Washington -- U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Alphonso Jackson will lead the U.S. delegation representing President Bush at the Leon H. Sullivan Summit VII in Abuja, Nigeria, which will take place July 17-20.

The event, which has as its overall theme "Africa: A Continent of Opportunities -- Building Partnership for Success," will bring together Africans from all parts of the diaspora to focus on the role that private enterprise can play and is playing to enhance Africa’s long-term economic growth and development.

The Sullivan Summit seeks to marshal resources to encourage the private sector to build more economic infrastructure in African countries and to provide them with technologies that enhance social productivity. The summit also aims to leverage the investment power of the African diaspora and to promote corporate social responsibility based on the Global Sullivan Principles.

The Global Sullivan Principles call for the support of economic, social and political justice by companies doing business worldwide.  The late Reverend Leon Sullivan, founder of the Sullivan Summits, authored the Global Sullivan Principles of Social Responsibility in 1977 while serving on the board of directors of General Motors, which at that time was the largest employer of blacks in South Africa, which was operating under apartheid laws at the time.

Sullivan was born October 16, 1922, in Charleston, West Virginia, and raised in a small house on a dirt alley in one of the town's poorest sections.  Before his death on April 25, 2001, he had received honorary degrees from more than 50 colleges and universities, had authored numerous books and articles and had been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.  He was a champion of self-help and established a broad array of training, employment and educational organizations in the United States for African-Americans and minorities.

Each day at this year’s event will have a key theme.  Day one, "Private Enterprise: Key to Africa’s Renaissance," will examine private sector financing, market development and investment strategies for Africa.

Day two will be devoted to "Africa’s Future: People and Technologies," and will focus on training teachers for Africa and the promotion of public-private partnerships. It also will explore new ways to structure health care in Africa.

Day three will be called "Global Partnerships for Success." It will examine public-private partnerships in energy development and the use of regional partners such as the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to help the continent achieve its Millennium Development Goals.  It also will explore leveraging technology to enhance Africa’s higher education goals.

The summit’s concluding sessions view Africa as a continent of many opportunities that, if used, can help the continent achieve long-term economic growth and development.

The Sullivan Summit in Abuja will be the seventh such summit to be held in Africa.

The last summit, held in Abuja, Nigeria, in 2003 was attended by President George W. Bush, then Secretary of State Colin Powell and then National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice.  President Bush pledged more than $5 million to help Sullivan’s Teachers for Africa program. (See related article.)

Other members of the official U.S. delegation attending the 2006 Abuja Sullivan Summit are John Campbell, U.S. ambassador to Nigeria; John A. Simon, executive vice president of the U.S. Overseas Private Investment Corporation; the Reverend Herbert H. Lusk II, founder and president of Stand for Africa; and Anita Smith, president, Children’s AIDS Fund.