Women silencing the guns with Aya Chebbi and Nolita Mvunelo

Africa’s adult population consists of three generations: the independence generation that lived through colonial rule and subsequent liberation, the multiparty system generation, and the younger generations with the complex challenge of ensuring peace, prosperity, and climate resilience within one generation.

In this episode, Nolita Mvunelo is joined by Aya Chebbi, Founder of the Nala Feminist Collective. Aya rose to prominence as a political blogger during Tunisia’s Revolution. She later became the first-ever African Union Special Envoy on Youth, championing youth inclusion and intergenerational collaboration through campaigns such as “silencing the guns”.  Today, she leads NalaFem, one of Africa’s largest multigenerational alliances of women politicians and activists united towards transformative feminist change.  Together, Aya and Nolita dive into the role of African women in strengthening peace and security while exploring the evolving perspectives on youth leadership in bringing reform.

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Full Transcript:

Nolita: 

We kinda need a revolution. Welcome to a special edition of The Club of Rome Podcast, exploring how we can work together across generations, across cultures, across regions, to mobilise action for a regenerative future, a podcast about how to drive meaningful change when the only response seems to be... we kind of need a revolution. I am Nolita Mvunelo, Programme Manager of The Club of Rome, and in this episode, I had a chance to speak to Aya Chebbi from Tunisia about women and silencing the guns. Aya was the first African Union youth envoy and founder of Nalafem Collective. Well, thank you for joining us today, Aya. Thank you for taking the time to speak to us. You were the first African Union youth envoy, and a sizable part of your work focused on the theme silencing the guns. Today, you lead Nalafem, one of Africa's largest multi-generational alliances of women and politicians and activists united towards transformative feminist change. Has there been a shift in thematic focus, from silencing the guns to, you know, transformative change from women, and if so, what inspired that shift?

Aya: 

Thank you so much, Nolita. No, there hasn't been. I think for me, gender justice issues are intersectional issues. When I launched Nalafem, it was guided by Africa Young Women Beijing+ 25 Manifesto, which we convened at the African Union. Six consultations, six regions of Africa, and they came up with 10 demands, and part of those demands are silencing the guns, sexual reproductive health rights, economic justice, digital justice and so on. So Nalafem is taking that manifesto to member states to ensure the implementation and accountability of these demands to go to the ground and trickle down to women and girls in conflict settings, in rural areas, in displaced areas. So, it definitely hasn't shifted. I think it deepened, because now I'm focused on looking at peace and security from a feminist lens. I'm looking at peace and security from where are the young women at the table of negotiation. But I think also part of the problem in women, you know, peace and security, youth peace and security is looking at these issues in silos and not looking at them as intersectional issues that have to address health and education and employment and all the other issues that we talk about.

Nolita:

In your work of trying to get member states to adopt some of the work and the policies, what has been like, the most surprising thing that you did not expect to happen.

Aya:

Well, you know, after being in this space for over 15 years, I'm not surprised anymore.  Member states, a lot of the member states’ attitudes towards looking at women and young women in leadership. For me, the double standard, the contradictions of how member states behave, remain my biggest surprise, even though some of the countries it's just not surprising anymore. Like they have a track record of that's how they deal with issues in silos. I think particularly for Africa, this is really globally, you know, at different levels, especially Africa-Europe dynamics, but particularly in Africa, I think after over decades advocating for youth participation, and especially young women, and still hearing the rhetoric of, you know, demographic dividend, but not seeing it on the ground, hearing the rhetoric of youth as a force of change, but not seeing young people appointed to leadership positions, hearing the rhetoric of, yeah, women at the table. But we look at Senegal, recent election, and we don't find any single women in the cabinet. We look at all the recent elections, and it's, you know, a lot of old men holding space, or even younger men now holding space in Chad, the recent election - a 40 year old. But then you look at society, you look at the leadership spectrum, you don't see women and youth. And so that's also contradiction is still surprising to me, because I think we passed the stage of saying why youth should be co-leading this space, why, you know, women and young women should be in these spaces. I think we all agree on why. So, why are we not moving to implementation?

Nolita: 

That's such a good point. Because I remember when I first learned of you and your position at the AU, I was like, “Oh my gosh, this is such a big moment, right?” A young woman, a young woman in such a high-level position, but to your point is that, like, very rarely does it trickle down back into leadership at different spheres, and there's like, there seems to be a resistance. How can young people contribute to driving forth that cause that you were such an implementing moment of?

Aya:

You know, I'm quite frustrated because young people have done an incredible, incredible, incredible mobilisation. Have taken lot of risks since 2010, 2011 revolutions, from Tunisia to Libya to Senegal to Sudan to Algeria to Burkina Faso, you know. So, I think there is a lot of like always demand from youth, whether it's democracy or the climate movement or whatever cause is. The decision makers who are predominantly male and old, they always expect youth to call on or to champion or to, you know, drive the change, you know, but at the same time being really intimidated by these youth who are demanding change. So, you want youth to demand change, and then when they go on the streets, you're ready with tear gas and arrest and deportation or whatever it is. So, you know, I think there is predominantly a fundamental question of how the African state relates with its youthful population, that needs to be addressed. Because now that we're having, let's say, more young people in the system, whether it's head of state, we had two at least this year elected in their 40s or members of parliament, we don't see the system changing. So, it's not just now a generational issue. It's also a system-based issue. And these institutional systems, they're post-colonial systems that were built on a certain legacy and that they do not speak to the youth population aspirations, the way they're structured. They do not speak to the citizenship, which is predominantly young, the youngest in the world. And I think that's where we should really put our efforts, and our analysis and to address the root cause of this. We're pretty much focused on what's going on, very politically, on the political level, but we're not looking at systems change. Because if you, even if you put massively right now young people in the system. If the system is failing, it's not going to work. You're going to set up this generation to failure as well. And I think we need that incremental change in reforming the system and making it respond to the aspiration of this century and the next century for it to make sense. From Nalafem side, what we're trying to do is to really prepare this generation when they take on the system, because we know this is an army of women we're building to take charge of the continent, but we don't want them to perpetuate the same practices, the same norms, the same system, the same policies. We want to make sure that, first of all, they all know each other, they all understand where they come from and their stories and their context. So, when they're all at the same level of leadership, change can be accelerated. If you look at the whole of the African Union and you find more than 50% of these leaders actually understand where we're all going, actually, not disputing these small you know, self-interest debates and know where we should be going. Those policies will pass like, you know, very fast. And I think that's when you need that army to take charge with the same values, the same understanding of the future, the same aspirations at the same time. And that way you see a shift, I think that's one thing we're trying to do. And then the second thing is to make sure there is a generational healing. So part of what we do is a lot of work on multi-generational. It's not like, you guys are irrelevant, and we should, you know, take over you. It's more like, how can we co-lead this moment? Because we're going to take over anyway, and so without when we transition, we can build something better, and we can be better leaders than you were.

Nolita: 

Two questions, then. One is, you mentioned an aspiration of the century, or the aspiration of the generation. If you were to articulate in a few sentences, what would it be? And then the second one, maybe adding on to that is, part of it has to do with power, right? Because we look at it from a generational lens. But to your point, about like, systems are not changing, like we're asking for inclusion, but we're asking for inclusion in systems that fundamentally do not work for the type of makeup that we have. There's a point in there at the centre about it has to do with power and how we organise power, in that at the end of the day, there will only be one president, there will only be one minister of whatever, there will only be... so even if we're asking for inclusion, if at the end of the day it the system is still built that there isn't... I remember listening to someone saying that our ambition is that enough people have a higher education, but there's no scenario where we build enough universities for the 1 billion African youth that are going to be alive in 2100 etc. What would be your big bet in actualising that aspiration for the future? By challenging some of these dynamics of power and access and elite structures, etc.

Aya: 

Yeah, I think at least the millennials, I can talk of my generation mission. I was on the streets in Tunis demanding for regime change, and we ended a 23 year dictatorship, and our slogan was jobs, freedom and dignity. And I think our generation mission has been based on especially financial freedom. And now that I'm taking it to the feminist movement, and you know, the women platform, it's also about financial freedom. We talk about, you know, bodily autonomy and sexual reproductive health and all these issues, but the essence of it, the foundation of it - if you're not financially free, you have no choice over your own body. You have no choice to get out of gender-based violence. You have no choice of protecting yourself, protecting your community. Against your question of power, the financial freedom is your power, you know, to in the political landscape. Because even if you do not have at least a seat at the table or, you know, a position in the ecosystem, that can make you really drive policy change with your financial freedom, you can still do you, right. You can still drive sustainable initiatives. You can, you know, start your own organisation and make some sort of change for your community. So, I definitely think for this century, that is the mission. And I think, like my contribution to actualising that has always been, the past at least seven, eight years, is co-leadership, because that is the model I see the future. That is the movements. When movements across Africa organised, you know, for uprisings and revolution, even the recent protests of Gen Z in Kenya, their manifesto, they say, “We're leaderless”, right? But, I mean, of course you need you need structures. You need to organise yourself and something you can't just not have a leadership structure. But what they're trying to say is that the current model of leadership doesn't work. The one-man-show doesn't work anymore, and we need to be able to create systems that are more inclusive, and women are great at that. Women are collaborative, they're emotionally intelligent. They like to bring people together. They like to nurture some sort of collaboration. But and we know on the other hand, the masculine way of leading is very much egocentric, right? So, I think those are tough conversations we need to have. And it's not about men are not great leaders, but it's about, can men incorporate more feminist values in their leadership? So it can be co-led, it can be co-shared. It can be more inclusive. The consultative process of the United Nation, the African Union, institutions that are built on one type of way of leadership. Can they be more collaborative and not extractive of young people, voices and expertise and resources? So that's what we're saying. You know, that's co-leadership. You're bringing me to the table from the get go for us to co-design something, co-write these policies and co-implement them so we can have ownership over them. But if you bring me to this process to extract from me and not pay me for it, and then come back and do nothing in the community, that is the leadership we need to dismantle right now, which is causing a lot of the issues we're facing.

Nolita:

Youth consultations must fall that's been like one of my things is like, the next time someone called me into a conference just so I can give my two cents and say, thank you - I've had enough. I've had you know, but I think it speaks to what you're saying before about with political leaders, there's a lot of mobilisation that happens of young people for a specific cause, and then it's a thank you very much. You can go back to your life now. I've gotten what I need.

Aya:

We call it validation workshops. I mean, I advocated to get rid of these validation workshops because, literally, it's a ticking box. So, after you've done this whole process, you need a validation workshop. Bring, you know, the refugee, the one with disability, the women in rural area, and say, I had a meeting with this and this and that we've validated this document, and we're done. But yeah, to your point, I think what we're trying to advocate for, and have been advocating for, and it's our demand 10 of the manifesto, is intergenerational co-leadership. And that does not mean like pass the torch to us. That means co-leading now in all of these formats we're discussing, but on a state level. Of course, it's much more complicated, but it's very much possible, and we've seen young female ministers do it. We have the Minister of Namibia, 27-year-old. We had the Minister of Botswana. She was 29 when she was Minister of Investment Bogolo Kenewend, and she's now a member of parliament, again, appointed after a great change in Botswana, you know? And we have different examples across the continent where, when you give young female leaders a chance at a mayor level, a council level, a ministerial level, they have a different way of leading, and it gives results much faster.

Nolita: 

It's interesting you're mentioning Emma, who is the 27-year-old minister you were speaking about, her point is that we need processes, and we need people who understand processes. In response to the Kenyan youth protests saying we don't have leaders, was like, yeah, we don't need leaders. We need processes. That's what we need. That's how you go ahead and create that transformation. But as a Gen Z, to add a little bit of complexity to that, is that because we're coming into adulthood around where the climate discussion is alive and kicking, the question of financial freedom, everyone must have jobs, sits at this intersection with the fact that we also know that material growth, economic growth based on material means is not feasible. The challenge of financial freedom, knowing that we're having this climate catastrophe coming ahead of us, is such a complex thing that is hard to deal with, because I need my financial freedom. I need my freedoms to be able to contribute to society, as you're saying, but we're also living in an environment where it seems like there's an unspoken discussion of how improbable and how difficult it's going to be. I don't know if you have any insights or any words to share for anyone who holds a similar anxiety that I do when it comes to that particular question?

Aya: 

Yeah, no, I think it's a really important question. And again, because when you have financial freedom, you are not only able to give back to your community and be more resilient. So you're not waiting for all these processes, complex processes, to come to fruition. When you know, I was at the UN just couple of weeks ago, and I was telling the cohort of member states that while you are figuring out anything when a crisis happened, like a pandemic or a war come out, you're still debating for weeks and weeks to pass a resolution. Young people already open pathways to humanitarian intervention. Young people already set up community and donation, fundraising, you know, projects to get going so they have already not only mitigated, but kind of responded to the crisis in the first phase, while you all are figuring out. So imagine, and this is with no resources, right? And this is with 70% of the continent offline, with no digital access. So imagine if you give young people of this continent the financial freedom, the digital access that they can have. Not only they can give back, not only they can make an important intervention, but also they have the freedom if the crisis is really, you know, that's it like they have to move to another country or that they're going to be displaced, you still have your financial freedom to start a new life. And we're struggling today to protect women and girls in conflict, in displacement, in migration, because they do not have the financial freedom, you know, to move somewhere else or start a new life. They do not have financial freedom to be a nomadic employee or a freelancer or a consultant, things and structures that still we are fighting for frameworks to exist in our countries to, you know, allow for these jobs to exist, right? So I think again, even with that gloomy picture of the future, we're not running away from climate change. Whatever we're trying to do to save the earth and mitigate, it's still going to be a lot of catastrophes. It's going to still going to be a lot of disasters we have to deal with. But I think with financial freedom, we're allowing better livelihoods for this generation and better transfer of that generational wealth for the next generation. Because if we build it with this generation, we build that basic financial freedom, then the next one will have much better living conditions. The next one will have much better consciousness, because when you also have financial freedom, you have responsibility, right? And so when you have displacement, when you have disasters, when you have climate crisis, you're going to be worried more about your poverty as a first line, because that's your first struggle, rather than what's going on around you, or rather than saving you know, your country or the world. So I really hear your concerns and I share them. The future is scary, but I think we should double down on making sure that young people, young women, have their financial freedom to make choices for their lives and to make choices for their livelihoods and to make choices for their countries. We've been having discussion at the Nalafem Council, you know a lot about women political leadership, and you know, how are we strategising around getting women in masses, in politics, right? But you look at the women who go into politics, and they're financially like their campaign budget is zero. They're relying on all of these things to run their campaign. They go there. They're focused on political change. They go out with zero, you know, financial freedom, with zero, economic empowerment. And we were, at some point asking ourselves, shouldn't we, you know, when we say we want women political leadership, shouldn't we be focusing first on empowering them economically?

Nolita: 

It's a complex one, so doubling down into economic freedom. And earlier, however, earlier, you also mentioned that, like a lot of this work is happening, largely unfunded. So where does this economic opportunity potentially come from? I spoke to one of your fellows, like, a year ago, and she was speaking about how she ran for office, and it was largely crowd funded, and she didn't. And she was saying, first of all, you're competing in environment where people are just giving other people cash to vote, like, “Hey, here's a few shillings so you can go to the ballot, etc.” And but she was saying that she felt when, when she lost, she did feel a bit like this is people's money that just didn't go anywhere, didn't do anything. Could I have done something more useful with the support that I have? What are the opportunities to get that type of resourcing? Or is your proposal to maybe more people should have a little bit of a career before they go into politics?

Aya:

What we're trying to breed now as a generation of female leaders is to be Pan African, right? It's because, like, you can't just be feminist, you have to be Pan African. And to go back to the foundation that as a continent, we're the richest continent in the world, like we have 33% of the global diamond reserve we have, I don't know, 80% of the arable reserve, the Democratic Republic of Congo can feed the entire continent, you know, and I can go on and on, with the kind of resources we have, we can, as a continent, as countries, be like self-reliant on our own and feeding our own population, building our own economies and creating our own jobs. Like we can. This, we have to make sure that this is not a dream. This is not some fantasy, you know, for Africa to realise. Without the help of anybody, we can as a continent, and not only for ourselves, we are nourishing the world’s economy, right, and the closest one Europe, we have been nourishing European economy. So on that level, on that scale, there are decisions, there is political will, there are political policies. There is an African integration that can play a huge role in fixing this unemployment challenge, in driving the financial freedom challenge. And we have to look at it at macro level, continental level, because it's going to be much faster. And there are a lot of things are into place and going slowly, like the African Free Trade Area, the e-commerce platform, you know, the financial infrastructure and regulations. I moved here in Kenya and Nairobi, I love M-Pesa, and I love how since I've known M-Pesa for the 10 years, they have been even improving their financial ecosystem further right. So we cannot talk of us as in our tiny countries and, you know, and our tiny jobs in a company somewhere, you know, on the southern of Tunis or on the east of Ghana, like, if we really want to uplift our livelihoods to the level where we deserve all to live as African youth, that's how and where we should start. Now, in terms of, like, individual careers. So the fellowship you're talking about. What we're proposing is that whether you want to go into politics or not, you have to have an experience in government. So yes, we're going to work on the financial part. We're going to work on the financial literacy. We're going to work on the training for, you know, career development, whatnot. But whether you want to make change and impact outside the government for your country or inside, you have to understand government. The first thing we need to make sure this generation understands is how you navigate power. Who has power, and is it power over you know, where is where are you at that scale, and who are the allies and that power? And I think for us, building that ecosystem of them, for them, in terms of power, if you don't feel like you're holding power right now, where does power realise and how can we give access to that? So that's part of it. It's not one answer. Financial freedom, as I said, is one of them. But they're complex of things, especially for African youth, because they're the most discriminated, the most excluded by age, by gender. It's a reality we live in, and the smallest access you can give to them, so many miracles can happen, and we've seen them in many of the parliamentarians who are now in Kenya's parliament, the young women, once they had access, they're out there, you know, changing laws and driving progressive agendas, and in many of the countries right now, they are facing elections as well. But those parliamentary seats are not enough. You have to maintain them in politics.

Nolita: 

So I know we're almost out of time. If I were to ask one last maybe simple, maybe not simple, question is, if you could, at the snap of your fingers, create a little miracle? Oh, what would it be?

Aya:

Oh, Nolita, we need many miracles in this world. I mean, the first miracle I want is a ceasefire for the Palestinian people and women and children, but also across conflict settings in Sudan and Congo and so many of our African people as well. But I really like a miracle would be to uphold peace in the world. Let's start there. Another miracle would be to hold perpetrators accountable. Like I would love to see justice, accountability. It would just heal a lot of the people, a lot of women who've gone through sexual violence, in conflict, in domestic violence, in whatever, you know, violent situation they've been at. It's just like seeing justice is more than 50% of that healing process. And I think even as Africa, we haven't seen justice as a continent to a lot of the atrocities that happen to us. So that would be two, and then three would be equality, for sure. I just want to smash patriarchy and just get over it so I can live my life free and just be!

Nolita: 

Yeah, to just, you know, be, be yourself without having to think too much about too many things. But yeah, thank you so much for taking the time to speak to us today, and thank you all for listening in. For more information, please visit clubofrome.org.