Njeri Mwagiru is a Senior Futurist at the Institute of Futures Research at the University of Stellenbosch and she leads the African Futures portfolio.
Her work focusses on strengthening the capabilities of individuals, organisations and countries in Africa, to navigate complexity and uncertainty, to realise long-term visions. In this interview Njeri discusses how leaders apply what they know to take decisions and act in directions of change. Her story of her journey correlates with her research interests of leadership, gender, diversity, inclusivity and transformation.
Interviewed by: Peter Hayward
More about Njeri
Linkedin: Institute for Futures Research
Institute for Futures Research: The Institute for Futures Research
Audio Transcript
Peter Hayward
Hello, and welcome to Futurepod. I'm Peter Hayward. Futurepod gathers voices from the International field of futures and foresight. Through a series of interviews founders of the field and emerging leaders share their stories, tools and experiences, please visit futurepod.org for further information about this podcast series. Today, our guest is Njeri Mwagiru, a senior futurist at the Institute for Futures Research at the University of Stellenbosch Business School and she leads the African Futures portfolio. Njeri has a Master's in international relations from the University of the Witswatersrand and also holds a PhD in business administration from the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business. Her work focuses on strengthening capabilities of individuals organization and countries in Africa to navigate complexity and uncertainty to realize long term goals and visions. Her research interests include leadership, organizational performance, knowledge, gender and diversity, inclusivity and transformation. Her vocation is to support knowledge sharing and exchange to facilitate integrated strategic planning, and enhance evidence based decision making and high performance to achieve desired futures. Welcome to Futurepod Njeri.
Njeri Mwagiru
Thank you so much Peter. Thank you for having me on Futurepod.
Peter Hayward
It's a pleasure. So Njeri, question one is the one where I encourage the guests to tell their story of how they became a member of the futures and foresight community. So what is your story?
Njeri Mwagiru
Thanks for allowing me to share my story of how I became a member of the futures and foresight community. I actually would like to share from how I first became aware of uses of the future and how I slowly came into my journey with futures thinking and strategic foresight. And perhaps when I may think, or share, that my official entry into the community began. So I would say that really from early age, and this is thanks to my upbringing, I've been aware of uses of the future and the value of thinking about the future and preparing for the future. My mom is an environmentalist, and always raised us with an awareness and consciousness about environmental issues and climate change. She worked with the United Nations Environment Program, which has its headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya. I was born in Nairobi, Kenya. She would come home with stickers, you know, on save the seas, save the whales, stop green warming. So that was our childhood, and an awareness of how our behavior today will affect the World of Tomorrow is something that was inculcated in us very young. And then on the other side, my dad was a sociologist. So he brought in more of that societal angle, and how we behave as societies, also in terms of where we're coming from, those cultural stories, myths, the norms. We're an all girl family, so it also was part of his educating us that it's not a gender neutral world. And really, if you want to negotiate your way through this world, you need to have an awareness of the patterns, the obstacles you may face, and prepare very young. So we went for self defense training, and there was always an awareness of, you know, prepare for the world that you will engage as you grow up as women in a non gender neutral society. Then one perhaps last anecdote from childhood and when futures became a tool for motivation, is my father would love to take us for long walks, very long walks, and we would be exhausted and thirsty and hungry, and we would play this game: he would ask us to say when we get there when we get to where we are going, and he would never give us a time because you don't want to tell a young child that is about a half hour's walk, you just say when we get there, when we get to where we're going, what are we going to find? And then we would say we're going to find pizza. And he said and what else are we going to find? We're going to find soda and ice cream. And he would play his game for the half hour or 45 minutes of the walk that it would take for us to reach our destination. So just an anecdote that I think my parents used the future and brought us up with an awareness of the future in many ways.
Peter Hayward
That's remarkable. You must now look back at that and realize how fortunate you were to be exposed to so many different knowledge disciplines, as you were growing up,
Njeri Mwagiru
Absolutely Peter. And I have to say, thank you for the opportunity to think about my story with the future in this way. Because prior to perhaps preparing for this conversation, I might not have thought about these anecdotes in this way. But in reflecting on actually, since when have I been thinking around the future, or have I been aware of the future and how it impacts our actions today, is when I reflected on my childhood using this lens. And also, both my parents were academics and highly valued education. So there was also that consistent reminder of the value of education, investing now with benefits for later. And I suppose also growing up in an academic household is a huge privilege, and has contributed to my academic journey as well. But I think the fact that they invested in education and made us aware of that fact, like, we're doing this now, so that later there will be benefits that will repay not only yourself professionally, but the larger community of which you're a part and contribute to changing the society. So definitely that's been a huge part of how we've been socialized.
Peter Hayward
The family was a rich learning environment. But when did you move into the formal space?
Njeri Mwagiru
The formal journey, I would say, began with my BA studies, when I did a degree in integrative studies, and I focused on psychology, education and development. I would say that's when I really became interested in trajectories of change, and human development. So psychology, childhood development stages, how do we mature at a very personal level? Then also education, how do we learn? How do we transfer knowledge? How do we access wisdom? How do we learn from experience? Then development, how do all of these systems contribute to how societies are moving forward, and how are we advancing, growing and learning as larger collectives and in terms of a macro environment. So I would say my interest in change, patterns of change how we shift from one state to another was from my BA. That's also when I learned what was a BA in integrative studies, because we were exposed to quite a number of fields. That's when I had an opportunity to learn about the Rwanda genocide. And I mention this because it was one of the trigger points that led me to study international relations for my Masters. When we were learning about the Rwanda genocide, I was completely shocked to come to the realization that, as leaders at an individual level, but also at an organizational level, in terms of the UN and the various bodies that had pre knowledge and information and had anticipatory intelligence of the atrocities that would occur in Rwanda, that the knowledge and the awareness of what could come and the early warning signals did not trigger the requisite action to avoid those particular atrocities, didn't trigger the actions to avoid the genocide. I think that's when I realized it is important to engage with trajectories of change, and also our agency in those trajectories of change. It's not enough to have information and knowledge and to have an awareness of the future. One has to really have an awareness of how you act therefore, given those insights. Then, for my MA, I went more into international relations, because I wanted to understand how decisions are made that determine the trajectory of for instance, nations, like Rwanda, but also many African countries given the colonial heritage and imperialism. I wanted to understand more about the policy direction of Africa. So the international relations program at Wits University in Johannesburg really introduced us to that, and that's when I became more familiar with realism, neoliberalism, the issues of macro economic structural adjustment, and the various trajectories of development that have taken the continent since post independence in the 1960s, and 1970s, through to the debt crisis in the 1980s, the autocratic period and lack of democracy in the 1990s to just around the 2000s when we began speaking about the 21st century being the century for Africa. During my MA we were a group of highly diverse African students, and we had an experience where there was a limitation in terms of our ability to question the policy narrative, and the trajectories of African Development that were being taught to us. And at the time, we were just extremely frustrated. But later on, we came to understand that we were studying policy frameworks that were in place, and therefore it was a matter of understanding how to implement them. What are the structures? What are the challenges one might face? What are the changes, organizational changes in order to ensure these policy approaches are embedded? And the conversation really wasn't one where we could question the rationality of the policies, and what the fit was. So is a strong neoliberal approach in weak developing economies in an African context, just recovering from in many instances, one party states or emerging from conflict, is that the right policy approach for the continent? It wasn't a narrative or discussion we could have during our MA, and I found that extremely frustrating. So for my PhD, and now we are coming closer to my formal introduction to futures, and the futures community, I engaged more with a conversation around organizational leadership and knowledge. How do leaders apply what they know, to take decisions and to act in directions of change? I was thinking here primarily from this development trajectory that I had taken in my masters. What are the possibilities for African Development? What are the trajectories for change for our communities for our countries, and therefore how do we as individuals, as professionals, in our careers, take actions or apply our agency to achieve those policy directions and changes? It was something I wanted to explore in my PhD specifically with the lens of leadership, again, influenced by some of the questions that had been raised as I became exposed to the shortcomings of how we had engaged with the Rwanda genocide. Questions around how do we actually align ourselves to the futures we want to achieve and those that we want to avoid? How do we establish those linkages between agency, capability to act, insights and information and knowledge about current contexts and emerging contexts? Then finally, the action that we need to take, given all of those factors and, of course, the multiple uncertainties that the context, especially an African context presents. In my PhD research, I learned about learning organizations and that is when I officially became aware of the field of future studies of strategic foresight of some of the tools like scenario planning, the work of Clem Sunter, the work of Peter Senge, also some ideas from Otto Scharmer really informed how I began thinking around organizational change and transformation driven by leadership with a long term perspective and adequate decision making capabilities. And of course, from a lens of diversity and inclusion so we can ensure that the narratives could be questioned. I was so frustrated from my experience during the MA, and I figured we need contexts where we can go back to the informing ideas that guide our policymaking and really begin to shape and reshape the narrative as necessary, across various contexts and for various interests. So that's when I officially became aware of futures. My colleagues and I started our own consultancy, called Scenario Horizons, to assist organisations to apply scenarios, scanning weak signals, and thinking around the context of Africa not being very data rich, how can we use the information and data available to us to read what the emerging possibilities may be, and engage with leadership around appropriate decision making to achieve their agendas? Then, through our work in executive education, we did a number of projects, I was introduced to the Institute for Futures Research, which is where I'm currently working now. I would say that is when I professionally officially in 2018, became a senior futurist when I was recruited as part of the Institute for Futures Research. I'm still working towards my credentials. I don't have any academic qualifications in futures, and I think I would like to grow in that direction to ensure I am embedded as a proper member of the foresight community.
Peter Hayward
Yeah, I'm sure you're a proper member now. It is interesting, I mean, as you were speaking, and I'm sure you've noticed this, that when people in leadership roles, see their decision choices, they often are not aware of the implicit, preferred future that those decisions are moving towards. Its always struck me as interesting that people can be so embedded in the moment of the decision to not step back and say, but where would this end up?
Njeri Mwagiru
Yeah.
Peter Hayward
Have you got any thoughts on often why decision makers just get seemingly trapped inside a view, as to these are the only decisions we can make?
Njeri Mwagiru
Thanks for that question. I will bring you back to the reflections that started for me around the Rwanda genocide. I was really emotionally shaken by that, for many reasons. I think it's because I was in Kenya at the time when it was unfolding and we're all very close, we're close knit family in East Africa. So we were aware of what was happening, and it wasn't until a few years later that I understood the steps and the dynamics and the issues and all the complexities that had surrounded the events unfolding as they did. Initially, I was extremely frustrated, as my mom had worked for the UN, so I'd had some exposure to the organization, I was at least aware of, what their stated purpose was and their mandate. So I was initially extremely frustrated that I felt the UN organization hadn't acted at the time, especially when Kofi Annan was Secretary General. I was a bit disillusioned in terms of the role of leadership, and as you mentioned, why doesn't the leadership take the decisions that they need to take? But in later years in my engagement with the UN in different capacities, through, for instance, a UN Leadership Program that we collaborated with the UN System Staff College on, I became aware of organizational constraints. This is also a topic that interested me in my PhD. The structures and cultures within which leaders operate have got massive constraints. The decision making processes are slow, there's a lot of bureaucracy, the pace perhaps for urgent and crisis action is not adequate necessarily, if there are other priorities as well, as is the case in an organization such as the UN, and if there are competing priorities, then that just adds to the various challenges in taking certain decisions within a certain timeframe of urgency. So I would say I've become more understanding of the fact that the agency of leadership is also operational and functional within particular contexts, and those contexts have got challenges. There needs to be a conversation around how can we shift our organizational structures and cultures, with leadership at the helm, but getting everybody on board so that we can have conducive environments to also enable leadership to take requisite decisions.
Peter Hayward
Second question, is I encourage the guest to talk about a framework or an approach that they use in their work that they believe is central to how they do their practice. So what do you want to talk about?
Njeri Mwagiru
It's an interesting point to reflect on. And I would like to share that what I appreciate around strategic foresight and futures thinking is the ability to tailor it to context. So I love that there are a range of methods and various tools to select from. And in reflecting on which one do I prefer, I found that I really couldn't take a decision because I like the application of each in the context within which they were applied. So I would say that, I appreciate that. I've found the two by two method works in conversations or in initiatives where you can narrow down to two very sort of clear sets of uncertainties or areas that are critical. But in other contexts, a CLA method might might be more appropriate, especially where you're dealing in highly political issues, and you need to have a conversation in different terms, to release the dynamic. So you begin to speak more in metaphor and apply symbolism, and that can release the tension when you talk about one thing in terms of another.
Peter Hayward
I'm going to stop you there, I want you to explain a bit more about that. You've talked about two quite distinct contexts that you'd be working in. So you talk about in one context, the two by two, is a beautiful way to structure uncertainty have a structured conversation. And then in another context, that wouldn't work, but something like a CLA, which is a fundamentally different approach. Now, what are you sensing? How would you be choosing those approaches? In other words, what would you be basing your decision on that, in fact, I think CLA is going to work well, or I think two by two. So I'm going to take you a bit further into your assessment of the context.
Njeri Mwagiru
Certainly, thank you, Peter, for prodding the conversation further. I would expand on it by sharing perhaps two examples of work that I'm currently engaged in. One is the South African Platinum Group Metals Industry Roadmap. We are working with a range of stakeholders towards developing a roadmap for the development and advancement of the Platinum group metals industry in South Africa into the next 15 years or so. It's highly technical environment, there's been quite a lot of data and research, quantitative information available, projections in terms of prices, commodities, markets. While it is also a very political context, I would say there's consensus and clarity in terms of what the challenges are that the industry is facing, and the general preferred direction for the roadmap. So the general preferred future out of a number of alternatives. So the conversations there have been more conducive to a two by two framework, because now we want to engage more in conversations around capabilities. What are the skills and capabilities available to build towards preferred futures, and also conversations around for instance, policy frameworks, and governance issues. Then, another project that we recently completed is The Africa Governance Report 2021, which is looking at African governance futures in 2063. This was a large project in partnership with the African Peer Review Mechanism, an organ of the African Union that is focused on promoting good governance on the continent. This was a much more, highly politicized project, transparently so, and we found that in this context, where there was debate on numerous levels down to definitions, so what do we mean by democracy? What do we mean by accountability? It was very difficult to find consensus on even basic definitions to shape problems, to shape a question. Here we found that CLA was helpful, especially also because we're dealing with multicultural stakeholders, with representatives from African countries across the continent, Francophone, Anglophone, Arabic speaking and across generations. So here we found a more CLA, tone and lens was helpful to get to the essence of the meaning or to make sense of the various dynamics and complexity that the project unearthed. Also because it was a very political and politicized environment, there are terms that could and could not be used given protocols. So having ability to think broadly or, you know, in terms of different ways of expressing concepts was helpful.
Peter Hayward
I would imagine that a CLA in that situation is as much about people learning the fundamental differences. In other words, people might agree as to what's on the surface, they may well agree about what's happening at the social cause level. But when you get down into the meaning and the myth level, they are actually quite distinct viewpoints.
Njeri Mwagiru
Yes, that is indeed what we found. And those distinct viewpoints are on fundamental issues like democracy and strong leadership. Can you have a benevolent dictator? Questions which influenced the kinds of governance futures that are preferred
Peter Hayward
Good. What was the third example you wanted to talk about?
Njeri Mwagiru
The intuitive logics approach, and to contrast that with a more quantitative methods approach. So, admittedly, I've come from a humanities background, I would say social sciences. I've been exposed to quantitative methodologies more so during my PhD at the business school, but I tend more towards qualitative approaches. I would say that is where my interests lie. But yeah, I really enjoy the intuitive logics approach, especially when you get to work intimately, in our case at the IFR, with clients or with various stakeholders, co-creating futures and really leveraging off their experience. Because I'm interested in knowledges, whose knowledge and how do we learn? And how do we transfer wisdom. The intuitive logics approach I find, enables us to engage leaders in a way that allows them to tap their tacit knowledge and to surface their expertise, perhaps in ways that they were not even aware of themselves. So I particularly appreciate that approach, especially in more intimate settings where you're dealing with a smaller grouping of decision makers.
Peter Hayward
One of the difficulties I found is that often when we did futures work, we would tend to lean into the kind of intuitive or the qualitative because they seemed more amenable to manage uncertainty. And yet, the lingua franca of decision makers tend to want facts, trends, data, in terms of how they actually make decisions. And often I found if you started on a qualitative dialogue inquiry method, it was difficult to get back to actually assisting leaders in making decisions. I wonder whether you've wrestled with that.
Njeri Mwagiru
That's interesting, I would like to reflect on it more actually. I need to think on have we applied an intuitive logics approach towards decision making? I'll say I'd have to think about it more. But I will definitely agree that decision making has not necessarily been the primary outcome when those approaches have been applied, I would say we've applied it more in terms of strategic sound boarding, and enabling leadership to think around the decisions they may have to make. And then sort of releasing them to feed that into decision making processes such as strategic planning, or more operational levels approaches to do with technical aspects of their positions of their businesses, of their organizations.
Peter Hayward
I mean, if you come from a learning organization approach, you are trying to improve the quality of the conversations and the learnings of the people in the organization. But now when you pivot back to a planning model, isn't there always a risk that you lose a lot of the richness from the conversation where people have to move into the pragmatic and practical things of saying, so what are we going to measure? What are we going to fund? And what are we going to do?
Njeri Mwagiru
I would hope not, I would hope that it actually enriches those decisions. But I've been following a conversation actually on the Association for Professional Futurists email listserve, on the importance of evaluating the outcomes of our futures processes. And I think your question speaks to that. And I would agree that perhaps this is an aspect that it would be worthwhile to follow up on and see, to what extent do these conversations feed into decision making processes in a way that adds value or perhaps creates a tangible shift one way or another? But I would certainly hope that it does. Do I have any evidence that it has done so? Not necessarily thinking about it now, but it's definitely a good question to reflect on.
Peter Hayward
Thanks, Njeri. And Njeri, third question, the one where, how do you see the futures emerging around you? And I mean, that from a couple of viewpoints, one is just simply as a citizen of the world, as a person sitting in South Africa, as an educated female. How do you sense the emerging futures? What are you paying attention to? What gets you excited, what gets you scared?
Njeri Mwagiru
The futures I'm sensing emerging around me I would like to speak to with reference to my current work, but also my interest, as I've also shared, in terms of the development of the continent, our trajectory into our futures. I'm really affirmed and excited by the fact that we have policy frameworks such as the Agenda 2063 blueprint for African futures. These policy frameworks first and foremost, I think are noteworthy in and of themselves and the processes through which they came into being. Then we're also seeing increasingly, outcomes and projects, initiatives related to, for example, the Agenda 2063 flagship initiatives taking effect. So the Africa Continental Free Trade Area came into effect on the first of January 2021 and this is driving towards realizing a future of an economically integrated continent as stipulated as one of the aspirations of the Agenda 2063. So from an African futures perspective, professionally, but also in terms of my personal interests, and my academic focus and research, it's a really exciting time to see the ways in which futures thinking, long term planning, strategic foresight is being applied to drive the continents development, and our governance approaches as well. I feel that initiatives such as the African Continental Free Trade Area, are significant also because they open a channel for significant and substantial change in terms of harmonization of policy to ensure free movement of capital, people, ideas, services, goods. I'm very excited about that, because, as I mentioned, having studied some of the international relations, policy frameworks and conditionality that we've been committed to, that have not worked and evidence has shown that they have not worked or have worked only to a certain extent with negative impacts that perhaps don't compensate for the gains. But that's that's another conversation. I'm really excited that there seems to be a focus on looking ahead and thinking creatively and innovatively about how to achieve the Africa we want, the futures that we want. Those are the futures I see emerging around us. Also a willingness to engage with the youth demographic, and an understanding that the futures will be created by this new generation and inviting them to the table of decision making and creating those strategic spaces for the youth voice to shape the policy and to shape strategic action. So what kinds of economic restructuring and structural change are we talking about outside of the dominant economic narrative, you know, of industrialization, manufacturing, etc. Are there any other ideas, wishes, that the younger voices amongst us would like to share and could be actioned if we engage them seriously. So I think it's an exciting time for the continent, amidst a lot of challenges and struggle, I don't want to sweep over that with a wave of optimism. There are certainly obstacles and risks that that we continue to face, especially around for instance, conflict, insecurity, as well as a general sense of social unrest and a feeling of increasing urgency in terms of where that unrest may pop. I still feel that even these challenges are being looked at from a long term lens in terms of the causal of issues of inequality, the wicked problems, that will take a long term engagement to unpack and resolve.
Peter Hayward
That's, you know, you've given us the good geopolitical analysis of the African continent. I want to talk about you as a professional woman. How do you see the future from that emergence?
Njeri Mwagiru
I think that as I mentioned, my upbringing encouraged us to think around how we would negotiate the world as we went through academic and professional careers. I also went to a girls boarding school where we were really encouraged to think around what we want to do, and our educators really worked hard to ensure that we were aware multiple options are available to us. We can be engineers, we can go into science, we can go into politics and leadership, we can lead banks. So I would say that I have had mentors all along the way that have reinforced that message, that have reinforced one, the agency that I have, if you work hard, and if you apply yourself appropriately, and mentors that have encouraged me to continue exploring what my potential and capacity can be. And beyond that, really assisting to create contexts, within which I can also explore that potential and capacity. So, I've had mentors that have continuously shown me that the path continues, and there are broader possibilities to continue exploring professionally. And even now within the Institute for Futures Research, the African futures portfolio is relatively new, the Institute has been in existence since 1974, and the African futures portfolio was introduced in 2017, I believe, and there's a lot of room for growth. There's a lot of room to explore how I as a futurist would wish to explore growing an African futures desk at the University of Stellenbosch Business School. I really appreciate the fact that the future has never been contained for me. It has always been open and doors have continually been opened for me as well, and I've had accompaniment as I walk through. So perhaps I would say that's how I'm engaging with futures. I tend to perhaps, maybe uncharacteristically of a futurist, I'm quite comfortable with engaging with uncertainty, and I wouldn't say I have a career plan per se, I know what I would like to contribute towards, I would like to contribute towards, the advancement of the African continent in whichever way possible, from community level to sectoral engagements to governance, leadership, policy. Wherever I can make a difference, or contribute my work, that is what I would like to do. As to the how I'm really open to see where the path leads.
Peter Hayward
Good, thanks Njeri. Fourth question, the communication question, how do you describe or explain what you do to people who don't necessarily understand what it is you do?
Njeri Mwagiru
Yeah, I do that quite a lot. Explain what I do to people who don't necessarily understand what I do. So a lot of what I do is awareness, building around futures thinking and strategic foresight, and the value of a long term approach to how we engage in our personal growth, in our family and communities, in our organizations, and broader. So I engage in conversations, often the first question I get is, what do you do? I'm a futurist. A futurist. Yes. What does a futurist do? Then usually, my first response is I research the future, or I study the future, and then that normally kicks off a conversation, sometimes a giggle, then I normally say I'm serious, I really do do that. When they say really, what does that mean? Then I will share what it means. I normally share from environmental scanning and tracking the trends, I try to situate it in a way that would make sense for a current engagement in terms of whoever I'm engaging with. So I say, if we look around at our world today, and if we look around and see what's happening, and the changes occurring, and then I'll introduce the long term thinking perspective and lens, normally from that angle, and then sometimes talk also around stories of the future, or invite whoever I'm engaging with to think around their future. So a question I might pose just to trigger the thinking or conversation might be have you thought where you would like to be in five years? Or does your organization have a 10 year plan? Do you know what the vision of your organization is? Or if I'm engaging with faith communities, for instance, what does your faith or your spiritual tradition say about the future? So I try to open conversations that allow me also to embed what I do in a way that's relatable.
Peter Hayward
Given what we've been through for the last 12 months. Do you think it's going to change the way that you explain what it is you do?
Njeri Mwagiru
That's an interesting question. I imagine you're referring to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the subsequent lockdown that many of us have experienced. Yes, so it will definitely be part of the conversations. Currently, interestingly enough, the futures angle when I've engaged in conversations around COVID have been to do with the environmental aspects. So the fact that there are continuing crisis, including climate change crises, the interlinkage, through this sort of zoonotic connection with the COVID-19. The destruction of our natural habitats and the encroachment of our human civilizations with natural habitat areas are perhaps one of the major causes of the COVID-19 pandemic, and do we see, increasing occurrences of this kind of events going forward? So I would say that more of the environmental angle has been the conduit for the futures engagement when you talk around the pandemic. Perhaps because it's been such a crisis oriented moment that has focused a lot of people on the now and job losses, loss of loved ones, uncertainty as to very immediate dates of when is school opening, or when will we return to our offices. A conversation of what next after COVID, perhaps, is what's happening in pundit circles and those that are engaging in scenario planning of COVID scenarios. But in my interpersonal engagements, I would say there's more anxiety to do with the current demands of the crises, and futures conversations have really been around well, this is just one crisis, amongst many we may be facing, including climate change. Wasn't it a lack of respect for the environment, that brought us here in the first place? And therefore where are we headed in the future? There could be droughts and floods and earthquakes. So the climate crisis, I think, drives a futures conversation in terms of my current interpersonal engagements much more.
Peter Hayward
It's an interesting point, if you're saying that this actually meant people actually are prepared to talk long term futures about large factors because of a local impact of something.
Njeri Mwagiru
Yes, absolutely. Peter, you put it very well that way.
Peter Hayward
The other thing too, which I'm again, I'm interested in this, because I look around, how different countries have responded to the virus, and particularly in terms of the outcomes achieved. It does seem that some relatively poor, lower developed countries have actually handled this emergency much better than so called highly developed countries.
Njeri Mwagiru
Yes, I think that first, I would wish to highlight the female leadership angle, given my interest in gender, that data has shown that countries with women leaders have performed exceptionally well. I think that definitely warrants mentioning and also further exploration in terms of what are the implications of that. Or what are the conditions under which that came to be. But I know that there were worse anticipated outcomes than what we're currently experiencing across African countries, and the jury is out as to why. It could be due to the high disease burden that a lot of African populations are already exposed to. The idea that there is an auto immune resilience, perhaps developed within the population? I know, that's one of the theories. There's also the climate theory. So could it be an environmental factor, which wouldn't really stand because I think that we've seen worse outcomes in similarly warm environments in other countries or in other regions of the world. So I think the jury is out in terms of, first and foremost, how the pandemic has impacted us in terms of the virus itself. And then how we have responded. African countries have been praised, I believe, by the World Health Organization for taking a strong approach, initially. This seems to have contributed to some extent to the low infection rates and the low mortality. There's also of course, the issue of lack of data and low testing. So we could be blind perhaps to some aspects of how the pandemic is unfolding and the patterns of that. Yeah, so let me say I don't have a conclusive response in terms of have we responded better than other countries, but certainly we're faring better. I think that's due to multiple reasons. I know that internally in various countries, there is an ongoing debate as to whether or not the responses have been appropriate, and are they warranted perhaps in terms of the severity. Are they being taken advantage of in terms of democratic processes? So I can share that internally, the response is being critiqued at a number of levels. But overall, the pandemic has not currently, hit the continent as badly as was expected.
Peter Hayward
Yeah, I would imagine that we will be learning and using what we've found in order to influence decision makers as to how they make decisions and what decisions they have to consider making.
Njeri Mwagiru
Definitely. I know that the Ebola crisis has allowed the continent to develop some experience with developing responses to pandemics, to highly infectious pandemics, and there's a lot of lessons that are coming from that and that we're being able to cultivate and apply now with COVID-19. So some immediate experience that is informing our responses going forward.
Peter Hayward
So we're at the last question, Njeri, what do you want to talk about with the listeners?
Njeri Mwagiru
Well, perhaps I could ask you a question Peter
Peter Hayward
Go for it
Njeri Mwagiru
I would like to find out from you what your views are on African futures.
Peter Hayward
I'll start by saying my anecdotal sense of Africa, which of course, it's a big continent with many, many countries on many, many different trajectories. As I look around the globe, and listen to my colleagues, I see a lot of what I think is, first world is into overshoot. In other words, their social conditions, their economic conditions, they appear to be facing more and more constraints and more and more difficulties. We're seeing declining standards in some Western countries, declining life expectancy, that kind of thing. I also, anecdotally suspect that there's other parts of the world that are actually seeing the future as being one of opening up. So while the dominant first world is possibly in constrained or declining conditions, I see Africa as one of those places that may well be more energized by the possibilities coming from the future. Now, whether that's a reality, as I said, that's merely a perception, because I look at the fact that in terms of economics, in terms of a number of things that Africa may be younger, may have a younger mindset, and a more optimistic agency driven mindset, possibly even see that Africa could move faster, and learn from things that have clearly gone wrong in places like the West. And so for me, futures, might well be at that exciting point where there are many, many possibilities and a degree of interest in futures for an opening up of the possibilities for Africa. So that's my uninformed opinion from Australia.
Njeri Mwagiru
Thank you for sharing. I think it comes through in our conversation, but I certainly share the sentiment that there's excitement, from an African perspective across our 55 African countries, around the future, and the increasing momentum around conversations on the Agenda 2063 but also the United Nations Sustainable Goals and Agenda 2030. These conversations, in line with the various dynamics we're seeing in the geopolitical arena, are definitely lending some excitement and momentum to how we're approaching the future. But having said that, as you mentioned, there's lots of challenges to face. But from my position at the IFR, I certainly welcome engaging more on these conversations, particularly in terms of the lessons learned, and the ways in which these can be applied also to innovate alternative approaches, and to experiment with futures thinking and futures concepts, methods and tools. So I really welcome the opportunity to engage with you here on the Futurepod and hope that we'll be able to take these conversations further.
Peter Hayward
Well, I think we're at the end of our time Njeri, so on behalf of the Futurepod community I'd like to thank you for taking some time out of your day to talk to us about the work you're doing where you live. So thanks very much.
Njeri Mwagiru
Thank you, Peter. It was a real pleasure and looking forward to continued conversations and to continue listening to your Futurepods and the guests that you have conversations with.
Peter Hayward
This has been another production from Futurepod. Futurepod is a not for profit venture. We exist through the generosity of our supporters. If you would like to support Futurepod, go to the Patreon link on our website. Thank you for listening. Remember to follow us on Instagram and Facebook. This is Peter Hayward saying goodbye for now.