Reimagining Government S4E6 – Why the future belongs to young leaders: Elizabeth Wathuti and Fina Girard on courage and climate action.

Elizabeth Wathuti, O.G.W: [00:00:00] The people that are driving the solutions on the ground, actually what they need is co-creation. They don’t need to just be consulted. 

Fina Girard: With that we also need to ask the big question of who can participate because it’s crucial to build this trust. 

Kandice Louis-Wilson: Welcome back to Reimagining Government, the podcast from the Centre for Public Impact.

Gabrielle Beran: We are your hosts, Gabrielle Beran. 

Kandice Louis-Wilson: And Kandicce Lewis-Wilson. Today’s episode marks our final exploration into climate and gender. There’s so much more for us to explore, but we wanna shift our attention to the future of climate action within and alongside government. 

The past few years has seen an increase in awareness, discourse, and protests regarding climate change. As well as the slow progress or perceived lack of action by those in positions of power.

Gabrielle Beran: As we’ve discussed previously on this podcast, more often than not young female [00:01:00] voices have been at the centre of this action, and as many of us know in 2018, one voice emerged that ignited a global protest movement. 

Greta Thunberg: Many people say that Sweden is just a small country, and it doesn’t matter what we do, but I’ve learned that you are never too small to make a difference.

Gabrielle Beran: I’m speaking of course, about a 15-year-old Greta Thunberg and the other young activists who sat in front of the Swedish Parliament every school day for three weeks. Their action prompted worldwide school walkouts and other forms of action known as Fridays for the Future, a movement that still continues to this day.

Greta Thunberg: And if a few children can get headlines all over the world just by not going to school, then imagine what we could all do together if we really wanted to.

Kandice Louis-Wilson: To drive real change and challenge business as usual, climate action needs to come from and alongside government. Today we spotlight two young voices doing just that. 

Elizabeth Wathuti, O.G.W: Our [00:02:00] rivers are running dry, our harvest are failing. Our houses stand empty. Please open your hearts. 

Gabrielle Beran: Elizabeth Wathuti is a Kenyan environmentalist and founder of the Green Generation Initiative.

She is a green climate funder, youth champion, and commissioner at the Global Commission on the Economics of Water, the youngest person to hold this position. Fina Gerard, is a Swiss climate activist and politician who has served on the Grand Council of Basel Stadt since 2023. She’s a member of the Green Party and the Young Greens, and before entering politics, Fina was a member of the Basel Climate Strike and co-president of the local Young Greens branch.

Kandice Louis-Wilson: What can these two voices both working in different spheres of climate initiatives reveal about rethinking power and leadership? Our interview with Fina Gerard first.[00:03:00] 

Gabrielle Beran: Welcome to the podcast Fina. Can you tell us where you’re joining from today? 

Fina Girard: Hi. So nice to be on here. I am now currently in Basel, my hometown. It’s in Switzerland, just at the border to France, in Germany. It’s where I have begun my career as an activist, if you’d say so. And where I’m now elected member of the Cantonal Parliament.

Gabrielle Beran: And for those people who are outside of Switzerland, what does that mean? What, what does that look like? What kind of responsibilities do you have? 

Fina Girard: A Cantonal Parliament, it’s just the region of Switzerland and Switzerland is known as a pretty, um, federal country. So there are a lot of competencies, budget wise, but also, on a decisive level, uh, that lie in the regions and not on the national level.

The Canton of Basel is quite small. It’s a city of approximately 200,000 people, and we are a parliament of a hundred person, and I’m the youngest one at 23. And, I’m [00:04:00] elected member for the Young Greens. You know, in Switzerland, uh, we don’t really have the, the job of being a politician because we have something called the militia system, which means that, um, politics is always something you need to do aside from your normal career.

So the, the thought about it is that no one is becoming rich and powerful through politics, but that it is distributed all through different professions, careers. 

Gabrielle Beran: Do you think it is having the intended effect? You see, and you look in other countries and go, Hmm, well, if they had our system where this political action is part of your civic responsibility or civic duty, perhaps you get different kinds of people?

Fina Girard: On the first glance, it sounds great because you can have all of this diversity, but in reality it just means a really great workload. Uh, for people who are juggling career, family, education, and the political sphere. And it also means that the budgets for these parliaments is [00:05:00] quite low. 

So we get paid very little, we have very little resources. In other countries you might have a personal team, you might have a local office. We don’t have all of that. So it’s, everything is a bit a one-man show. It’s a lot of late nights, it’s a lot of weekend work. It’s something that has been set up that works best for people who have a great network, who have a great support system, who are at the end of their careers, who are maybe even retired, we have a lot of retired people being active in politics.

And there are many, young mothers for example, or young people as I am, who are struggling to, to juggle everything. 

Gabrielle Beran: That’s a really valuable point you’ve made. So it sounds like the way that the political system is playing out is something we see a lot in the systems change work we do. 

Fina Girard: Mm-hmm.

Gabrielle Beran: Sometimes there are very good intentions behind an action. But the flow on effects of those in reality and the way that our social connections are, our work is designed, don’t quite work. I wonder if we can step back [00:06:00] and talk about your own story and, and what inspired you to get involved in climate action.

Were there any pivotal moments or influences in your life that shaped your activism and how did you go from that to getting into politics? 

Fina Girard: So, funnily enough, even though I grew up, very environmentally conscious, it was not climate action that brought me into activism, but human rights activism. I was 13 years old when the, European refugee crisis started, where really lots of people were coming, especially from Afghanistan and, and Syria.

News Reporter 1: This is the only escape route for many Syrian refugees. Smugglers take them on a perilous voyage. Some pay with their lives. 

Fina Girard: And it was also around that time that the Swiss People’s Party, a  right-wing populist party, managed to get a vocation on mass migration. 

News Reporter 2: Swiss voters have said yes to a limit on [00:07:00] immigration. In a referendum held on Sunday, just over 50% voted in favor of strict quotas and an end to what’s being called mass immigration. 

Fina Girard: And I remember coming to school, that morning and a friend of mine and me, we started crying because we just realised in, in what a kind, uh, of country we’re living in and how xenophobia has taken over. At the time, my mother was volunteering for refugee centre, and my sister and my cousin were going to Greece to help in the refugee camps there.

And I just felt really helpless, because I’m just 13. Uh, I can’t do anything. I’m just going to school. I have no idea where to go. And this just kept me very emotionally involved until a friend of mine introduced me to Amnesty Youth. And that’s just the place where I learned a lot of grassroots activism tools and my own rights as an activist.

And it was just really the place where I, for the first time, felt like I belong and I can [00:08:00] make a difference. At the same time, also where I could really benefit from a lot of knowledge from previous activists. So in 2018, 2019, the wave of Greta Thunberg’s Climate Strikes came to Switzerland and we had our first protests.

And it was really coming from this Amnesty Youth group, that we adapted this strategy and, started the movement Climate Strike in Basel as well as in Switzerland. During that time, we tried all different kinds of strategies. We were discussing being more anti-capitalist, working more within the system, doing more media work, doing more protest.

We were seeing that the protests are evolving, people are coming, they’re leaving, all these challenges. And then there was the, it was the national election, in 2019, and 100,000 people were marching the streets of Bern, the capital of Switzerland, for a giant climate protest. The biggest, uh, known [00:09:00] yet in Switzerland.

We experienced something called the green wave. Many people being voted into parliament that are concerned with climate change. And the year after that, in 2020, we had our local elections, and we tried to make that happen for Basel again. It was a bit a different situation because Corona had happened, but we were doing advocacy as a climate group.

We were having talks with government officials and it was in this moment that I realised that I would want to be part of that. So I decided with some other climate activists to join the Young Greens and to run for office as well. 

Gabrielle Beran: That’s an amazing story. Thank you. You are perhaps being humble, but actually some of the things you have mentioned are very big things.

To, to ask things of candidates, to manage protests, to have the [00:10:00] strategic thinking. If there are people listening who think, I, I would like to do a bit more of this kind of thing. What are the mindsets that you had to take on? How did you even decide what to do or where to spend your energy? 

Fina Girard: We were so young at the time.

Many of us were 16, 17, and we managed all this. There was a big international meeting from all Fridays for Future from Europe being held in Switzerland, that was also organized by Swiss teenagers that I, I like to tell this story as well to, to elder people because you can do so much if you want to, and if you feel the urge to. 

But of course, we also had help. We had some elder activists. I’ve read a book lately, which stated that it’s very often in activism. It’s not so much about. Being able to do something, knowing how to do something, but about being asked to join a movement. And it’s something very small, but most people don’t dare to ask, and, um, they don’t know how to begin.

But if there is someone [00:11:00] who is having an idea and who’s asking for support, people most often say yes and they join in. So I think that’s, that’s the biggest thing I can say because it’s, it’s not about knowledge. It’s that that will come, the experience will come. There are so many resources, so many organisations that, that have a lot of knowledge and are willing to give it out for free and in, in an instant.

But it’s really just, just a starting point that’s important. 

Gabrielle Beran: You spoke there about having support from people who were older than you, and I think the climate crisis has in some ways seen an amazing intergenerational exchange of knowledge and ideas. We’ve seen the feminist movement bring some of their skills to the climate movement.

We’ve seen, particularly where I am in the uk, we are seeing grandmothers getting arrested for climate, you know, and, and, and part of it because they can, because they don’t have the responsibilities anymore to, to go to the office every day or to care for, for people and taking on their responsibility. Do you think [00:12:00] sometimes that older generations and institutions are relying too heavily on young people and particularly youth climate activists? How do we sort of resolve that from your opinion?

Fina Girard: The thing that makes me angry is when people tell young climate activists, thank you. Oh, we’re so grateful you’re doing that. That just makes me so angry because it’s so easy. I mean, of, of course it’s great. It’s nice to hear, but I, I, I’d use my time also for different stuff. And if, if there hadn’t been so much hesitation in climate action, we wouldn’t even be at this place.

And by thanking you, you also give the responsibility to, to the one you’re thanking to because, uh, it’s, it’s your job, but I’m thankful you’re doing the job, but it’s your job. The other thing that, makes me mad is when people asking me, where has the movement [00:13:00] gone? Why aren’t the streets filled with young climate activists anymore?

Because that implies also it is the job of the youth to always ring the bell. And tell us again that climate justice is important. I know for a fact so many of my activist friends, they’re no longer active. Because they’re tired, they’re burnt out, and they’re scared that something like that will consume them again, as much as the climate movement has. During the most intense years, 2019, 2020, we spent every evening in meetings painting like big banners, having meetings with government officials, et cetera.

And we are also just young people living our lives. So often when I’m, when I’m sitting in parliament, I’m sitting there while, while I’m moving out for the first time. I’m sitting there while having my first breakup in my life. I’m sitting there while tackling my first challenges within work. I also just want to live my life and, and figure all these [00:14:00] things out.

But I do so while having responsibility lying on my shoulders, and that’s fine for me, but it’s not something we can expect from all young people. That’s the same thing when people say, oh, I could have never done that when I was 23. I’m not someone who is like more capable of anything than, than what other people’s are.

I, I am just a young person trying my best. So you haven’t done that and I’m happy for you that you didn’t need to be in that place. But, but for us as climate activist and in Switzerland, we’ve always said, and I think internationally as well, that the decade that is deciding upon if we reach our climate goals or not is from 2020 to 2030. 

And now we’re 2025, so we are midway there. And not much has happened. In fact, a 1.5 degree Celsius goal is, is failing already now. So for me and many other climate activists, there is also the question of what are we gonna do if, if we fail? [00:15:00] And will that mean a lifetime of activism? And what does that mean for, for my life and my goals that I might have besides being an activist, just living regular life.

And what comes here, that is driving me still, is coming from my human rights activism background. The important question of, of climate justice, when we are failing our climate goal, the thing we’re gonna do is mainly climate adaptation, which is an important and crucial, step within climate activism.

But climate adaptation is always a question of privilege. And I have no doubt that Switzerland will do amazing in their climate adaptation in having all these catastrophes happening in our mountain region. Just as it has happened this year, with Blatten, a mountainous village that was destroyed by rocks that had been released because of the ice melting.

News Reporter 3: And the Alps, that massive glacier carrying rocks and [00:16:00] debris detached and came tumbling down the mountainside. Authorities were forced to evacuate that entire village of about 300 people just south of Switzerland’s capital, Bern. 

Fina Girard: We’re gonna do fine with that, but what this adaptation is gonna increase is the global inequality. And I think that’s the crucial point of climate activists in the upcoming years, is to try to enable climate justice and to take the Global North into responsibility and at the end to see if climate adaptation is a question of wealth, or if it’s a question of human rights.

Gabrielle Beran: You said you were angry. Young women being angry is not something that people know what to do with. It is not, certainly in my life experience, not socially acceptable. And so I really respect and admire that you said you were angry. I wonder does your anger fuel you? What, what use is your anger to you?[00:17:00] 

Maybe we don’t put this in the podcast if it doesn’t make sense. 

Fina Girard: Yeah. 

Gabrielle Beran: But I’m just like, I just really like that you said that. No one ever, I mean, I’m, I work in climate and I’m angry all the time, but we don’t get to talk about being angry. 

Fina Girard: In the feminist movement in Switzerland, there is a big sticker that’s everywhere where it’s your mother is angry. I love this one. 

Gabrielle Beran: I need one of these ’cause my mother is an angry feminist, so I need one of these.

Fina Girard:, I can see if I, if I could send it to you. But they’re great. Yeah, I think it’s just exactly as you said, it’s, it’s not something that, that is socially acceptable. And I’m, I’m angry at myself when I cry because I’m angry. Because it, it, it’s again, this like female thing of, ah, she’s crying because she’s sad. But no, actually I’m angry. But I, I hope that it fuels change. 

But I think the challenge within that is, um, in feminism, I find it a very useful tool to be angry, because it [00:18:00] shows the inequality and the unfairness of it. But in climate, I find it difficult to be angry publicly, because the big challenge we’ve got with climate policies is that we need to show people that this future is desirable, and that it is in fact something to look forward to.

And there is already a lot of anger within the climate question, uh, but mostly from the other side. Angry about not being able to take your car anymore. Angry about not being able to use fossil fuse. Angry about being dictated what to do. So there I find, not hope, but like positive future building, uh, a very useful tool to show that in fact, if we, if we can manage this climate transformation that lies ahead of us, I think we will go out living, living better lives, living more within solidarity.

And, and that’s the picture I wanna draw and not so much the one that, that I’m angry. [00:19:00] 

Gabrielle Beran: Working in, in politics, particularly formally as you are now and as an elected official, means engaging with many different pillars of public life, different parts of public life. How do you bring a climate lens to areas of policy and politics that people may not initially think is related to climate?

And have you got any examples or stories of, of how you’ve done that? 

Fina Girard: Climate is so intertwined with social issues, with equality issues, with international issues. There is practically no way to talk about a topic without, in some way also talk about climate or rather about the way of society that we want in our future.

We’ve got climate change because our society has been built upon fossil fuels, but that’s so much more complex than just stopping using fossil fuels because everything is just related to that system. I’ve said that I was in the, in the taxation committee. A thing that was really interesting was [00:20:00] the OECD taxation reform that globally we’re gonna have a 15% taxation for international corporations.

We needed to implement that on the local level. And the proposal was that we are going to take 15% of this, of these companies. And here I need to say that Basel is the headquarters of several pharmaceutical, multinational corporations. Switzerland as a tax haven is in all the places. We have Glencore, we have Nestle, we have all the good guys. And, and we are in need to, to tax them in order to get this international tax solidarity.

And the proposal from government was to take these 15% taxation and to put them into a fund. And through that fund, redistribute, redistribute it back to the corporations. So it was just a turnaround of the money, the money was being collected, but in the same time, just being given back. So there was no real gain for [00:21:00] climate.

There was no real gain for public service, for an international just distribution. So we had a referendum about that. And the people still voted yes, to this proposal, but there were 30% of people voting no. For me, that was a bummer, that only a third of people would think that this is not the righteous way, to do taxation justice internationally.

But there was an older man, from an organisation called Multi Watch, who has been active within these topics since decades. He had tears in his eyes. For him, that was a milestone. That one person in three agreed with him and said, we, we need to change something. Because the pharmaceutical, multinational corporations in Basel, they’re, they’re a topic you’re not gonna touch on.

They’re just, they can do whatever they want because we’re financially so heavily relying on them. So it’s just not something you discuss politically [00:22:00] and suddenly there are a third of the population saying that this is not the way to go anymore. Not within the crisis we are facing right now. So I think a lot of the work we as young climate activists, we’re able to do, even in topics that don’t obviously relate to climate issues, is that we can bring a shift in discourse.

Gabrielle Beran: Yes. And to question some of those assumptions and those things that have just always been, always been this way. And the power holders have always been the power holders. And I, I think we are seeing that. Looking ahead, how optimistic are you about institutions like governments at different levels becoming more adaptive in the face of climate challenges or, or how optimistic are you that they themselves as institutions could change?

And what gives you hope for that, and maybe what gives you some concern?[00:23:00] 

Fina Girard: For me personally, especially in, in this situation we see now globally, with democratic backslide and rising authoritarianism rising, neoliberal authoritarianism, especially. With these rising inequalities and people losing trust in politics everywhere. I find it more important than ever to build upon democracy, to strengthen democracy. And also to, to not go the way of trying to introduce climate policy through the backdoor, hoping people won’t realise it and it will be easier than to, to fight the struggle on the streets, with people being angry about their cars being taken away, or plane tickets being more expensive.

I think it’s crucial that we have these discussions and that we ask these questions that are very uncomfortable. And that we find solutions [00:24:00] for these people who are angry and who don’t understand why climate action is important and why it also means that we all need to step back in, in some ways and that we no longer will be able to consume at a rate that we are consuming right now.

And what I find extremely important within this transformation towards a more climate-just governance, is that we stop waiting for the big master plan, for the big solution. Because I feel governments are so afraid of moving into the wrong direction, to spend too much money on projects. Well, the most expensive thing they can do is to hesitate and to not take action, because that’s just gonna fall back on us in catastrophes, in difficulties adapting later on.

So what we need to do is really take these baby steps. So often in [00:25:00] politics, I see that some people in government had been working on a project for six years or more. They had been discussing with different stakeholders, but they’ve never really talked to politics on one hand, and they’ve never really talked to the people on the other hand.

And then after six years of money and work being poured into that project, it comes into the political debate, and then it dies because the process has been moving on behind hidden doors. We really need to implement this dialogue in every step on the way. And that might take longer in the process, but it will lead to way more acceptance, to better results, and it will be more efficient in the long run.

And there I think we, we need to, to question also our democratic processes and to, to find ways to to make the more accessible. With that, [00:26:00] we also need to ask the big question of who can participate, who has the resources, who has the time, who has the information. Because it’s crucial to build this trust in order to prevent right-wing populism to, to gain power.

Which is, which is one of the biggest dangers we have for our democracy right now. 

Gabrielle Beran: Thank you. And I think you covered so many interesting points there about working with people where they are, about working with communities, and when we develop solutions about what we would call at CPI and, and others. I mean, we are not, we are by no means the first people, but to talk about failing forward, fail quickly, fail often, learn. 

Fina Girard: Yeah. 

Gabrielle Beran:You know, the, exactly the, the UK Government, I’m thinking of Nick Kimber and the Cabinet Office, has written alot about test and learn. We must just test and learn and try again and keep, and keep moving and keep moving and, and certainly it’s, it’s something we try and do in [00:27:00] our work.

If we said to you to speak directly to government figures and public servants listening to this podcast, what do you think they need to learn? What lesson could you share with them? 

Fina Girard: It’s, it just sounds so basic, but I think it’s so crucial that we are kind within these structures. So much in institutionalised politics is about personal careers, is about power, is about who has a say?

We oftentimes forget that people coming in later, people coming from different backgrounds, people have different kinds of knowledge. We need to take them along, and we need to build support structures. In Swiss German, there is a word that literally translated, is to elbow. If I’m trying to, to find my way, I, I’m taking my elbows, and I’m moving forward, and we need to do less of that.

I think we need more honesty about our own failures and being less afraid of talking [00:28:00] about our own failures and to make ourselves vulnerable. In order to learn from each other, to come to a point where we can be kind to ourselves and, and recognise our faults, and kind to others to let them be part of, of, of your own learnings, kindness.

Gabrielle Beran: Kindness. We are all just people trying to be good to one another. And I hope we can remember that even when we have our differences. 

Fina Girard: It’s a bit, it’s a bit pathetic, but I, I was still.

Gabrielle Beran: No, it’s not.

Fina Girard: I was always thinking about that because I just had a, had a talk about that with an older, Social Democrat who is, who was struggling to find ways, on how to moderate sessions, debates, that get very heated. And then I was like, oh, you just adapt to climate strike communication strategies, because we never had someone moderating, but we always used hand signs.

I think that’s something that’s quite known internationally as well. And she was like, aren’t people misusing that so they can just enter discussion? And I was like, no, [00:29:00] because everyone has an interest in, in the, in the discussion being, being fair and being something where everyone feels comfortable.

And, and that made me realise that from my experience as a grassroots activist, we’ve made so many spaces to, to have kindness within our movement. And that’s something new. That’s even for a Social Democrat around her forties. That’s not something she’s experienced in her political career. And it’s, I think, something of the most important things that young people with the discourse shift in psychological care and stuff and resilience, can bring to the table that is just so crucial for, for being able to stay active.

Gabrielle Beran: I agree, and we need it to, to look after ourselves so we can continue to do the very difficult work and to look after each other so we can bring people with us. I am from New Zealand, and you may know that we had a, a prime minister there who advocated for kindness and [00:30:00] politics and still continues to do so.

Fina Girard: She’s great.

Gabrielle Beran: Yes. So I have her book on my bedside table in the big pile of books that I will one day get to finish reading. 

Fina Girard: I do so too, actually. I think most women in politics do at the moment. 

Gabrielle Beran: After the break, our conversation with Elizabeth Wathuti.

Kumi Naidoo: Greetings, good people. I’m Kumi Naidoo, and this is a brand new season of Power, People and Planet.

We are back to tackle the toughest and most urgent questions of our time. Talking with activists, artists and community leaders from across the globe on how we make a just transition to a world that’s more fair, more inclusive, and more green. In this new series of in-depth discussions, we focus on the current state of activism.

It’s failure, it’s successes, [00:31:00] and its future. We want to know how activism can have a deeper and more immediate impact. How different movements can intersect to win bigger and faster. How acts of civil disobedience can be more inclusive and less divisive, and how local activists can engage with global power.

I believe strongly that we are living in the most consequential decade in humanity’s existence, and that is why we all need to be part of these conversations. All this and much, much more in our new season of Power, People and Planet. So join me, Kumi Naidoo, wherever you get your podcasts, and now also on my YouTube channel. Thank you.

Gabrielle Beran: Welcome to the podcast, Elizabeth. Thank you so much for [00:32:00] joining us in such a busy week for you. Where are you joining us from today? 

Elizabeth Wathuti, O.G.W: Thank you so much, Gabrielle, for having me here today. Joining you from Nairobi, Kenya, and it’s great to see you. Tell 

Gabrielle Beran: Tell us more about yourself, your organisation, and your journey in climate action so far.

Elizabeth Wathuti, O.G.W: My name is Elizabeth Wathuti, and I am an environmentalist, and I’m also a global climate justice leader and advocate across Kenya, and also across the African continent, and globally. I am the founder of the Green Generation Initiative, which is an action driven organisation that is working with children, young people in local communities, especially women, to restore, protect, and also conserve the environment.

And we do have different projects that range from us being able to green schools with children, and also for us being able to work with communities, especially youth and women, to restore water catchment areas. We are working with the [00:33:00] communities to ensure that we also improve their livelihoods. And so as an organisation, we are actually guided by three pillars, which we call people, planet, and prosperity.

And we ensure that everything that we do actually is within those three pillars. And so we are transforming lives, and at the same time using that which we are making an impact on the ground, to showcase on global forums to also get governments, leaders and big businesses to take action. So we showcase what we do, we showcase what is working with our communities, and that gives people a different perspective of the possibilities across the world.

Gabrielle Beran: That is a wonderful summary of a really interesting organisation, and I can’t wait to talk more with you about it. But before we even talk about the Green Generation Initiative in more detail, would you like to tell our listeners what initially inspired you to get involved in climate action and how did that then evolve into founding the Green Generation Initiative?

Elizabeth Wathuti, O.G.W: I have been inspired by so many things in my journey as an [00:34:00] environmentalist, and one of them is a beautiful story of being born and brought up in Kenya’s most forested region, which is Nyeri County. That also happens to be the birthplace of the late Professor Wangarĩ Maathai, who won the Nobel Peace Prize for conserving the environment.

Wangarĩ Maathai: What we do not understand is that we, humans are only part of this ecosystem, and when we kill part of this system, we are killing ourselves. 

Elizabeth Wathuti, O.G.W: For me as a child growing up, I used to live among the trees, among the forests, among the clean streams. And one time I actually got an opportunity to plant my first tree at the age of seven, and this was in a nearby forest that I could just see anytime I would look out of the classroom window in my primary school.

But one time I went back to this forest and I noticed that there were tree stumps and tree logs just next to the forest. And I was really frustrated and I couldn’t understand why anybody would destroy such a beautiful [00:35:00] forest. That was a turning point for me because I somehow learned how to turn my frustration into a hunger to want to do something about the problem, about deforestation, about climate change.

So I started by going to schools to teach other children about how to plant trees, educating them about climate change and how it was affecting people across the communities. Because I continued witnessing these challenges, that is how the Green Generation Initiative started. By asking myself what is it that I can do to make a contribution to the challenges that I see?

I cannot just sit back and be sad and be frustrated about it. There is actually something that maybe I can be able to do to actually create an environmentally conscious citizenry. Because I believe that if people are conscious of the environment, then they’re going to make the right choices for the planet and the right choices for the generations to come.

One of the beautiful things is that one of the forests that we are conserving today is that very forest that I planted my first tree at the age of seven. And so now we have embarked on to [00:36:00] making sure that we can restore it with communities and with other young people across the catchment. 

Gabrielle Beran: That is a beautiful story and, and it’s such a clear message you have there, Elizabeth, that to care for nature, we need to be involved with nature.

For listeners who are maybe not as familiar with, with Kenya or who are from other parts of the world, what are some of the climate-related challenges you see that you are coming up against and that worry you? Just to paint that picture a bit more for some of our listeners. 

Elizabeth Wathuti, O.G.W: In the recent past, we’ve had the worst drought in history, the worst drought in over 40 years.

News Reporter 4: Parts of Kenya, Ethiopia, and Somalia are suffering their driest conditions in more than 40 years. Harvests are ruined, animals are dying. More and more families are going hungry. 

Elizabeth Wathuti, O.G.W: And also, we’ve had instances where we’ve had the extreme flooding situations. 

News Reporter 5: An update now on the extreme flooding out of Kenya, officials say 40 people have died in Western Kenya after a [00:37:00] dam collapse there. More people are missing. The extreme flooding is causing schools to postpone their second terms, and nearby Tanzania and Burundi are also dealing with extreme flooding as well. 

Elizabeth Wathuti, O.G.W: We have challenges of food security which come also as a result of different challenges including crop failures because most of our food that we produce, including food that we export as food, that is produced from agriculture, that is actually rain fed, which means that if the rainfall patterns can no longer be predictable, then the farmers will have a difficult time to even know when to plant and when to harvest.

Back then, the farmers would know that this is a season for us to plant maize. This is a season for us to plant potatoes. This is a season for us to harvest. But now, with climate change, it’s almost impossible for the farmers to actually make this prediction, and it actually causes a lot of crop failures.

And in the end, we get the aspect of food insecurity that continues to affect a [00:38:00] lot of people, and especially the children and the women.

Gabrielle Beran: In this series we’ve been talking a lot about the gendered impacts of climate change. There is such a clear link between a climate crisis we are in and the power structures that we have right now. How do you see the link between gender and climate, and how can we change the messaging and the actions that we take in the future to respond to this power dynamic?

Elizabeth Wathuti, O.G.W: Every time we talk about the challenges of gender and climate change, I’m often reminded of the fact that women and girls, and especially here in Africa, are often the first to face the impacts of climate change. Even though they are the ones that are most impacted. Then they’re also the ones that are the first to lead the solutions, including them coming together, organising themselves to find solutions that would support their communities to do the table banking, to find even resources that could enable their families and [00:39:00] their communities to be able to even like build their own resilience to climate change.

And I’ve also seen women groups that have been able to come together to see how they can even plant and grow drought-resistant crops that can be able to help them overcome the climate-related shocks, like the droughts. These are opportunities that we can be able to take advantage of and see then how are we empowering solutions at the local level and going beyond seeing the challenge.

To actually seeing that the power lies within the communities. Those people that are closest to the problem are most often the ones that are closest to the solutions. And so what we need to be able to do is to resource them to strengthen their capacity and to make sure that we also trust them with leadership and ensure that they have whatever it takes to continue leading on those solutions.

And every time we discuss about climate finance, we need to hear how much of these allocation is going to support the solutions that women and girls are leading at the local level. I think for me, that is what [00:40:00] climate resilience looks like. It’s not sort of like looking at it from an aid perspective or a charity perspective, but from a point of strengthening what is already happening at the local level, because it is already happening.

Gabrielle Beran: Amazingly put, Elizabeth and I don’t if you were at COP last year, but I was, and I was immensely frustrated by what I saw is inequitable representation across a variety of different groups. How poorly represented global majority countries were, how poorly represented women were. And as you say, if those stories are not being heard the narrative will never change. 

Elizabeth Wathuti, O.G.W: Totally.

Gabrielle Beran: And there is amazing work, amazing work happening, and it sounds like your organisation is also doing incredible work. You’ve spoken to it a little bit more, but I want to give you some more space if you like, to talk about what you have seen happen with the work you do with young people, how your work with young people has evolved, how you have listened to communities and worked with them.

Elizabeth Wathuti, O.G.W: For [00:41:00] me, my work actually started by just making sure that young people across Africa could access decision-making spaces like the COPs. And that started with COP 27. And since then, we have actually had more than 175 young people supported through our programs for them to actually have access other COPs. And whether this means getting them funding to be there physically, accommodation, their accreditation passes for them to actually access the rooms where the decisions are being made.

But also, this has since shifted because we also see how much young people advocate on these spaces, and many times they’re met with applaud and kind words, and all that is something that when they get back home, it doesn’t really reflect back on people actually supporting the real work that is happening on the ground.

And that is why one of the programmes that we’ve actually started at the Green Generation Initiative is the Africa’s Next Green Leaders Accelerator, that is looking at Africa’s next ministers, next presidents, next leaders. What do we need to support [00:42:00] them with to actually get there? And how do we walk the whole journey with them?

And both in terms of accessing the spaces they need to access, but also helping them to scale their work. You know, resourcing them and ensuring that they have even the right funding for them to put their work to, to the ground, and even to either pilot if they need to pilot or scale the work, if they need to scale and link with investors, if that’s what the project needs at this moment.

And it’s really important that we have young people within these spaces, not only because we make up the world’s largest majority. But also because there is so much power in our innovations, in our creativity. And I can just cite a few examples of young people that I’ve seen do exemplary, amazing work to mention but a few. 

There is a young lady, by the name Isam MuTu from Ghana, who is actually making wine from waste tomatoes that normally would come from post harvest losses. And she’s making the wine packaging and selling it. At the same time, she’s cushioning the farmers who [00:43:00] would often be affected when we have the unpredictable weather patterns that cause their crop failures.

There’s also a young man in, in, in Senegal who is making biofuels from cactus. We need to see the young people for who they are. Most of the times people would feel and think as though involving and supporting young people is just by having a representative, maybe speaking in a panel somewhere. But I think this needs to go beyond the representation to actually ensure that, you know, we have an aspect of being able to co-create, to co-design, and to actually co-host.

Because when we say that we are giving young people a seat at the table, I think it has to go beyond just being given a seat at the table, because that means that every person within that table can be able to make a contribution. And the same goes to communities. If we begin to see communities as the solution providers, then I think we’ll have halfway solved the crisis that we are in today.

Leaders spend a lot of times in the conferences discussing solutions, [00:44:00] talking about what we think would work, but we speak about these things as though they were so far-fetched, but they already happening at the community level. So I think it’s time that we brought this community-led solutions and this work that is happening on the ground to the global forums and ask ourselves, how can we scale this?

And I think the moment we scale that, then we are not going to be looking for solutions elsewhere. And I think for me, that is where the power lies in being able to see and recognise and support that which is already happening at the local level. 

Gabrielle Beran: Fantastic. And I’m so glad you shared with our listeners those, particularly those two people, that people can Google them and find out more about the amazing work that, that they’re doing.

You raised a really interesting point there, Elizabeth, which is there are so many solutions and so many communities have had no other choice but to take on their adaptation and challenges themselves. But there is also these formal institutions and formal structures that we all have to interact with.

Have you got examples or particularly positive examples of [00:45:00] collaboration between maybe young people you work with, communities you work with, and either local, county or national government about climate, gender, youth, and, and sort of creating a climate secure future? 

Elizabeth Wathuti, O.G.W: Every time I’m asked this question, one of the key components and initiatives that come to my mind is one project that we are implementing through the water funds in Africa.

This is a model actually that is in the form of an endowment fund where the private sector, the governments, the communities, the water utility companies, everybody is coming together to be able to address the water problems upstream, so that the people downstream can be able to get water. And the people downstream in this case include the, again, the water utility companies that have to supply water to the city and, too, we also have the beverage companies that depend on this water to run their businesses.

So this water fund actually has made [00:46:00] a case to be able to ensure that every stakeholder understands that they must make a contribution because if they do not make a contribution, that it also affects what they do downstream. And it is in a way that the people downstream now put in the resource, they put in the money so that the communities upstream can be able to restore the catchments to be able to increase the water yields.

Everybody benefits. The community is the one that has the lands because they’re the ones who are located next to the water catchment areas. And so they are incentivised to take up certain land conservation measures, including being able to have the water ponds for them to harvest water and have like proper storage of the water.

And at the same time, they’re able to do like terracing. They’re also able to support in removing some of the, like the eucalyptus trees that have been drying up water streams for a long time. So they’re able to replace that with the indigenous trees. And also they’re able to plant the fruit trees within their farms.

They even have surplus that they sell to the market that yields them an [00:47:00] income. It means that they don’t go into the forest to destroy the trees or to cut down the trees because the program is in a way that it cautions them. It also supports them with clean cooking solutions, which means that the women, again, don’t have to walk every day to go and fetch firewood in the forest.

And the second one that I would mention is the Mau Forest conservation, which is sort of like a program that is looking at integrating conservation and livelihoods improvement programs for communities and also the Kaptagat Forest. And these two initiatives are different, but each of the initiatives are like supported and led by the community.

But the patrons of these two initiatives are actually, the principal secretaries within two ministries. One is the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change, that is the Mau Forest. And the other one is the Ministry of Treasury that continues to champion this for, I think, over seven years now. And I think the last engagement that I joined within the Capital Guard, for example, the communities were receiving the [00:48:00] high-value crops like the tea, like the coffee, the avocado tree seedlings.

For them to be able to embrace that and be able to embrace also like sustainable agriculture systems that could be able to support the catchments as well. 

Gabrielle Beran: What have you learned about working with government and with communities that other listeners and other people in your position could benefit from hearing?

What lessons have you learned maybe from mistakes or maybe from surprising things that have happened? 

Elizabeth Wathuti, O.G.W: One of the key things I have learned is how you can be able to work with the government, but at the same time, not necessarily on every aspect. You know, sometimes people are afraid to work with government because they feel that maybe there are certain things that are being done that they don’t maybe, stand for.

But at the same time, I think taking the collaborative approach where we ask ourselves what component can maybe this project or this [00:49:00] programme really make a higher impact? If I had maybe the support from the government or, or if I reached out to the government. 

And one of our biggest models has been that we always go and demonstrate. We go and showcase fast. We get so caught up in the processes of talking about what we need to do together, more just like planning out things without actually getting on the ground to get the work done. Then it gets the, the stakeholders on board because they already see that the work is happening. And of course, when work is happening, nobody wants to be left behind.

On Friday this week, we are going to be having a national day, which we call the Mazingira Day. So this is a day that is gonna be happening now for the second time now since it was launched by the President. 

News Reporter 6: PS Dr. Debora Barraza says the government uh, gets to plant another a hundred million trees saplings across primary schools in the country, during the Mazingira Day celebrations slated for the 10th of October.

Dr. Deborah Barasa: The choice of fruit trees this year is intentional. The fruit trees are life-giving. [00:50:00] They provide nourishment for our children, income for schools, and families. And they provide shade that cool our classrooms and improves learning environments. 

Elizabeth Wathuti, O.G.W: Last week, my team and I went round to see what has been changing in the schools that we planted fruit trees in, and I remember my former primary school, the kids already have been eating the fruits.

In fact, they’ve just come from a season where each kid in the school was able to eat an avocado each within their school meals, and now they’re waiting to make a second harvest.

What is happening is that some of this work that changes and makes an impact on the ground also directly or indirectly influences policy because the national environment is actually calling the whole country to go back to their former primary schools and plant and donate fruit trees. Many years back, when we started the organisation, I don’t think fruit trees [00:51:00] were a thing even for schools.

You know, people would go to schools and plant trees, sometimes even exotic trees that have no value. But right now, at least we see people are now insisting on planting trees that have value. And also, tree growing is something that people are talking about. I used to hear people say a lot about, let’s go plant trees. I planted a tree here. 

But today somebody will say plant, but they will quickly shift and say, oh, but we have to grow them. So I think this is something that is actually a culture that is, you know, being cultivated among people and seeing how, I think, I’ll call it the ground up approach where we demonstrate and we get people to actually begin to think differently.

Kandice Louis-Wilson: I love the story of the fruit trees in the schoolyards. I used to work in a residential treatment facility in Portland, Oregon, and one of the things that we had, we had blueberries, we had plum trees, apple trees all throughout. And that was something that when we did like nature walks, the children in residents there were allowed to like pick the fruit.[00:52:00] 

And we even had guests who lived, you know, throughout the community that that would come and be able to pick the fruit and eat the fruit. And it was such a resource for the community. It was also a place where people gathered to connect and talk. So I think there’s so much value in that, and not just providing food, but providing source of community, providing agency for our people to gather and connect.

So I absolutely love that idea, and I always just cringe a little bit when I see like these, like you say, the exotic plants, it’s like, why is this in front of a primary school? Like, what does this, what is this doing? Like. These kids don’t even know the value of this palm tree that’s sitting outside of there, but like putting a mango tree or fruit tree there, is a different valued asset.

I wanna pivot a little bit more into not just the changes to help support the projects, but how do we help platform climate leaders like yourself in this space? Like what could be happening and what changes could be made in the system so the voices like yours are amplified? 

Elizabeth Wathuti, O.G.W: Well, there are many things that can be done.

One, of course, is ensuring that this work [00:53:00] that is really happening on the ground is actually present in the places where the decisions are being made. And I know many times we have places where people are often speaking about communities, and those communities are not in those rooms. 

And two, of course, is the aspect of access. If there are spaces that could really be of much help to the work that we do, then we always appreciate to have access, to be able to demonstrate and showcase within these spaces. And this is whether it’s the global forums and the decisions are being made where forums, where people that could be interested to even support the work.

And three is we always talk about our work. We always document everything that we do. If you go to our social media platforms, our website, and the Green Generation Initiative, you’ll be able to see how we document this. And even for the story that I’ve just talked about with the kids and the fruit trees, when you go to our Instagram, you’re gonna find videos of us really joyous and so happy with the kids.

You know, [00:54:00] these are stories that I believe if shared widely could inspire a whole lot more people out there. Of course, people can also be able to support, with whichever way that they would want to support the programmes. It could be in terms of resource, it could be funding, it could be whichever way, new partnerships, new collaborations.

Part of the work that we are doing is scaling other youth-led innovations across Africa, and we do have a cohort right now of 21 young climate innovators from 11 countries across Africa. And we are working the journey with them, like I mentioned, to create Africa’s next ministers, next green leaders and making sure that they have every, all-around support that they need to be able to do the work that they do.

Having an all-round support where we can be able to get more people to even support the work that is going on at the at at the local level on the ground, it very much helps because it continues to give us opportunities to bring more of these stories to showcase more. And I believe the more we are able to transform different [00:55:00] perspectives to change and influence policy and get more and more people along with us to understand that change comes from the ground up.

Kandice Louis-Wilson: Our last question is something that we asked everyone in this space. And I wanna give you the opportunity to share as well, speak directly to the government figures and public servants listening to this podcast right now. And what do you need them to learn? 

Elizabeth Wathuti, O.G.W: The people that are driving the solutions on the ground, the communities, what they need is co-creation.

They don’t need to just be consulted. I think if we shift to a model of being able to ensure that communities and also the citizens have got a say in co-creating what happens, and this is maybe mostly at the national level and at the global level, then we can shift so much because many times we do not trust the communities to actually deliver and showcase and share what really works for them.

We need to look at communities as partners. We need to look at citizens as partners. Let’s come together, [00:56:00] let’s co-create. And the second thing is, let us move beyond speaking about things that we want or wish to do. Let us move beyond making commitments, making pledges, you know, we’ve had this over and over again.

Let us shift the real focus now to getting the work done on the ground. And if we cannot get the work done on the ground, communities are there ready, they’re doing it, they’re implementing. Let us shift the power down and support them to do much more. And I think we’ll have better impact that we can speak about.

Gabrielle Beran: Thank you so much, Elizabeth. I would encourage all our listeners to go and look at your Instagram. I’m sure we can add that to the show notes. I certainly enjoyed watching the video of you going through the schools.

Elizabeth Wathuti, O.G.W: Yeah. 

Gabrielle Beran: And, and sharing the fruit with the students there. Thank you so much for your time.

Wow. Kandice, what fascinating conversations we’ve been privileged to have with these young women. I mean, talk about inspirational.

Kandice Louis-Wilson: [00:57:00] It’s just so exciting to see young faces spotlighted in this. But also, they are leaders in this space as well and they are killing it. 

Gabrielle Beran: I think something that worries me though, is something that Fina said, and this line has stuck with me, where she asked what does it mean to have a life of activism and to be carrying that burden as someone so young.

I found that incredibly profound, and it ties back to conversations we’ve had as well with wiith Kumi about the mental health toll of.

Kandice Louis-Wilson: Yes.

Gabrielle Beran: Of climate action on young people and this increased pressure on, on young women and the other social pressures that they experience and adding climate to that. 

Kandice Louis-Wilson: It’s so funny that she referenced Kumi because that was immediately where my mind went to. And thinking about Kumi, who’s on the other side of that, who’s been now doing this for decades, is still having that same conversation about what that looks like. What is mental health? How do we protect the mental sanity and ability and capacity of the people that are in this particular work? 

Gabrielle Beran: Two other reflections that really struck me speaking with Fina, and she spoke about feeling frustrated. That people who are older were thanking her for her work. And again, it’s something I’ve [00:58:00] come back to when we interact with young people who are disrupting what would otherwise perhaps be, maybe an ordinary life. You know, Fina’s doing this incredible work while she’s trying to study and we thank them.

What does that say? If, if we thank rather than stand alongside? It really does pass that burden. And the other thing that I brought into my work at at CPI, you know, something we’re talking a lot about is how do we work, you know, we work so much at CPI about systems change, about inclusive spaces, about equity, about bringing conversations together.

And inevitably in climate, there will be people who do think that the climate crisis absolutely is not a problem. 

Kandice Louis-Wilson: Oh yeah. 

Gabrielle Beran: It’s something we’ve spoken about on this podcast with the manosphere, and I think what Fina really helped me to understand is that while I feel immense anger, stress, frustration, that we’re in this position, and you know, I, I’m not quite 35, so I’m gonna count myself as relatively young.

There’s actually anger from both sides, and all sides have anger on this issue, and so it’s really reminded me that. So, while I might think I’m an empathetic person, [00:59:00] Fina really gave me a listen and empathy that day, and I’m really, really grateful for that. 

Kandice Louis-Wilson: It’s one thing to think, you know, and think you understand, but I think something I’ve just gotten from all of the conversations that we had is that I know nothing.

Just when you thought, you know, one thing, there’s five more things to learn about that one particular thing. But I do appreciate these conversations. They have schooled us on issues that me and, you know, my first-world American mindset don’t even grapple with. ‘Cause if I think of, back to our conversation with Elizabeth, one thing that really stuck with me was the idea of moving beyond commitment and pledges.And actually getting the work done. 

And it’s so easy to stay in that space of good intention, right? But she really challenged us to step into action, to move past talking about change and start doing the work that communities have been asking for. And something that she said that’s been sitting with me was, the line she used, co-creation, not consultation.

And that shift changes everything and means we’re not just inviting the people to the table to get feedback, we’re building the table with them. And it’s about shifting that [01:00:00] power so the voices of communities aren’t just heard, they’re leading. You see what’s possible. And I loved hearing her talk about communities like having access to their own food sources.

I thought that was the coolest thing ever, like to have like food trees, like me as a student, that would be so distracting, but I get it right. Like there, that it would be like, Kandice, why are you always in the hallways? But also just thinking about how empowering that is for communities. There’s something so powerful about that, about people being able to sustain themselves, their families and their land in ways that are, you know, they, that they honour both tradition and the planet.

And if we’re serious about equity, we can’t stop at promises. We have to co-create. 

Gabrielle Beran: We’ve made it to the end of this six-episode journey, Kandice, and you and I are still talking to each other, so that’s a good sign. 

Kandice Louis-Wilson: I know. I, I think we’re like work besties now.

Gabrielle Beran: Yeah. This is it.

Kandice Louis-Wilson: I mean, yeah, lowkey.

Gabrielle Beran: I mean you’ve already made some amazing reflections about, about what this podcast has taught you, and I completely agree.

I think the thing I’ve really been struck by as well is yes, climate, gender, access to water, access [01:01:00] to food, disability rights, climate justice, social justice. Yes, these are all intersectional, connected, complex issues. However, what our guests have also made very clear is that there is a simplicity to this.

As Eleni said, it’s, we redesign our cities with heat as a massive factor. Surely that’s not beyond any architects or, or urban designers. As Kumi said, we turn off the flow of fossil fuels. These messages are, are clear and simple and, and the, the rallying cry to be bold and brave is there. And so I really hope that people who maybe are feeling a little discouraged, or tired or having their days of going, of pessimism, which we are all will have in the, in the in, in climate work.

Remember that one, you’re not alone. And two, there is, there is so much inspiration out there.

Kandice Louis-Wilson: I just think about Elizabeth and Daniella and Eleni, and all of those like folks that were just so excited about the work they were doing. They bring so much joy and excitement to it. And through [01:02:00] every conversation from the season I learned so much about what it means to lead differently, to listen deeply.

That last question, that final question we asked, like, what do you want government to know. As I’m doing this work at CPI, how can I make sure that I’m listening through that lens? Not just with climate work, but in every work that we do? Because you could take these things and transfer them to every problem that we look to solve, right?

And so, like, I really took note of that. It’s like, what do, what do people need to for us as people working with government right. To understand. And of course I was so honoured to work alongside with you this season. I, I feel like I was not the smartest person in this conversation all the time.

‘Cause I, I don’t come from climate, but I also was just like elated to just work with you. I was fangirling about your knowledge about certain things, and it made me be like, I need to go look that up. So I was just grateful to be a part of these conversations. I feel like it’s just the beginning and I can’t wait to keep learning, growing and co-creating with everyone, as we continue to do this work together.

Gabrielle Beran: [01:03:00] Thank you so much, Kandice. The listeners, you can’t see this, but I’m obviously blushing. And a shout out as well to our podcast producers, Graeme and Kim, who’ve done an amazing job. 

Kandice Louis-Wilson: Absolute, absolutely.

Gabrielle Beran: Keeping us under control. We are, you know, we’ve had our diva moments as, as you can all imagine. I’m just joking.

And I think that’s, that’s the messaging. Can we, can, Kandice, you and I have had this incredible privilege. Can we bring this back to our work and, and to the people we work with? 

Kandice Louis-Wilson: Yes. 

Gabrielle Beran: If, if you’re listening to this, if you work in government, if you want to chat about some of the things we’ve spoken about, if you want to think more systemically, if you want to think about relational practices about using imagination to, to repair community government relationships. If you’re interested in de-siloing the work you do and being more connected, I’m currently in the middle of a project about climate finance, that you wanna talk nerd climate finance stuff with me. Do reach out.

We’re pretty friendly. Yes, and as I said, let’s see what happens next season. 

Thank you for listening to this episode and this series [01:04:00] of Reimagining Government. If you enjoyed this episode, there’s five others. Do go back and have a listen. This has been a special series on climate and gender brought to you by the Centre for Public Impact.

If you want to learn more about the work we do at CPI, check out our website at centreforpublic.orgimpact.org.

Kandice Louis-Wilson: If you enjoyed this episode and series, please consider rating and reviewing on your podcast app. It only takes a few seconds, and it helps us reach more people and keep the show going. And as we said, all series, it’s also just nice to be nice. So consider it your good deed for the day. 

Gabrielle Beran:Oh, I’m gonna miss you saying that, Kandice. I’m Gabrielle. 

Kandice Louis-Wilson: And I’m Kandice. Goodbye for now. 

Gabrielle Beran: Bye.