traced the ways in which history continues to shape the world as it exists today — not as a distant grievance, but as a living architecture of disadvantage that requires active dismantling.
“In our broad mobilization, I think it’s important for us to understand clearly that we need to do a lot of work. We need to do some scientific work. We need, first and foremost, to look at our educational curriculum. It is our educational curriculum which is poisoning our people. I went to school and I was made to write exams, answering questions like, write about the positive effects of the slave trade, write about the positive effects of colonialism, and so on. There were no positive effects of colonialism. There could not have been positive effects of the transatlantic slave trade, and so on. We need to revise our educational curriculum to reflect the truth about our history, to reflect the truth about the conditions that we had to undergo under the transatlantic slave trade. That’s a challenge for every African.”
— Comrade Kwesi Pratt Jnr., PPF Online Conference, March 30, 2026
The argument carries a force that extends well beyond the classroom. If the foundational texts through which generations of Africans have been educated continue to frame colonialism as a civilising enterprise and the slave trade as a source of incidental benefit, then the moral and legal architecture of reparations is being built on contested ground. Pratt’s challenge is therefore not merely pedagogical — it is a prerequisite for justice itself.
The Pan-African Progressive Front (PPF) has taken a bold step in advancing the conversation on reparative justice through its online conference held on March 30, 2026. Running for two hours, the event brought together influential Pan-African voices dedicated to confronting colonial legacies in all their enduring dimensions. Together with representatives from 34 African and diaspora nations, online participants and the conference’s organising committee shared a moment of intense solidarity, advancing conversations on reparative justice and colonial accountability with a clarity of purpose that left no ambiguity about the movement’s direction.
Positioned ahead of the Geneva Forum, the conference aimed to mobilise support and build momentum for meaningful discussions on reparations and accountability at the high-level process that will formally launch the PAPF-D Justice Task Force — a coordinated mechanism designed to advance structured work on reparative justice and colonial accountability on the world stage.
“The motion passed at the UN General Assembly is just the beginning. It would be a very sad situation if we just allow the UN Resolution to be passed and then we don’t move forward. So this is just the first step.”
— Kwesi Pratt Jnr, PPF Online Conference, March 30, 2026
The conference was moderated by the Head of the Public Affairs Directorate of the Pan-African Progressive Front, who guided participants through a dynamic exchange of presentations on a range of themes — each one reinforcing the central conviction that the time for symbolic gestures has passed, and that the reparations movement must now operate with the full weight of legal, political, and historical rigour.
Confronting History: The Educational Foundations of Justice
One of the conference’s most substantive early sessions addressed the necessity of formulating legal, political, and historical foundations for reparative justice, led by Comrade Kwesi Pratt Jnr. His address was both a scholarly intervention and a call to action, insisting that the project of reparations cannot advance without first dismantling the distortions that colonialism has embedded in African educational systems.
Kwesi Pratt emphasised the need to take bold steps in correcting colonial errors as part of laying the historical foundation for reparative justice. He traced the ways in which history continues to shape the world as it exists today — not as a distant grievance, but as a living architecture of disadvantage that requires active dismantling.
“In our broad mobilization, I think it’s important for us to understand clearly that we need to do a lot of work. We need to do some scientific work. We need, first and foremost, to look at our educational curriculum. It is our educational curriculum which is poisoning our people. I went to school and I was made to write exams, answering questions like, write about the positive effects of the slave trade, write about the positive effects of colonialism, and so on. There were no positive effects of colonialism. There could not have been positive effects of the transatlantic slave trade, and so on. We need to revise our educational curriculum to reflect the truth about our history, to reflect the truth about the conditions that we had to undergo under the transatlantic slave trade. That’s a challenge for every African.”
— Comrade Kwesi Pratt Jnr., PPF Online Conference, March 30, 2026
The argument carries a force that extends well beyond the classroom. If the foundational texts through which generations of Africans have been educated continue to frame colonialism as a civilising enterprise and the slave trade as a source of incidental benefit, then the moral and legal architecture of reparations is being built on contested ground. Pratt’s challenge is therefore not merely pedagogical — it is a prerequisite for justice itself.
Source:
www.graphic.com.gh