The Climate, Peace & Security Nexus | Future of Africa Episode 2
Featuring insights from a Nobel Peace Prize winner, an indigenous leader and a young African diplomat
What does it mean to make peace with nature — and why could that be the key to lasting peace between people? Former Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos shares the extraordinary indigenous mandate that shaped his leadership, while Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim explains how climate shocks in Africa are driving conflict and migration. Khouloud Ben Mansour brings in the youth, peace, and security lens, stressing that climate justice must include women and young leaders at the table. Across the conversation, you’ll hear why African knowledge systems are vital to global climate solutions, and how reframing climate as a security issue could shift the way the world responds.
Guests
Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, Chair of the Planetary Guardians and President of the Indigenous Women and Peoples Association of Chad
Khouloud Ben Mansour, Tunisian junior diplomat and former African Union Youth Ambassador of Peace
Juan Manuel Santos, former President of Colombia, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Chair of The Elders
Background Materials
Cooperation on Climate, Peace and Security is Needed Now, The Elders
Africa Climate Security Risk Assessment, Africa Union
Planetary Health Check, Planetary Guardians
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Transcript edited for clarity. The views and opinions expressed in this episode are those of the guests and hosts, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the podcast partners.
Mark Leon Goldberg:
Welcome to The Future of Africa — a special series on Global Dispatches. I am Mark Leon Goldberg, the host and founder of Global Dispatches. And in several episodes over the coming weeks, we will bring you in-depth conversations designed to explore Africa’s future in the context of today’s challenges and opportunities. This series is produced in partnership with the African Union, The Elders, and the United Nations Foundation, and is hosted by the Kenyan journalist, Adelle Onyango.
I am truly thrilled to bring you this special project of Global Dispatches. We have some amazing guests in this episode and throughout the series. Enjoy!
Adelle Onyango:
Welcome to the Future of Africa Podcast, where we explore the bold ideas and leaders shaping Africa’s place in the world. I am your host, Adelle Onyango. And one thing’s for sure — climate change isn’t just an environmental challenge. In Africa, it’s a driver of geopolitical instability, community conflict, and tons of security risks. Droughts, floods, and shifting weather patterns are intensifying competition for resources, which then turns environmental stress into a peace and security issue.
In this episode, we explore the climate, peace, security nexus with three powerful voices from different vantage points. The first is President Juan Manuel Santos. He’s a former president of Colombia, also a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and Chair of The Elders. And he will be connecting African experiences to global peacebuilding and climate diplomacy with the wealth of experience that he has.
Juan Manuel Santos:
Until we consider nature as a first-rate citizen and not a second-rate citizen, then there will be no peace with nature.
Adelle Onyango:
We’re also going to be talking to Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim. She’s an environmental activist from Chad and the President of the Association for Indigenous Women and Peoples of Chad. She’s bringing a grassroots indigenous perspective on resilience and conflict prevention.
Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim:
We have to live in harmony with nature, and that is what our ancestors are doing for thousands of years, through our own way of living.
Adelle Onyango:
Last, but not least, is Khouloud Ben Mansour. She’s a junior diplomat, climate negotiator with Tunisia’s Young Climate Change Negotiators Group, and a former African Union youth ambassador for peace. She’s offering a next-generation policy perspective on protecting vulnerable communities.
Khouloud Ben Mansour:
We talk about extremism, we talk about everything related to peace and security, but we know that climate is majorly one of the peace and security issues today in Africa.
Adelle Onyango:
Let’s get into it — starting off with Former President of Colombia, Juan Manuel Santos.
Thank you, President Juan, for making time to be on the podcast with us.
Juan Manuel Santos:
It’s a great pleasure and a great honor.
Adelle Onyango:
So, when we’re talking about international peace efforts, why do you feel like it’s important that we integrate climate considerations in that conversation?
Juan Manuel Santos:
I became acquainted with our indigenous communities and got really interested in their knowledge, their culture. I started talking to them. And the day I was inaugurated as president, that morning, I took a plane, one-hour flight, took a helicopter up in the mountains, more than 3000m above where the oldest indigenous community in the whole of the Americas lived. And I went to them, to their governors, to ask for their permission to go that afternoon and be sworn in by the Colombian Congress. They felt that that was a gesture that nobody had ever done — recognizing the importance of the indigenous communities.
And they gave me a baton, and they told me, “You have our permission, but you have a mandate. You, I know, want to finish this war, more than 50 years old, with the oldest and most powerful guerrilla group in the whole of the Americas, the FARC. So, our mandate is make peace with them, but also make peace with nature. Because if you don’t make peace with nature, it doesn’t matter if you make peace with the FARC, there will be no peace in the planet.”
That was my first personal experience. Well, I made peace with the FARC, very difficult but successful process. It lasted six years. But at the same time, Colombia started to promote the Sustainable Development Goals. It was a Colombian initiative. Two marvelous women that worked in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs came to me and said, “We have this idea. The Millennium Goals that expire in 2015 should be renegotiated, but with two new ingredients — the rich countries, the developed countries should take responsibility also, and the environmental factor should be introduced.”
And so, we started a process of multilateral diplomacy around the world. We ended up with 17 sustainable development goals. And in the year 2015, in a historic General Assembly, every single country voted for the Sustainable Development Goals. I went to the indigenous community. I took them the two documents, then I said, “Here is my mandate and here is the baton. You told me to give it back when I finish. Here it is. Mission accomplished.” And they said they’re very proud. And they said, “Listen, the peace with the FARC, with the guerrillas is okay, but the Sustainable Development Goals, they are not okay.”
And I said, “Why?” And they said, “Because the most important factor is lacking.” And I said, “What factor?” And they said the spiritual factor. And I said, “And what is that?” And they said something which is so amazing. And they said, “Until the human beings don’t feel that nature has life, that rivers have life, that mountains have life, that natures have rights, until they consider nature as a first-rate citizen and not a second-rate citizen, then there will be no peace with nature. And therefore, we don’t bless the Sustainable Development Goals.” And they gave me the bottom back. That you must continue trying to make peace with nature because your mandate has not been fulfilled.
Adelle Onyango:
It’s so incredibly well put in how they said you can make peace amongst communities, but you have to make peace with nature. And it really is a point of connection for me in Kenya, and the knowledge our African grandmothers and great-grandmothers had about climate and how Africans were already bringing to the table climate solutions and learning how to live in harmony with the environment and look out for each other in terms of how nature and humans are interlinked, as you said.
And sometimes I wonder, with the rising influence of African countries, sharing that we have this knowledge, sharing that we may be on the receiving end of the harmful effects when we’re talking about climate change, but we are also innovators and we also can give global solutions. That rising influence of African countries, how do you see it transforming global approaches to climate change and security? Do you think that’s been recognized as far as solution building is concerned on a global scale?
Juan Manuel Santos:
Well, fortunately, knowledge of the indigenous communities around the world, not only in Africa, finally is being recognized. Because for many, many decades, for centuries, it was ignored. Now, you see, in discussions in the United Nations, and all around the world, hear more what the indigenous communities have to say because they are the ones who know better how to protect nature. I will give you another anecdote that I have with the indigenous community. I became very interested in their knowledge and very interested in their concept of justice, and I took to them our national development plan that we have. Almost every country has a development plan that has to be approved by Congress.
And they said, “Mr. President, this is something that we cannot discuss with you.” And I said, “Why?” They said, “Because we have a completely different view of what development is.” And they said, “For you, for most of the humans around the world, development is constructing roads, building houses, extracting oil from the soil. For us, development is maintaining our culture, our traditions are harmony with nature. That is development for us.” So, we have a basic contradiction in what we think is development and what you think is development.
That was also a lesson for me. But I understood very well that their view of development is much more logical from the point of view of the environmentalist of protecting nature than ours. So, we have to hear more the indigenous communities around the world, in Africa, in Latin America, everywhere.
Adelle Onyango:
It really does speak to, even in terms of inclusion, how intentional you need to be with inclusion because already your definitions of development were in two different, not even two different pages, in two different books. So, you had to come back down to the basics to say, “Okay, we need to include what development means to this community, not a national agenda.” Do you think there is a way that international policies can borrow from that specific story when it comes to including indigenous communities in global policy and creating structures that could see us advance forward when we are looking at climate and peace discussions?
Juan Manuel Santos:
Unfortunately, we are seeing how more and more developing plants have sustainability as an important factor. We’re seeing how, in the universities, we are teaching the engineers to take into account the effect on the environment of what they do. So, slowly, what we’re doing, in fact, is incorporating that very basic knowledge that the way you develop cannot be contrary to what nature is demanding. Otherwise, we will never have peace with nature. So, we are advancing in that direction. Unfortunately, not fast enough. That’s why we have to promote, more and more, this type of changes in the paradigms of what we consider development, that we consider success, economic success. We have to start changing that in order to make it compatible with nature.
Adelle Onyango:
There is something else that has been coming up in the conversations we’ve been having on this show. And even in Kenya, it’s a conversation we’re having now, as we try and trust what leadership looks like for us going forward as a country. And it’s intergenerational conversation, intergenerational leadership or approach to setting policies on a national agenda. And I know this is something that is very important to you on a personal level, but also when we look at The Elders and your Intergenerational Call to Action that was coauthored by you, urging leaders to share power across generations.
So, that is really important, especially for me sitting here in Africa, knowing our youth numbers, knowing how vibrant and innovative our African youth are, knowing how important this is to you. What role do you see young people playing when it comes to climate action and pushing for peace?
Juan Manuel Santos:
As an elder, I learned an enormous amount from the wisdom of the youth. As different generations, we can inspire each other. And our former elder, Kofi Annan, which was one of the founding, with Nelson Mandela, and the others, he had a phrase which is very pertinent. He said, “You’re never too young to lead and never too old to learn.”
So, the elders, we are learning from our conversations with the young generations, and we are encouraging them to be more proactive. It is their future. Our generation, in a way, failed the coming generations because we did not do enough, and we are giving the new generations an enormous responsibility because of our failure. Many times I ask for forgiveness — Please forgive us. We failed you. But you must take the baton and persevere. It is in your hands. Unfortunately, we’re seeing different young organizations around the world. I was very, very pleased to see how Pacific Island students fighting climate change. They succeed in their struggle to have the International Court of Justice make a ruling about climate.
This is an enormous step because now this is a legal recognition by the highest court of the world that nature has rights. This is a major, major step in the right direction. And it was promoted by young people. We are trying to promote that in the COP30. Every country has a representation of the young people of their country in the delegation that the country is sending to Brazil. To have the voice of the young people expanded and heard more is so important right now.
Adelle Onyango:
I want us to go into and tap into your insights and your experience when it comes to negotiating peace agreements in Colombia because I feel like there’s many lessons or thought points that you could share with those who are listening. Perhaps it’s specifically African leaders and multilateral organizations who are also listening to this, to help them effectively integrate climate resilience and conflict prevention. So, during your experience negotiating the peace agreements in Colombia, were there lessons and key insights you took from that that you could share?
Juan Manuel Santos:
Again, I’m going to quote another elder, the founder, Nelson Mandela. I was inspired by him in a conversation that I had back in 1994. I remember I was chairing the eighth conference of the United Nations for Trade and Development called the UNCTAD, and he was elected chair of the 9th Conference. So I went to Johannesburg to formally give him the chair. I had not met him. He was president of South Africa. That morning, I turned on the public television in South Africa, I was in my hotel, and I started seeing a like a surreal live program. For the first time, the victims of the war in South Africa and the perpetrators were getting together, and they were filming that in real time. And some of them screamed at each other, hit each other, others embraced, others cried.
And I said, “This is crazy.” And that afternoon, I went to give the chair to Nelson Mandela. We had programed a meeting for 15 minutes. It lasted 3.5 hours. He started explaining to me how important it was to bring the victims and the perpetrators together and have them talk. And there’s a phrase of Nelson Mandela that I use very often. He said the most powerful weapon in the world is to sit down and talk. But talk in a constructive way. You don’t sit down to impose the way you think to the other person who thinks differently. You sit down to hear what the other person has to say in order to learn and discover common denominators that will bring you together, and then you can build an agreement despite the differences. This was a marvelous lesson that I had.
I used it in the peace process in Colombia. I sat down with the terrorists because they were called terrorists. Many people criticized me. But I said, “You don’t sit down with your friends to make peace. You sit down with the people you are fighting in order to make peace.” And so dialog, constructive dialog. Learn from the others who think differently — it’s so important in every aspect of government and of peacemaking, and also nature, the environment, and peacemaking. To sit down with the people who don’t believe in climate change, and instead of simply rejecting them, sit down and discuss it. “Listen, are you not seeing what is happening in the world?
This is because the temperature of the world is rising. It’s not that we want to stop the oil companies from producing oil. No, because we need to save the planet.” But it’s by talking, constructive dialog, that we can save the planet.
Adelle Onyango:
I’m also reminded of something that Barack Obama said recently, which is when it’s most important for you to listen is when you’re listening to someone you disagree with. That’s when you should really be listening to what they’re saying because there’s a lot to learn. And it’s really just going back to the fundamentals. One thing I really love about the shows that we’ve done on this podcast is one of the key takeaways is hope, and that there’s just always hope. And so, I want to know in terms of climate action, in terms of global peace, in this moment, what is giving you hope that we’re making progress?
Juan Manuel Santos:
My own experience gives me hope. Everybody told me that with the FARC was impossible. All my predecessors had failed. When I got elected, even my family told me, “How are you going to sit down with these people? You’re going to lose your political capital. Don’t do it. Don’t do it. You were elected as a war hero,” because I was. And I was the most popular politician in Colombia at that time. But I said, “No, I want to sit down and make peace.” Everybody says it’s not possible. But then, again, I will quote Nelson Mandela. Nelson Mandela said, “Everything is impossible until you make it possible.” And we made it possible. And I think, yes, we are going through a very difficult moment right now.
The multilateral system is crumbling, has been not respected. We see how many conflicts around the world. We have more than 140 conflicts around the world. Some of them, you don’t even hear about them. But they’re human tragedies in many parts of the world that you don’t hear about. And we are going through a very difficult process with our environmental policies. You see temperatures going up without precedent in almost every part of the world. You see the rains are much more intense in every part of the world. You see the fires going around more than ever. But you also see examples of processes that go in the right direction. And I am a natural optimist. I think that people will realize that we have to change, for example, in the United Nations, the reform of the United Nations.
I think that is something that is going to happen. Everybody was saying, “No, it’s impossible,” that the countries that have a veto power will never accept that. Well, they will accept it. And you see the trend. Just last week, I was in the United Nations talking about the two-state solution and the need to recognize Palestine. And just a year ago, they told me the developed countries and the G7 countries will never recognize Palestine. Well, in the last few weeks, France, UK, a few days ago, Canada, said we’re going to recognize Palestine. So, things change, and things change for the better when people realize that it’s in their hands to change it. And there, you need long-term leadership.
Leaders that don’t think about the next elections, but think about the next generations. And this is the type of leadership we have to promote. And the young people should promote that type of leadership.
Adelle Onyango:
Yes, I completely agree with you. I think we have an African proverb that says we should be planting trees that we’re not even going to enjoy the shade from. And that’s kind of like the leadership you’re looking at — people who are not looking for immediate gains or selfish gains, but are thinking beyond the now and beyond themselves. And, honestly, I just have to say thank you for being that kind of leader even with the work that you’re now currently doing with The Elders. It’s, how can we equip younger generations to do things that might outlive us?
Juan Manuel Santos:
Thank you, Adelle, and thank you for your work.
Adelle Onyango:
Let’s head over to Chad and hear from Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim
Hindou, welcome. Welcome to the podcast.
Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim
Hi. Thank you very much for having me.
Adelle Onyango:
Let’s start. First thing that I think we don’t see coming out a lot when we zero in on climate issues is how African communities have had sustainable practices for managing natural resources. This is core to the work that you do. So, maybe we can unpack the work that you do in terms of championing change when it comes to environmental issues.
Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim:
Coming from a community like mine, where the people are leaving from one place to another one to find watering pastures, it is already embedded in our way of living. The resilience, the adaptation, instigation, because we are the people that are depending from nature. We do not depend from the end of the day salary, where you can get your cash and go to the market. We depend from the rainfall that can penetrate the soil that can allow the trees to flourish, to give the fruits, that can allow the pasture to grow up to give our cattle food, and we can get a milk. And then we can build our food system, we can build our economy. So, that means we have to live in harmony with the nature.
And that is what our ancestors were doing, for thousands of years, through our own way of living. So, then we know where we can live during the drought, where we can stay during the flood. And that help us to ensure that the balance of the ecosystem is keeping. So, I see nomadic peoples, when you live with your cattle, you stay two days, three days in maximum in one week in one place. And when you leave this area, that means your cow dung helped to fertile the land. So, when you come back later, some months ago, so you found that that land has a lot of grass, have a lot of insects, and the birds in the ecosystem keep the balance. And all over the way that we are living in this movement, that means you fertile the land, naturally, and keeping the balance between the ecosystem.
And this is the best resilience and adaptation system ever. No chemical, no need for technology, but the best technology is us in nature.
Adelle Onyango:
What do you think is the stumbling block to seeing African communities and their strategies as global solutions to environmental issues?
Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim:
We are a global solution. This is not duped, and no discussion on that. Full stop. Because we didn’t create the climate change. It is the Western culture who abused the nature and who is actually overdeveloped, not only developed, over developed, and continuously just extracting from the nature. Who creates the climate change impact? We know, scientifically, Africa contribute little. And a country like Chad contribute even little to the climate change impact. So, that means we’re already, by creation, a solutions of sustainability. However, climate change has no frontiers. Climate impacts do not choose where they have to impact people. And most of the time, it is the place that you are not creating it that you are most impacted. So, this is the injustice of climate change. The world has to recognize and understand the way of living that Africans are doing is so generous without hurting anybody else.
We just sharing our way of living and protecting nature for everyone because there is no frontiers. It’s so amazing when I talk with my grandmother and when I talked with my cousin because we do the weather forecast just by observing the nature. And we can know if it’s going to rain in the next two hours, or if it’s going to be the rainy season in the next three months, or if the next year, 12 months later, is going to be a flooding year, or it’s going to be a dry year. And science do not know that. And I get the confirmation because I did invite the scientist people in my community. And when they went there, they just like stay, and suddenly the rain is coming. So, my people start packing this stuff. As nomadic, you don’t have a house that you can hide your stuff there. And then the scientists say like, “Are we moving?”
I’m like, “No, we are not moving. It’s just going to rain.” And then they look at the sky, he’s like, “Okay, it’s not going to rain.” Suddenly, you see the heavy rain start coming. We are packed with our stuff, and you see the scientists running, hiding somewhere in the big trees, looking at the bigger tree where they can hide themselves, and all the kids and the community are seeing like those people dressed well, and then running under the rain. They just like laughing on that. At the end of the rain, the conversation started. And then they come like, “How do you know it’s going to rain?” We’re like, “Well, we saw the little insect taking their eggs in the nests. We saw the wind direction that just changed. And, of course, we know in the next two hours it’s going to rain.”
They say, “Well, that is so interesting because you can check in your app in your phone, you can say it’s going to rain. Surprise, it’s sunny. Or it’s going to be sunny, surprise, it’s wind. So, how do you know that?” we say like we live with the nature. We do learn how the nature behave from the insect to the birds, to the cloud, to the star. So, we understand how they are living. So, we do have the knowledge, not because it’s not written that we are not expert. Our grandma and grandpa are PhD plus, plus. They are professor in multiple disciplines. Not only one. And not going to school does not mean we are ignorant people. We are so knowledgeable, and that needs to be understood and considered and respect.
Adelle Onyango:
Yeah, so we are so in-tune with nature, and we’ve been that way for years. You know something else, Hindou, that I find gets overlooked, especially when we’re talking about issues that affects people globally is the intersections. For example, when we talk about climate change, it’s very hard for people to understand where that overlaps with women. And I was quite interested in knowing about an association that you founded for Indigenous Women and Peoples of Chad.
So, maybe you can tell me and the person listening, what was the motivation behind that, and where climate and women meet? Because people often overlook that.
Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim:
So, you know why I speak English or French or whatever — thanks to my mom, despite the first connection with a woman. Because my mom was ahead of her generations, and then things like, “Well, even my kids cannot understand their culture, their identity, they have to understand the Western culture to make them more communicate or live better.” So, she sent us to school — me, my sister, and my brothers. But, of course, when I went to school, I have been marginalized in this community by the other kids that thinking you are coming from a indigenous communities, cattle herders, that I have my own milk, and this committee. And, of course, being a child, you just wanted to fight and tell them that I’m a human being, and I have a brain.
So, then I was fighting for that. But when I started becoming teenagers, I understood that the discrimination is not only for me as Hindou and for my sister that I’m fighting every day. It is for the girls who have my age, who never get the chance to go to school. They are doubly marginalized because they are early marriage. They do not go to school. They can get divorced. And they can just like live on their own. So, then I decided to change the life of myself, but also of those women. And I understood immediately you cannot talk about the girl’s right without talking about the woman right. And I understand you cannot talk about the woman right without talking about the community rights because we are living in a collective life. And immediately understood I cannot talk about the community without talking about environment because we live and depend from it.
And then my objective became more clear. In an age of 12 teenagers, I founded the Indigenous Women and People Associations of Chad, and I fight it till I was 16 before to get the official authorizations of that one. And for me, it’s how we can protect the rights of the woman in the right environment.
Adelle Onyango:
Congratulations. 12, and actually 16 is when you got the certification? This is incredible. And what was the reaction from your community when you started championing for women’s rights and also highlighting how this is linked to the environment?
Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim:
You know, we are in patriarchal society like in many African culture. So, for me, going to school is creating an identity for me because when I’m in the school, they say, “Oh, these indigenous girl,” that is my limit. When I go to my community, “Oh the city girl is there.” That’s me at the community level, the city girls is allowed to do something that the indigenous girls cannot do. So, I can go and sit with the elders, I can go and sit with the man, community leaders that the girls at the community cannot do. And then they just forgive me, accept me because I’m a city girl and I use these discrimination positively to try to tell them, “Listen, what’s happening this year? Why are you leaving because there is drought?”
Then I try to explain to them, like how we can do to change that, and I have an adult conversation with them because it is the things that they are discussing every single day. I do remember my first day having a women meeting. So, I went on the afternoon, so the elders prepared a tea. I sit down there as the only one woman and one young girl between them. So, then they serve the tea. Then I say like, “Listen, I wanted to discuss with the woman. We have to discuss about what they are doing every single day to go collect this water, food, medicine, etc. Then maybe I can get a project for them to help them.” They’re like, “Oh okay, yeah, why not?” So, I’m like, “Okay, may you help me to talk to them because you are the leaders, you are the man. So, if you can tell them, they can listen to you.” And then they feel like, of course we are the chiefs.
So, we can make that happen. The next day the work is done. I didn’t go to any women, but the women gather in one places. And then I went and I start a serious discussion with them. We had one day of discussion with the woman. The next day, when I wake up, and I’m walking between the communities, every month that crossed my eyes, they just start to laugh, smile. They’re like, “You, girl, you come to make a revolution in our community.” I’m like, “What did I do?” They’re like, hmm. That means they have a conversation with the wives. So, that was like the first thing I started — having a woman meeting, using the power of the man at the communities.
Adelle Onyango:
You know what’s so interesting? Is that you have found a way to identify what your privilege would be when you’re the city girl in the community, and using that privilege for impact, which is quite interesting, and in a very sneaky, but impactful way. So, when we look at the global discourse around climate change and issues around the environment, really, what do you think are the gaps as pertains to Africans, as pertains to how we are impacted by climate change, and the solutions towards climate change?
Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim:
When you go to the global climate negotiations, the discourse is different, and it is also divided like into two, I can say. You have the negotiators, those who are representing the country, who can be in the room, arguing because of the full stop or comma or one wording, to put tax of the negotiations. Then you have the global peoples who are attending the COP negotiations and trying to go from one corridor to another one to talk about what is the solution, how we can have a relation, etc.
So, in all those voices, it is not all the 196 countries that are sitting down to decide about the climate. Because, firstly, the language barrier. The climate negotiations is mostly in English, only in the plenary that you can have the six languages. And the African countries is not all of them that we speak English. And it’s not all of them who are knowledgeable about the climate change. And there is so many cannot discussions, so that makes big barriers. I do remember when we were negotiating the Paris Agreement, the countries like the U.S., like Europe, all of them, they come with all the experts, the lawyers, the judges, the people who can know how they can protect themselves later. But countries like ours go with the negotiators that some of them knowledgeable, others are tourist, etc.
At the end of the day, of course, it’s not equal to negotiate. And they’re imposing the way that they want. And, as they are the ones who create the climate impact, they have to pay for the adaptation and for mitigation, they start creating a law. They do not see that they have to pay. Their responsibility is to pay off the damage that they create. They are seeing as if they are making a fairer to the developing countries, to Africa. They’re just like, “Okay, you we can give you that and we can impose our own law.” And this is the injustice when it comes to the African going to the climate negotiation. However, we have a group who are very strong, who can tell them, like, “Either you accept it or either we do not accept your text that you are proposing.” But you have to be very strong staying until 5 AM
I do remember staying until 5 AM fight every single day, trying to negotiate. That’s how it’s helped us to include the five preferences of indigenous peoples. So, for the first time, we get the recognition of the rights of indigenous peoples. Two times, on the knowledge of indigenous peoples, because, of course, this is very helpful for them because they want to have your solution, but not to respect your right. And we one on participation. So, those five references helped us to push them to create certain kind of institutionalization of the indigenous peoples’ knowledge in indigenous peoples’ participation at the negotiation. But still, as I’m saying, we have all these climate fora who are very important, where we commit, we can take a decision, but the climate impact is becoming more higher and higher.
We are seeing people that are dying because of the conflict over the resources. That’s exactly what is happening in last May, 14 of May in Chad, where my community were there, another community come and killed 43 women, children, and babies just because of the land and access to the resources. And it is the same, the year before, where the fighting over the water and the land, it is the same where you are seeing the terrorist group around Boko Haram, around the Lake Chad that are growing, terrorizing peoples, getting their land.
It is the same when you go to Mali, to Burkina Faso, even to Kenya, to South Africa. So, all that, like the injustice, even we fight internationally, globally, but people are dying because of climate impact, and the global communities are not caring on reducing the simple emission.
Adelle Onyango:
There is a shift happening on the continent. I don’t know if you felt it, but like I feel it every day. In Kenya, we’re in the middle of it. If you look at Togo, if you looked at Senegal, even South Africa. I was reading things about Ghana recently. And there’s young Africans who want to be at the forefront of designing a new, liberated, strong Africa. We can’t do that if we don’t look at climate issues, clearly, as we discovered in our conversation. What do you think is the next smallest step that Africans listening needs to take so that they are informed so that they can be able to hold their own leaders accountable, and also the global partners accountable? What do you think is the next smaller step they can take?
Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim:
I think all Africans, especially the youth, we have to understand. We are the present in the future. We are the young continent. And we are the continent that are growing between the knowledge of our ancestors and the new technology that is coming from every corner of the world. And we are naturally innovators and solution makers. So, we have all the positive things that we should combine and build our future without letting anyone else to come and dictate to us what we should do, what we shouldn’t do. They say the hand that give you will not sustain you, but the hand that you create yourself, you know how to heal it even when it is sick.
So, we have the hand that we are creating ourself. And let me share an example. You know, in my projects, one of the favorite that I like is the participatory mapping, how I’m using the science, technology, and traditional knowledge of the communities to create a map by the community themself, to put the knowledge and to have a local adaptation plan. So, I use satellite image that of course we do not have in chat or in Africa. I use the first science that they have from the West there, but I use that with the knowledge of my ancestors. That I put it together. It’s a unique way to allow the community who didn’t like to school to be innovators, to create their own solutions. And that helped us for the first time to get woman land right.
Those women are doing agroecology, where they are creating their own food when they are restoring the ecosystem. We have hundreds and thousands of the nursery from the indigenous plant who are sacred trees that we are growing up now, that they can restore their own ecosystem, and they can create circular economy without anyone from the future coming and giving them the money or creating all the criteria that they have to respect. They can do it themselves. And they can sustain their life. They can create the future of their children. So, that’s like a small example I’m doing. So, we need to go together with all our innovation together is change our knowledge and ourself.
And we can be not only the future of Africa, but the future of the world that are creating peace, stability, security, fighting climate change around the world. So, it is up to us, and I really hope that we can do it.
Adelle Onyango:
Thank you so much for making the time to have this conversation with me.
Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim:
It’s a great pleasure. And yeah, we will do it together, all as Africa. We will change the wheel.
Adelle Onyango:
Last but not least, let’s hear from Khouloud Ben Mansour.
Thank you so much for making time to be on the podcast with us, Khouloud.
Khouloud Ben Mansour
I’m very honored.
Adelle Onyango:
A lot of people will see, even the title of this episode, Climate and Peace, and wonder how these two things are even related. And it’s not only issues peace, but climate and security threatens the rights, education, and futures of young people. And I want us to, maybe from your experience, if you could help the person listening understand how climate insecurity affects all of these other things.
Khouloud Ben Mansour:
Thank you. Of course, today’s climate change in Africa is no longer an environmental issue. It’s become a global or a continental issue that impacts also other key subjects such as our food security, our psychological stability, our peace itself. And when we speak about climate change, the very first thing that comes to our minds are the natural disasters, the natural events, droughts, the floods, desertification, disrupts, and how that impacts also fields like agriculture, which might be a very important field in some countries, and an income source. So, we’re talking also about financial stability and, therefore, other consequences that are shared by the people are impacted directly.
And as we know, Africa has been a very useful continent. We know that the majority of the people who would be vulnerable towards the climate events are young people. So, when we speak about climate change, we’re also talking about the implications of how these climate events may have serious impacts and major influence on their peace and security. Also, the inter-displacement issues for having to migrate either internally or outside of your country, meaning that they have to carry not only the environmental tolls, but also the psychological and the socioeconomic tolls that are caused by climate change.
We need to think about all the implications of climate change, not just to give a priority to one direct scope. That is the environment and the food security, but we also have so many other levels that are deeper and much more important, if not as equal as these subjects. So today, I think the first thing that governments and decision makers should consider is to make adaptation plans and mitigation plans at the same time. And Tunisia has already started developing its national adaptation plan, and they launched also a national youth strategy related to the climate change that was supported by the Ministry of Environment.
And the Young Negotiators Group, they were also part of that launch and part of developing that adaptation plan, which speaks about the willingness of the government to incorporate young people not only as the vulnerable groups towards these events, but also a key constituency to contribute to the enhancement of the future of young people in Tunisia.
Adelle Onyango:
You’ve kind of spoken a bit ahead, but maybe we can dive in a bit deeper in terms of collaboration between communities and governments. Aside from what you’ve talked about in terms of the adaptation plan, how have you seen this work? Are there examples that you’ve seen work where communities and governments actually come together, collaborate in terms of breaking the cycle of climate driven instability?
Khouloud Ben Mansour:
Of course, collaboration between the governments, either at the local, national, or even the regional levels, is very important because climate impacts, they don’t only stop at borders. When you reach the majority of regions or the majority of communities, it shows that the government is still as inclusive as possible in terms of integrating local communities into the climate mitigation plans or adaptation plans. I think in Africa, such collaboration has added value to attracting a larger joint funding from international partners. I have seen that a lot, especially with the cooperation of agencies, the collective action, it really signals more a long term vision. It’s much more sustainable and much more stronger. And, of course, it makes the accountability measure even more effective.
I’ll give you one example that I have seen in Kenya, and I think this was related to the water resource management. In Kenya, local eater user associations partner with county governments to manage and restore water catchment areas. So, what they do is communities, they identify local water priorities while the government provides technical and financial backing. You see how this complements each other. So, this has reduced water conflicts, and it improves also the irrigation for farmers. And in counties in Kenya that is impacted by droughts and has extreme climate events throughout the year, I think it’s important that, and a key, an important element like water management that they have started directly to provide support for that.
Also in Morocco, there was the oasis rehabilitation program because we understand the importance of oasis and how they provide not only pure oxygen, but they also provide a source of water as well. So, they are very important in North Africa. In southern Morocco, these local farmers cooperatives, they work with the government on pond growth restoration. So, they convert desertification. So, they try as much as they can. Then they restore these ponds in order to provide as much as possible water and to avoid desertification, because the country at some point, even once Tunisia as well, we have been at risk in 2023 of extreme heat temperatures and extreme drought. And that was a very, very alerting time for us.
And we had to cut down the water consumption. The country actually had to cut down every day, in a few hours, the consumption of water. And that was such an alerting sign. So, in the south of Morocco, the communities, they lead the implementing, they need the part where traditional water management systems. And then the government, what they do is that they support with the training and the funding and the climate resilient education, etc. What these farmers or what these local groups they would do is that they would get the funding, they would get the training. And then they would implement it in the regions where there is desertification issues or water management issues.
So, I think now when you see, even with tiny examples, if the country is supporting, it means that they say explicitly we have a solution for you. And that itself, even if it doesn’t solve the solution directly, it at least gives you a reassurance that I am backed up. I have somebody who would support me, or I have the solution as a plan B, and this climate event will not impact me. So, even psychologically, it will translate into a message of hope and it will decrease the risk of stress and escalating things to conflict. I think here today, when you speak about governance, it’s about time that we start from the root causes and start also from the regions where the access is really difficult, where the means are a bit limited.
And we should address the issues and we should provide support for them, starting with capacity building or starting with educating the community groups and starting also with providing rooms for collaboration as well.
Adelle Onyango:
So, what I do want to know now, because we’ve talked a lot about community-level intervention and governments, what do you think is one practical step that international policy needs to take when we look at addressing the climate peace security nexus?
Khouloud Ben Mansour:
At the moment, I think climate is still addressed in environmental agreements, but at the same time, peace and security are dealt with in a separate and Security Council or in the in the AU Peace and Security Council mandate, when reality the communities that are talking about, they don’t work in this space, they don’t live within these issues. They live a completely separate lifestyle. Today, if you want to go to the solution, you have to speak the language of the people. And not just give them the agreements and the conventions and the outcome reports and whatever that is being done at the negotiation rooms. These are very difficult terminologies and technical things for somebody who has 12 years old to understand.
So, today, what we need to do is to make climate more understandable information. Maybe in our education systems, we need to understand, we need to put a new subject called climate education, or have an entire subject that has climate and peace and security connected together so that people from the earlier generations, they understand the climate agenda and how it implicates them directly. I think one practical move also would be to make climate risk assessments mandatory and peacekeeping missions in conflict prevention in post-conflict recovery programs.
When we look at the documents, you would not find climate adjust that much. It’s either about mediation, conflict prevention. Or even if we speak about silencing the guns disarmament groups, we talk about extremism, we talk about everything related to social Security, but we know that climate is majorly one of the peace and security issues today in Africa. We should go from the government’s budget to adapt to climate, to understand, or to have an experience sharing with other countries that are advanced, and to see how we can also help mitigate these initiatives through the small budgets to small community groups in our countries.
Adelle Onyango:
Thank you so much, Khouloud, for being with us today and for the work that you do and have done in the past as well.
Khouloud Ben Mansour
Thank you so much.
Mark Leon Goldberg:
Adelle, that was just such a great conversation. You know, it’s almost cliché at this point to say that Africa is ground zero for the impact of climate change on people’s lives. But it’s true — It’s where climate change most directly impacts the dynamics around conflict, peace, and security.
Adelle Onyango:
Exactly, Mark. And I think one key takeaway for me from this episode is just four words — make peace with nature. I think sometimes we get lost in a lot of the terminology, but ultimately that’s what we’re saying.
Mark Leon Goldberg:
You know, what I so appreciated about this conversation is how it brought together three very diverse voices. And, to me, when you bring international and inter-generational perspectives into conversations about climate, that’s when progress can actually be made.
Adelle Onyango:
And also, what was quite interesting is understanding how on the continent, Africa, we’re having conversations about including indigenous communities when it comes to solutions around climate change. And just hearing that that’s the case in other continents as well, it’s good to know because the information and the solutions have been there for decades. We just aren’t tapping into them enough.
Mark Leon Goldberg:
Yeah, that was something that certainly came through in your conversations. It’s just how, for decades, or even centuries, there have been solutions to these ongoing climate problems. We just need to harness them using local knowledge.
Adelle Onyango:
It’s interesting just to see the similarities there are in fighting one common issue. And so, I guess this calls for us to have a more collaborative approach to climate action.
Mark Leon Goldberg:
So, this was a great episode. We have more in store for you in The Future of Africa series. Thank you all for listening, and follow us on globaldispatches.org, as well as be sure to subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your show. I am so excited for the rest of the series, Adelle.
Adelle Onyango:
Me too! Thanks, Mark. And I can’t wait for everyone to listen to episode three.
Mark Leon Goldberg:
Thank you for listening to The Future of Africa — a special series on Global Dispatches produced in partnership with the African Union, The Elders, and the United Nations Foundation. I’m Mark Leon Goldberg, the host and founder of Global Dispatches. This series is hosted by Adelle Onyango. It is edited and mixed by Levi Sharpe. You can find all episodes in this series and access episode transcripts at globaldispatches.org.