THE CLUB OF ROME PODCAST

• Building a wellbeing economy in turbulent times with Katherine Trebeck and Till Kellerhoff

  Why does the vision of a wellbeing economy remain both urgently needed and frustratingly out of reach?  In this episode of The Club of Rome Podcast, Till Kellerhoff speaks with political economist and Wellbeing Economy Alliance co-founder Katherine Trebeck to unpack this dilemma. As overlapping global crises continue to shake confidence in our current economic model, they discuss the promise and paradoxes of wellbeing economics: its appeal, its challenges and its limitations. Together, they dig into what’s stalling real systemic change, why hopeful visions struggle against the tide of rising authoritarianism and pessimism, and how ideology shapes our economic futures. Their conversation highlights the need for plurality and the need to move beyond dashboards toward courageous, structural reform.  Full transcript: Till: People are losing trust in our current system, and we are faced not only with environmental degradation, but also the destruction of our social fabric. Many of the challenges we see today are actually symptoms of a crisis of our economic system. An alternative to that is the Wellbeing Economy, something I will talk about in today's Club of Rome podcast, where we explore bold ideas for shaping sustainable futures. I am Till Kellerhoff, Programme Director at The Club of Rome, and in this episode, I'm delighted to be joined by political economist, writer and advocate for economic system change, Katherine Trebek. Katherine co-founded the Wellbeing Economy Alliance and is a member of The Club of Rome. During the episode, we get into the concepts of wellbeing economy, the challenges of implementation in this crazy world, why this movement doesn't benefit more from the existing pain of the people and current crisis and why there's still hope.    Katherine, it's a real pleasure to speak to you today. How are you doing? Katherine: I'm well, yeah, fantastic to be with you, and I'm buzzing at the moment, because yesterday, I was hanging out with incredible community group who are doing amazing work up in Sydney. We're coming up with some cool cornerstone indicators for the success of their locality. So I'm filled with hope at the moment.   Till: Oh, that's amazing. And we will both speak about communities indicators and hope later in this episode. And we want to talk about Wellbeing Economics today, what it is, but also what the challenges and hopes are in the implementation. Before we dig deeper into that, if you had 30 seconds to explain wellbeing economics to someone who isn't very familiar with the term, how would you do that? And what does it have to do with a picnic blanket?    Katherine: Ah, okay, so I'm not going to tell you about wellbeing economics. I'm going to talk about the wellbeing economy agenda. Wellbeing economics, I think of as more about the curricula and the sort of the study of wellbeing, but the wellbeing economy agenda is much more like a program for change that is essentially about transforming our economic systems, how we produce, consume, who's winning, who's losing, how we treat the environment, how we treat each other, the nature of businesses, transforming all of that. So it's very deliberately in service of people and planet.    Till: Excellent.    Katherine: You want to hear about a picnic blanket?   Till: Absolutely   Katherine: That's my, my way of describing how the wellbeing economy agenda is not some new on its own concept that's here to sort of shove out of the way all the existing amazing schools of thought and ideas and visions for economic system change. There are loads of concepts out there, loads of ways of describing an economy that is much better for people and planet. And lots of folk who have heard of many of these, from donut economics, regenerative economics, solidarity economics, feminist economics, future generations thinking, post growth economics and so on and so on and so on. I think of the wellbeing economy as not so much coming along saying, Here I am in addition to this, pick me over the others, but more sitting on a sort of different level and saying it's a bit like a picnic blanket, that's making all of them feel welcome, but really showcasing that, yes, they'll have their slightly different emphasis and different terminology and thus resonate with different audiences. And that's, I think, okay, but at their core, they really share this idea of an economy that is in service of people and planet, rather than the other way around.    Till: Excellent. And you said in a TED Talk five years ago that some people call wellbeing economics a utopian vision. But since when is this a bad thing? And I would agree with that, you know, I think we need utopia. We need also vision, but that was five years ago. Has this hope and this vision and this utopia changed in the last years for you?   Katherine: Do you know Till, I think, five years ago, almost, in retrospect, feels like halcyon days. And of course, the challenges were enormous then, but this is pre COVID, since that that talk, which was, I think 2019, we've seen more and more destruction of our planet. We're seeing almost daily records being being broken in terms of extreme heat and flooding and so on. And I'm here in Australia, and we feel that particularly acutely, and just people's level of despair and loneliness and frustration with the system seems to have been accelerated even since those days, which were challenging enough. And so I think the need to have hope in a better way of doing the economy. The need to point out that our economy can be redesigned so it's much better for people and planet, that need has even become more critical. It certainly hasn't gone away. Has the hope for change abated? Well, I think it'd be almost naive to say we're not in a very challenging situation. I think though the recognition that business as usual can't carry on, feels to be more broadly understood, and we're seeing folks almost reaching for almost what I describe as coping mechanisms, because they're so frustrated with the status quo. They're doing that at the metaphorical pillbox in through, you know, self-medication or turning to retail therapy, for example, or their Twitter bubbles or x bubbles, or they're turning for coping mechanisms at the ballot box as well. And we're seeing that with the rise of sort of quite extreme politics around around the world, though not here in Australia, as we've just seen in the last few weeks. But yeah, it is interesting. I think what's inevitable is change is happening. I think the question is how deliberate communities and societies can be about shaping that change so that it's just and something better emerges beyond.   Till: I would very much agree with that change is happening, but the key question is, why, despite the crisis, despite the factors you mentioned, despite the climate catastrophe, but also related social impacts, and we see rising levels of burnouts and depressions. And one could say there are not only environmental tipping points, but also social tipping points in a way that destabilise societies. And all of that is there and all of that we see, but still, one doesn't have the feeling, if you look into the news today, that the implementation of the wellbeing economy is much farther advanced now than was five years ago. And the question really is, why is that? Because you point out that crises are very often moments of paradigm shifts, right?   Katherine: Yeah, I think you're right. I don't think it was a lack of ideas lying around that, say, for example, after the global financial crisis, we didn't see a whole scale shift to a different way of configuring and sort of having a different logic behind the economic system to the one that we have today. In a sense, we've just doubled down on the current approach. And so I think part of the challenge is that the ideas are not yet making it from the movement, if I can use that broadly understood idea of the economic change movement, they're not making it from the movement's  quarters and desks and discussions and conferences and gatherings into policy making sufficiently. They're not making it into many universities sufficiently. They're not, definitely not making into education curricula, and they're not, perhaps most critically, making it into the everyday conversations of everyday people. I don't think the movement is short of ideas. I don't think the movement is short of policy examples, and there's definitely no shortage of evidence of the why for change, and I think that's great, and that's all critical and important, but it clearly has not been enough. And so I think that almost we need the next wave of work to be done by the movement is to broaden the base, take these conversations into quarters that are that are not hearing them, that are not excited by these ideas, do not feel that their lives will be positively improved by implementation of these ideas, and, perhaps most importantly, also help people work with people in a compassionate way, so that they feel they're owning the change, and that they're at the forefront of the change. So it's not just being imposed on them by admittedly really well-intentioned movement, but it's something that's and it's a cliche word to use, but really co-created with communities around the world, and then use that momentum to shift the pressure on various policymakers. And when I say policymakers, I also mean decision-makers inside businesses and enterprises as well, not just governments. I don't think either we should be naive about the counter pushback to some of this work, and if I could just even share the small example of Scotland, where I used to live, the movement there this sort of civil society group and colleagues that I worked with, I think we're pretty successful in pushing the agenda onto the policy table. We had a lot of government traction. We even had the First Minister do her TED talk on the wellbeing economy approach, and a group of governments that her government was part of setting up for a point in time. There was even a Cabinet Secretary for the wellbeing economy. There were lots of policies individually being enacted that would speak to the sort of economic change needed to build a wellbeing economy. And then the pushback happened. And I think it really speaks to that bit of that cliche of, first they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they attack you, because the attacks started to come. And I think what we hadn't done in Scotland, and I'd say this applies more generally, hadn't done the work of building a broader critical mass. We hadn't yet built the strong enough momentum in a wider, more public sense to really pressure politicians. I mean, it's still the momentum's still there, but it was fascinating to see the attack come thick and fast.   Till: Yeah, and I think it's also one of the frustrations I feel that we see all this polling, and we had an Earth4All survey some time ago that people in G20 states are in favour of policies that can be related to wellbeing economies, right? Like prioritising planet and wellbeing overgrowth, but even more specifically, on higher wealth taxation, on environmental protection, on ecocide law, all of that is there, people on an abstract level support it. And I think I'm wondering, are movements enough? You mentioned that we need to kind of push the pressure off the street, also more to policymakers. Movements are important, and I agree with that, but to me, it seems sometimes like there are system pressures, right inertia, path dependencies, unintended consequences, positive, negative, feedback loops, all of that that make it very difficult to just implement certain changes, even if movements and the population agrees to that right? I mean, we have seen that often, and that's also the question of, why do policymakers remain so cautious and timid, almost despite the crisis we have at the moment? Is that really because of individual failure, they just don't dare or is it really because there are bigger systems pressures behind it that make it really, really hard?   Katherine: Yes, and I think it's a lot of that. I think there's a lot of pressures on individual policymakers. I mean, it's almost often quite hysterical here in Australia, the reaction that you get from certain sectors of, say, the extractive industries, if government even suggests the tiniest step towards, say, increasing taxes on resource extraction, for example. And so politicians feel that, and they almost self, self-censor, as you mentioned, the path dependencies. And they're just that sort of bias towards the status quo of a lot of how governments are set up, how they're designed around individual, siloed departments, how, then, often not all the time, but often not very good at thinking beyond the short term. They're often rushing to respond from one crisis to the other, and those crises are real and legitimate and require urgent support. But because of the way governments often operate, they're constrained to into downstream, not really daring to go upstream to the economic root causes. It's often downstream, tweaking responses at at best, and it's lonely being bold. And so I think, yeah, movements are almost not, clearly not enough on their own, but I think there's almost broader mobilisation is part of what's been missing for the economic change movement over the last few years, few decades, even. And so I think that's the next frontier, if I can use that language that the economic change movement needs to invest in. In the report I wrote for you lot that was published last year, just over a year ago, when I looked at what's been successful in getting wellbeing economy, policy ideas onto the table, and then what has been the pushback? And we identified in that report, three different types of blockers. And there's, I think the obvious one we can talk about is the sort of the hysterical vested interest. You know, you see car companies, for example, in Europe, you know, threatening over emissions standards. You see all sorts of examples around higher health legislation in food, for example, a lot of hysterical pushback on that. The other sort of blocker that I want, I think it's worth calling out, and it's not as overt or as nakedly hostile, but it's a group of folks who get a lot of airtime, a lot of column inches, who get a lot of access to politicians who seem to implicitly feel that business as usual is largely okay, and we just need to do a few tweaks, round around the edges. And that group of commentators, economists, advisors, have, I'd say a disproportionate influence on government, and it means that what solutions they are creating the space for in their dialogue with government are incredibly narrow and not nearly up to up to the task. And that's an equal form of blocking as well, and the other, just as an aside, the other form of blocking that we talked about was those who are really fighting for a related cause, for social justice or environmental issues, but are seeing those as disconnected. So blocking is not really the right word, but what they're doing is almost setting up a false binary between, for example, jobs or an environmental goal, where the wellbeing economy approach and others like it would really identify how, if we, if we can mobilise for economic change, by looking upstream, you can bring about co, multiple benefits and achieve environmental and social justice outcomes at the same time.    Till: Yeah, excellent. I really recommend everyone to check out our website and read that report and also read a related blog you wrote on that. And I want to quote one sentence out of that, because it relates to what you just said. You said there are those of us working in this space need to remember that most people, when they are talking about dashboards and indicators, are talking about their cars, not their quality of life. And I think that's very strong, because very often this movement tries to be very accessible, rightly so. But in a way, it's also not indicators and dashboards are very, very far attached from many people's daily lives. Do you see a risk of that by over emphasizing debates on beyond GDP, for example, instead of really talking about the food crisis, the cost of living crisis, etc.   Katherine: Yeah, and I feel the impact of that. I think it's often easier, it seems, from amongst allies in the movement to fight each other and critique each other for what I'd say, marginal differences of emphasis, or marginal differences of tactics and approach. And I think I am very squeamish about anyone who thinks that their single tactic is going to be sufficient, when I think we've just got to throw as they say, what is it? The whole the whole kitchen sink at this, and so I find really frustrating these arguments internally in the movement. That's what I mean when I say internally. And yeah, debates like beyond GDP are fascinating. I mean, my doorway into this space is through the beyond GDP doorway. Everyone has different doorways, I think, into the economic change movement. So I'm really passionate about really taking a good hard look at GDP and its influence on policy making, how it influences our minds, of how we think about success of a country and how politicians are held accountable, and particularly all the perverse incentives that are bound up in GDP and how it doesn't measure sufficiently what makes a good life. And there's this lovely phrase from a friend of ours, Mark Anelsky, who says a GDP hero is a chain-smoking terminal cancer patient who crashes his car on the way to his job as an arms dealer because he's texting while eating a takeaway hamburger. Now, every one of those activities will increase GDP. It'd be hard to find anyone who thinks that's the sort of person you want to live next door to or have running the country or running our businesses. So I think GDP does present a false perspective. But I don't think even if we were tomorrow to switch out GDP and bring in something like, I don't know, the Human Development Index, or the OECD Better Life Index, or the Social Progress Index, or something richer. I don't think that'll automatically change, because it's one it's how people think about the economy and its role, not just how we measure it. And then also you then need to make those measures matter. You need to utilise them to transform how policymaking is done and how people think about what is the ultimate goal of the economy, what's the purpose of the economy, and what sort of activities need to make up the economy.    Till: I very much agree with you. And coming back to the point you mentioned on the problem of heterodox movements, sometimes fighting each other more than the common enemy. I feel very frustrated by that as well. But despite all of that, what I agree with is there also a challenge in this pluralism, trying to create something like an -ism, something like in the 20th century it was ideology of progress, which were kind of trying to unite people behind the common cause. Is it a problem for that movement we are engaged in that? It's more difficult to say this is our joint movement because we embrace a plurality. Or is that a strength, as you emphasised before?   Katherine: Well, I mean, there, of course, there are tensions with it, but I'm wary in how diverse and complicated the world is now, the idea of an -ism in the sort of 20th century mode of an -ism feels, it just doesn't feel appropriate for where the world is today. You know, I think the key thing is really emphasising what change is needed, that change is possible. Help people get excited about our change. I'm not sure an -ism is what is going to mobilise. I think it'll be different language and different framing, and I think you'd be hard to find anyone inside government who doesn't say, “Oh, of course, we recognise the flaws of gross domestic product as a measure.” I think most people get it, and yet it is still profoundly sticky. And what is held on to by a lot of policymakers when they're touting the credentials of a particular policy. Well, this will increase GDP. And here in the UK, for example, a lot of the framing is we must go for growth, growth, growth, growth measured by GDP. And so even if there is an intellectual consensus, even if quietly, that hasn't been enough to budge something like GDP. So, I'm not sure that is enough these days. I think we need a whole suite of different conditions, some of which exist. I think there are loads of folk rolling up their sleeves, starting to demonstrate and deliver change in different localities and at different scales, so we start to see what this looks like. But as yet, as we were talking about at the beginning of the conversation, it does feel like we're further behind than we were even five years ago.   Till: Yeah. And the question is, then still really how this paradigm shift happens, right, and how we also can learn from existing positive models that might work. But a quote, and I promise it's the last one for this conversation, but a quote comes into my mind regarding this paradigm shift, by Buckminster Fuller, who said, and is very frequently, very often quoted, saying, "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." And I was wondering what you think about that, because it does sound a little bit naive, in a way, also in the context of building a new model in existing antagonisms and contradictions and power dynamics of our world. Like, is that something like, how do you look at that?   Katherine: I really struggle when I hear that phrase referred to. And of course, it feels very positive and really action orientated, and just get down to building something beautiful. I think what it misses is how incredibly powerful the existing reality is, is to adjust and reconfigure itself in order to remain in existence, and its power to snuff out these threats that emerge from good examples. We haven't seen them make the the old obsolete. Yet they're often very vulnerable, very liable to push back, very liable to attack as as well. And so I think we need both. Again, this comes back to my my sense is we need a plurality of approaches as well. Yeah, we need folk who are the pioneers, who are proving through their practice that's doing the economy differently is not just desirable, it's eminently doable. But so often, at the moment, they're going against these headwinds, they're pushing against a whole lot of policies and financial instruments and even mindsets that are counter to those policies flourishing and those practices becoming the new normal. One of the organisations I support and work with here in Australia is called the Next Economy, and they work with communities that have been dependent on fossil fuel industries, and work with those communities and businesses and counselors, and, you know, everyday local folk, people in government, people you know, in business there, and to imagine what's over the horizon in terms of economic change that's not reliant on, say, coal mining, for example, and it's that work, I think that is also really critical is, you know, helping folks transition. I think we need people inside government bringing about different changes to policies, you know, that shape the rules of the game. I think we need people inside finance as well, directing financial capital to the sort of activities we need more of. So I think there is a task to really transform the structures that entrench the existing reality, so that they enable the new to not be nice, inspirational mini projects. And I call them like, you know, the Lego wins. There's lots of great projects out there, policies and practices, but they're like Lego on my nephew's floor. They're all disconnected and sporadic, not yet adding up to something.   Till: Yeah, and I agree it's very important to show what's at the horizon, right, and also open imaginations beyond our ideological bias of either everything sticks as it was or is now, or it gets even worse. And I think that's a little bit our current dichotomy. Very often, either people are like, oh, we need to go back to a normal. And that normal was already not normal five years ago. It was a system based on ecological destruction, on social inequalities, on post-colonial rules in an international system. So it was not normal. It felt more normal for people in the West or in comfortable countries there, but it was not. But now the alternative doesn't seem to be, oh, the positive other system, but rather something I know Varoufakis called techno feudalism, or others call authoritarianism or even fascist tendencies. And I think there needs to be a third scenario, almost right, a third way out. And I think we also need to be careful as a progressive movement to not tap too much into the back to normal rhetoric?   Katherine: No, I entirely agree. I think it cannot be a choice between something that you know, the likes of Trump are bringing in, or Melei in Argentina or others, or even what was on the table here in Australia over the last few months, and has, thank goodness, been pushed back, and, you know, rebuffed by Australian voters. It can't be a choice between that and just sort of every day, bit more green, but I what I would still describe as a 20th century social democracy approach, and I think that is almost what's on offer by the most progressive governments around the world. That's almost the best that we see in terms of government. And that's patently not enough. We cannot just green the current system and think that will be okay. It's still a profoundly extractive model, extractive of people and from the planet. And so it can't be these sort of either or binaries, as we were saying earlier. Change is coming. It's hitting us hard right now, it's hitting planet hard, and it's hitting communities around the world very, very hard as well. People are, I think, noticing and feeling scared for that change, and I think the task is to in the middle of all that really point to the different possibilities that are already emerging, that are already in place, that are really showing, as we said earlier, that something different is not just desirable, it's doable. And then think about, how do we need to change the instruments, our evaluation measures, approaches, the measures of progress, to enable those amazing practices we already see to become the new normal, so they become just, this is the economy. So we don't need to call it a wellbeing economy. It's just how things are done, and it's an economy that takes care of people and looks after the planet.   Till: We speak about really challenging times and also crisis moments, and still, you say that with a certain amount of optimism in your voice and a smile on your face. So I was wondering, what are you curious about at the moment? Or what gives you that hope that a better future could happen. And what are the these elements in your life at the moment that gives you that motivation, maybe as well.   Katherine: So Till, to be really honest, I do find it really hard to be to be hopeful. I've, you know, with many folk, I have a profound sense of eco anxiety. It's very hard living in a country like Australia that is seeing record breaking temperatures year after year, and how that's, you know, record number of species lost, and then seeing friends around the world who are more vulnerable to that as well. I feel pretty depressed at all that seems to be on offer from our policymakers is what I'm calling system compliant fixes. So just tweaking the current system, as if that will ever be be enough, but that's balanced by the sense of purpose and sense of solidarity, which is incredible gift that I get from things like last night, where I get to hang out with amazing community folk and amazing activists who are mobilising to change how things happen, to focus on, in this case, it was their local government as a, as an agent, where we transform how government sees its progress, but really come together in a really collegial way. Listen to each other, have fun with each other, eat together, laugh together, but think about doing something different and that that is the utter joy. It really is a privilege to be able to do that work. I also feel hope in that. I think there's an amazing amount of entrepreneurs in business who are also using the mechanism of business to deliver social and environmental benefit. And they probably don't use the term wellbeing economy or economic system change, but they are just whether it's a circular economy business or a workers cooperative or a group signing up to the economy for common good accounting mechanisms, or in all those different ways. They're not the norm yet, but I think there's no shortage of cool examples in the business space that also show that businesses can be part of the solution too, and that that gives me hope as well, that they're, you know, from all sorts of different quarters. There are people chipping away, working their socks off to make things better.   Till: That's good. And I also think we shouldn't fall into a naive hope for the future, right? Not naive positivity. And we need to acknowledge what is going wrong. And this is a Club of Rome podcast, and The Club of Rome, via different initiatives and projects, tries to build up the alternative futures. Tries to not only paint a vision, but also in certain niches, describe pathways that could lead us there. Tries to work with people on the ground and communities. You are a member of The Club of Rome, and my last question is, why is that, and also what would be a role for an organisation like The Club of Rome in these challenging times you see.   Katherine: Why did I join? Well, apart from fact, I get to work with you till which is a great, great privilege for me and your amazing, amazing team at The Club of Rome. I mean, what I get out of The Club of Rome is feeling that sense of community and some of my intellectual heroes and members feeling that I'm part of something, that they're all working together. It's almost a bit like an example of trying to carry a huge, heavy table across a massive empty room that you need lots of people around the table. And I think The Club of Rome almost is an example of all sorts of different people, different skills, different perspectives, working together in different ways to bring about something transformational. And so I just being part of that is great. And community really matters. You know, as we were saying earlier, this can be very, very lonely, and having that sense of there is a greater movement out there, and The Club of Rome is a subset of that. And so for me. It's a, it's a real privilege to be, to be part of of this incredible family of thinkers and doers that are members of The Club of Rome. And I'm also just really proud when I see the comms that The Club of Rome team puts out and the reports and the analysis, yeah, and the collaboration that they they are able to create. It's lovely to be a small part of them.   Till: Excellent. Thank you. And for me, it was a real privilege speaking to you today. Unfortunately, time runs and we have to come to an end, but for now, thank you very much.   Katherine: Thanks Till, great to be with you today. Chat soon.    Till: Thank you for listening to The Club of Rome podcast. Follow us on Apple podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about The Club of Rome at clubofrome.org  

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• Can feminism be African? With Minna Salami and Nolita Mvunelo

  What does freedom look like for African women in a world shaped by crisis, colonial legacies, and patriarchy? How does African feminism take shape across the continent, from urban political centres to rural communities? And is feminism rooted in African values, or has it too often been misrepresented and misunderstood?  In this episode Nolita Mvunelo sits down with Minna Salami, feminist author and social critic,  to explore identity, liberation and justice. Together, they explore how African feminist thought can fuel planetary wellbeing, challenge patriarchy and imagine radically inclusive futures.   Watch the episode: Full transcript: Nolita: Welcome to 'We Kinda Need a Revolution', a special limited series of The Club of Rome Podcast where we explore bold, intergenerational ideas for shaping sustainable futures. I am Nolita Mvunelo, a Program Manager at The Club of Rome, and in this episode, I'm excited to be joined by feminist author, social critic and member of The Club of Rome, Minna Salami, the Program Chair at THE NEW INSTITUTE. Together, we unpack the central question of her powerful book and essay, Can Feminism be African, exploring how African feminism offers a unique lens to understand ideas of freedom, identity and power in a world shaped by crisis. We dive into class and generational tensions, the influence of colonial legacies and the personal experiences that inform Minna's vision of what it means to truly be free. Hi, Mina, how are you doing? Minna: I'm very well. Thank you. How are you? Nolita:  I'm good. Thank you so much for joining us. What brought you to the work that you do? Minna: I have always been someone who was very observant and opinionated at the same time, and from a very early age, one of the ways in which I expressed that was through writing. So already, as a child, I would write little columns in like my school magazine, and they were typically about topics that had to do with society, like I lived in Nigeria. So, you know, I wrote pieces about democracy in my country, or whatever, stuff like that. And so when I discovered the the technology of blogging in the early knots, I automatically and very spontaneously set one up. This was probably around 2006 and then that sort of evolved. And then in 2010 I launched my what became my blog, which I still have, called MsAfropolitan. Nolita: One of the key essays that you wrote was about feminism being African. What is African feminism in your definition? Minna: Well, African feminism is, by large, like all feminism in that it wants to abolish the patriarchy. You know, that is the key philosophy of all feminism, is that it is anti patriarchal and sees male dominance as something that is harmful and detrimental to social progress. And so I preface because it's important to understand that, you know, African feminism, in that sense, shares the same same intentions and motivations as all feminism does. What makes it specific is, of course, its connection to the continent. Patriarchy, you know, it looks and feels and operates in somewhat different ways in relation to Africa, which means, for example, that African feminism is concerned more with tradition than maybe a kind of white Western feminism might be. It is certainly much more concerned with fighting imperialism and neo colonialism, because these are things about the global order which have negative impacts on African women's lives. So African feminism, to sort of try to sum it up, which is a very difficult thing to do, is feminism that is concerned with all the many different issues that affect African women's lives, from patriarchy to tradition to imperialism to the global order. Nolita: It's incredibly complex. I think reading some of your work and being a young African woman myself, a lot of it resonates with me. To your point that you're making about it being about questioning traditions, what types of traditions have you witnessed that made you think, actually, there's a bit of nuance here, and how do they show up in urban centers versus rural life? Because I noticed also in my own lived experience, that how a woman shows up in the rural space versus how I show up living in a city are very different. And so my expressions of who I am, my liberties and my freedoms are very much like in line with, as you said, imperialism and traditions, etc. Minna: I mean, I think I should first of all say that I grew up in in the city in Lagos, so my experiences of rural Africa are limited. So, yeah, tradition in Africa, it's such a complicated and paradoxical space, because many of the traditions that may be harmful for African women's lives may also contain elements of empowerment. You know, because we are a continent whose history has so much been negated through the transatlantic slave trade, through the colonial narratives. We've lost so much of of our history, really, and with that, of course, also traditions. And there's something I think, quite empowering and enriching about recuperating many of those traditions. I mean, there's traditions, for instance, in Yorubaland, which is where my ancestry is, of women having, like female only, political alliances in which they would come together and reflect and then also strategize and have a real impact on the rulers, the kings and the chiefs of the particular communitie. And these traditions are, and were, of course, very empowering in some way, but at the same time, they were part of a patriarchal structure in which it was like in the Yoruba lineage, there has been one female Ooni. The Ooni is the sort of highest, the royal king of Yorubaland. So this is a very male dominant and patriarchal lineage. And so we can see with this tradition that, you know, it sort of gives women power to some extent, but it also sits within a kind of culture that is disempowering to women at the same time. Nolita: Do you have any insight on how to go about handling these types of tensions? I mean, a crude way to say it is, like a criticism that I hear a lot, is this feminism thing, it's a Western thing. It's a white people thing. We have to honor our traditions and our culture. But how do we do both? Minna: Yes, this is absolutely very much at the crux of African feminism and the African feminist movement, because since its inception in the 1970s as an explicit political movement for women's liberation in Africa and the diaspora, there has been a vast backlash against feminism in the continent. And the underlying argument, and of the backlash, is precisely this notion that feminism is not something that is, you know, home to Africa, it's a Western import. It's unAfrican you know, there's all these kinds of very harmful and ungrounded positions, that that that nevertheless have had a wide traction, but nevertheless so within African feminism, I mean, there's just been so many answers to your question, you know. And It really depends on which feminist you're speaking with which region they're in, as you asked previously, about like rural Africa versus urban Africa, I think the way in which we negotiate and negate space, valuing and even loving our indigenous traditions vis a vis how we, you know, respond to our real desires to express autonomy over our bodies, over our choices, over the ways that we think and live our lives. You know, there's really a tension there. You know, it's not an easy thing to there's no straightforward answer, in a sense, but I do think that it's very important to do the latter and and, and to the extent that indigenous traditions present obstacles to a woman being able to thrive and express agency, then I would choose the expression of agency, and maybe therein that's where there are possibilities to draw inspiration from indigenous traditions without maybe embodying them fully. I remember reading a very wonderful article by South African or Zimbabwean writer, Sisonke. I cannot pronounce her surname, Simang, I think it is pronounced something like that. But she writes about this kind of practice of the dowry at a wedding, you know, which is a very patriarchal practice, tradition. But she somehow, like, I can't remember the exact details, but she incorporates this into her wedding in a way that feels empowering and that is empowering. So, you know, there's a way to negate these, these spaces, I think Nolita: I'd be very interested to read that on how to make it empowering, because that is very much a tradition that's still practiced in my culture. And there have been, like, incredibly heated debates about that, about why are we still buying women? Or, you know, whatever perception there is, how are we forging pathways towards the future without spending too much time venerating the past? Which brings me to my question about African feminism as an opportunity to bring forth while being on a healthy planet. Is there a connection between the those two things, and what are the opportunities that it presents for for us? Minna: Our planet and our environment is absolutely one of the very important issues for African feminism at large. Because for one, you know, Africa contributes, I think it is 2% it's like between 2 and 5% of global warming, right? I mean, and yet, the continent is so much impacted by what happens, you know, to our climate and from other continents, contribution to global warming. And so climate change impacts African women's lives detrimentally. Women in the continent are responsible for so much of agriculture and farming, and you know, all of the the professions that are related to the land. And so climate change, of course, you know, is impoverishing a lot of women in the continent. And yet, at the same time, there's this cultural narrative about how you know women generally, but specifically African Women's bodies are just so much connected to the soil. You know, there's this really romantic imagery about Mother Africa, and that's, you know, of course, you know, often shaped as the continent and as a woman at the same time. And so again, you know, it's, how do we grapple with this tension where, on the one hand, the African woman is so much revered and positioned as a solution, even to how we deal with, you know, connecting to our planet, and yet, at the same time, her needs and her knowledge about the planet is negated by patriarchal cultures. Nolita: Yeah, that's such a big risk. I feel that all the time, you know the overburden and over responsibility that is placed on African women when it comes to the challenge of climate change or just generally, going towards well being in the future. And then at the same time, the added complexity is that there will be this demographic boom that's coming very soon. And so on top of being, like, the most agriculturally active, and we're seeing a lot of data about, like, young black women being the most educated and making a lot of money, etc, and then on top of that, the coming burden of parenthood of 75% of all Africans being under the age of 30, I worry about how much of a responsibility there is on African women, but also young African women in general. Is this something that you have reflected on, and if so, how do you think that it changes the dynamics socially, whether it is about the patriarchy and feminist discourse in general, but also how we organize various social structures across the continent. Minna: Well, I think this speaks to the urgency of African feminist work even more. I mean, the thought of the status quo being maintained in such a future, fills me with dread, because at the moment, you know, the kind of implications of patriarchy on African women's lives is so destructive and painful and dangerous, which is not to kind of paint an image of gloom, because, of course, I think, you know, we are such a resourceful continent, and women in the continent and the diaspora are especially just so strong, so resilient, but also so imaginative and brilliant. As you say, like, I didn't actually know about this, this statistic about black women soon being like the most educated demographic. So, you know, I do feel that we will continue to tap into that inner well of strength and power and imagination, but if we don't really sort of accelerate and fortify the feminist movement, I fear that so much of that will just be part of empowering a patriarchal structure. Nolita: You are listening to The Club of Rome podcast, the place to discover bold ideas from change makers tackling the world's biggest challenges, from climate crisis and inequality to systems change. The podcast is nearly a year old now, and we have an archive of episodes that include the universal basic dividend, using music for social change and women silencing the guns. You can find them on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Now, back to the discussion. So what do you say to younger women who might be pushing back on this? As a digital native on Tiktok, I see a lot of the, you know, young women saying, I'm just a girl, you know, I I don't need to worry and pay attention to all of this. You know, they were parts of patriarchy that made a lot of sense and that it didn't have to be my burden and my responsibility to figure some of these things out. I just you know needed to take care of what I needed to take care and let everyone else deal with it. What would be your feedback and your advice to such a young lady? Minna: That kind of carefreeness that underlies that sentiment, you know, that feeling that, oh, I'm just a girl, I don't need feminism, is something that I actually cherish. And I think, you know, ironically, that that is the result of feminist work. It's because feminists have pushed for women to be able to express themselves and yeah. So to an extent, I see that as a kind of positive sign of the success of the feminist movement. But primarily what I think that is proof of is the strength of the backlash that I mentioned earlier, because it has been a very successful backlash in context of Africa. So, you know, it's, it's not surprising that young women are saying no to feminism. You know, they're getting messages, and Tiktok is especially like that has become such a repository for the backlash, because it's, it's the perfect medium, because you don't have to get in to the depth of the arguments you're making. So so it's really easy for these anti feminist propagandists to create, like, effective emotion inspiring clips about how the feminist movement is, you know, connected to the CIA, or whatever they might be saying. So, yeah, so I can see that. But I also, I guess I think that, you know, there comes a point where, for almost all women, you know, you start to really question these things. Maybe it's when these women go into professional life or or when they get married, or when they become mothers, you know, depending on the kinds of choices they make. I think in every woman's life, there comes a point when you know, however much you've been avoiding it, the patriarchy stands there right in front of you, presenting its obstacles, and at that point you kind of have to take a stance. And quite often it's at that point that women say, okay, maybe I should listen to what the feminists have been saying. But feminism, you asked, like, what role it plays in this? And I do think that there's a sense in which the feminist movement, unwittingly, has taken on the tone of policing to to an extent which you know can make it seem undesirable for young women, especially because when you're young, when you're a teenager or in your 20s, the last thing you want is rules you know, like that's a period of freedom in one in one's life, where you just want to enjoy life, explore life, as much as you can. And so anything that is telling you that do not do this, do this, etc, can become a bit of a, you know, of a heavy burden. And feminism is not that, you know it's actually a place of no rules. It's because it's a place that is enabling women to express themselves without being disempowered. But somehow, I think the message has been miscommunicated to some extent, and that might also be part of the issue here. Nolita: There is a question of how this conversation is happening with young men, and how it's happening, I mean, how it has happened with men, but how it's happening with young men in general. Because sometimes, I think a lot of this pushback that's coming in from younger generations is that we're at the age where we're trying to be partnered, and men were not included in the rules. They were not included in the discourse. And so when you're trying to, you know, build community, build a personal relationship, etc, if half of all people do not know what you're talking about, do not necessarily agreed or not clued up into the discourse, then you're kind of fighting upstream. You know, we're back to, like, an additional burden on young women or women in general. So parenting, climate change, agriculture, resilience, etc, etc. And then now there are people who are in you're in an intimate relationship with who don't agree with your self perception of yourself. What could have what could have been improved, and what can be improved at this point in time? What are the concrete opportunities to collaborate and partner with all parts of society to make some of this progress. Minna: I think first of all, you know it is, it is curious that so many young men, especially would not be clued into feminism. Feminism has become so, so mainstreamed for better or for worse again, but it has become so mainstreamed that if you are a university educated African person, as you say, you know, then you should know about it. And it makes me think that there's something else going on which is more of a sort of active decision to not pay attention to feminism, because for large parts of the male demographic, young male demographic, it may be antithetical to the way in which they prefer to conduct their relationships, which is to be, you know, the dominant person to to have all the privileges and the entitlements that have always accompanied male identity. So that's the first thing, and I think it's important to state that, because that then speaks to what a potential way forward might be, which definitely, in my view, would not be that young women then denounce feminism because young men don't know what it is and find it difficult. I mean, you know that that, of course, is, you know, a very central problem to feminism, and has always been, that that women, women shy away from the feminist movement because they're afraid that they won't find a partner if they're heterosexual. And I mean that dynamic keeps women stuck in dissatisfying, unhappy and often also, you know, really harmful relationship patterns. So it's really important to move away from this. And I think understanding that men, quite often, just don't want to engage. It's not that they don't know, it's that they don't want to know and and that helps us to make better choices, because there are men who you know, who have a curiosity, at least, I find it very interesting, because I speak about feminism across the globe, and the one place where the audiences are almost equal of both genders is in Africa or in the diaspora, like black contexts. And so there really is an interest, even if a lot of the times that the men who come to feminist events, you know, have problematic views or whatever, but they come. And so I say that because I think that you know, for one you know, women should be encouraged to make choices in which you can talk with your partner about the things that matter to you. And if feminism is one of those things, then you need to choose partners with whom you can have feminist discussions. Otherwise, you're going to have to censor yourself for as long as you're in that relationship. Nolita: We we like. Some time ago, we spoke to Aya Chebbi, and she was the first youth envoy to the African Union, and she spoke a lot about the Tunisian revolution and how financial freedom was underpinning their revolution, that at the core it was a discussion of democracy and freedoms, etc, but it had a lot to do about personal freedoms. Are there any fundamental desires and changes that you believe are common amongst African feminists today, like what unites African feminists, and what goes across borders and struggles, is it also as fundamental as financial freedom makes the difference? Minna: I'm glad you mentioned Aya, because I really love her work. She's she's doing some amazing things. And yes, I mean, I agree with her that, like economic freedom, financial freedom is certainly one of the things, one of the desires that feminists across the continent and the world share, you know, like we it's such a big problem, you know, and it's really one of these feminist issues that has become so bogged down with a kind of NGO, you know, technocratic World Bank type of speak, and so we hear it, and we almost like the brain just puts it aside, like, oh yeah. But, you know, it's really a very, you know, it's a psychological and to some extent, even a spiritual problem. Like, if you cannot have if you don't have the means and even the opportunities with which you can empower yourself financially, then you really are dependent on those in power. And those in power, of course, are predominantly men. And this goes across class as well. So you know, if you are part of the poorest bracket, you would still, as a woman, be even poorer than a man in that class demographic, so to speak. And so you're you're without economic independence. You are so dependent on men, and they can, of course, take advantage of that in multiple ways. So I think this is a key. The issue for the feminist movement, and will always be, until we achieve economic equality. But there are so many. I mean, I think all of the feminist issues, you know, like, there's the desires for sexual autonomy, both in terms of like pleasure and choice, but also in terms of sexual expression. You know, queer people wanting to have rights to exist, which, you know is being so compromised in Africa at the moment by populist governments. And then there's desires for epistemic freedom. You know, this is a topic that is features very deeply in my work, working on knowledge production, and just that desire to be able to shape knowledge, because knowledge is so fundamental to how we structure our culture and our societies, there's desires to change tradition, to free Africa from neo colonial exploitation, so that we can own our own resources in ways that then empower women and girls, because, you know, it's one thing for governments to claim back resources, which is already not happening enough. But then when it does happen, the question of, you know, exclusion of girls and women is still not brought up. So there's this desire for political representation so that women can have a real impact on African political life. So yeah, I mean, I just think, you know, there's so many issues, sadly, that we that we share in common, a frustration about Nolita: And so it brings me to one of my last few questions, which is, so why did you join the Club of Rome, and is there anything in particular you hoped it would help you accomplish in joining the association? Minna: I mean, joining the Club of Rome for me was really heartfelt Yes, from the moment that I was nominated and invited. The Club of Rome aligns so much with the things that I am passionate about. So you know, speaking again of struggle for epistemological freedom, for different ways of knowing, this has been something that I have been working on for years, and I really appreciate and value the holistic approach of the Club of Rome and this, this multi layered, you know, non binary, way of thinking about how we can change systems and change social relations. So I feel very much of an alignment with the ethos of the Club of Rome. And then I also joined because of the amazing people that are part of the Club of Rome. You know, I've met many who are just incredible. But also, you know, sometimes just participating in the online conversations, or even just like checking out the work that other members are doing. And, you know, getting updates about that is, is very inspiring. So it's, it's really one of my, my favorite places to to hang out, so to speak. Nolita: Awesome. This limited series is called 'We Kinda Need a Revolution'. So if you could imagine one key non violent revolution that you could spark by the click of a hand, what would it be? Minna: I mean, this is so easy. It's feminism, like, you know this, this ad, I think it's Maybelline? That has this slogan of like, their one of their mascaras is like, one woman buys this every minute. And every time I see that, I think this is how I want feminism to be, you know, like feminism, one woman signs up every minute. And I don't mean to, like, commodify or make this, you know, maybe somewhat strange analogy, but, but really, that's the revolution that I am very much for and that I'm a part of, and that I really want everyone to join. I think it could deeply and importantly transform our world. Nolita: Thank you so much Minna and thank you for listening to The Club of Rome podcast. Follow us on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about The Club of Rome at clubofrome.org

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• Women silencing the guns with Aya Chebbi and Nolita Mvunelo

  Africa’s adult population consists of three generations: the independence generation that lived through colonial rule and subsequent liberation, the multiparty system generation, and the younger generations with the complex challenge of ensuring peace, prosperity, and climate resilience within one generation. In this episode, Nolita Mvunelo is joined by Aya Chebbi, Founder of the Nala Feminist Collective. Aya rose to prominence as a political blogger during Tunisia’s Revolution. She later became the first-ever African Union Special Envoy on Youth, championing youth inclusion and intergenerational collaboration through campaigns such as “silencing the guns”.  Today, she leads NalaFem, one of Africa’s largest multigenerational alliances of women politicians and activists united towards transformative feminist change.  Together, Aya and Nolita dive into the role of African women in strengthening peace and security while exploring the evolving perspectives on youth leadership in bringing reform. Watch the episode: Full Transcript: Nolita:  We kinda need a revolution. Welcome to a special edition of The Club of Rome Podcast, exploring how we can work together across generations, across cultures, across regions, to mobilise action for a regenerative future, a podcast about how to drive meaningful change when the only response seems to be... we kind of need a revolution. I am Nolita Mvunelo, Programme Manager of The Club of Rome, and in this episode, I had a chance to speak to Aya Chebbi from Tunisia about women and silencing the guns. Aya was the first African Union youth envoy and founder of Nalafem Collective. Well, thank you for joining us today, Aya. Thank you for taking the time to speak to us. You were the first African Union youth envoy, and a sizable part of your work focused on the theme silencing the guns. Today, you lead Nalafem, one of Africa's largest multi-generational alliances of women and politicians and activists united towards transformative feminist change. Has there been a shift in thematic focus, from silencing the guns to, you know, transformative change from women, and if so, what inspired that shift? Aya:  Thank you so much, Nolita. No, there hasn't been. I think for me, gender justice issues are intersectional issues. When I launched Nalafem, it was guided by Africa Young Women Beijing+ 25 Manifesto, which we convened at the African Union. Six consultations, six regions of Africa, and they came up with 10 demands, and part of those demands are silencing the guns, sexual reproductive health rights, economic justice, digital justice and so on. So Nalafem is taking that manifesto to member states to ensure the implementation and accountability of these demands to go to the ground and trickle down to women and girls in conflict settings, in rural areas, in displaced areas. So, it definitely hasn't shifted. I think it deepened, because now I'm focused on looking at peace and security from a feminist lens. I'm looking at peace and security from where are the young women at the table of negotiation. But I think also part of the problem in women, you know, peace and security, youth peace and security is looking at these issues in silos and not looking at them as intersectional issues that have to address health and education and employment and all the other issues that we talk about. Nolita: In your work of trying to get member states to adopt some of the work and the policies, what has been like, the most surprising thing that you did not expect to happen. Aya: Well, you know, after being in this space for over 15 years, I'm not surprised anymore.  Member states, a lot of the member states’ attitudes towards looking at women and young women in leadership. For me, the double standard, the contradictions of how member states behave, remain my biggest surprise, even though some of the countries it's just not surprising anymore. Like they have a track record of that's how they deal with issues in silos. I think particularly for Africa, this is really globally, you know, at different levels, especially Africa-Europe dynamics, but particularly in Africa, I think after over decades advocating for youth participation, and especially young women, and still hearing the rhetoric of, you know, demographic dividend, but not seeing it on the ground, hearing the rhetoric of youth as a force of change, but not seeing young people appointed to leadership positions, hearing the rhetoric of, yeah, women at the table. But we look at Senegal, recent election, and we don't find any single women in the cabinet. We look at all the recent elections, and it's, you know, a lot of old men holding space, or even younger men now holding space in Chad, the recent election - a 40 year old. But then you look at society, you look at the leadership spectrum, you don't see women and youth. And so that's also contradiction is still surprising to me, because I think we passed the stage of saying why youth should be co-leading this space, why, you know, women and young women should be in these spaces. I think we all agree on why. So, why are we not moving to implementation? Nolita:  That's such a good point. Because I remember when I first learned of you and your position at the AU, I was like, “Oh my gosh, this is such a big moment, right?” A young woman, a young woman in such a high-level position, but to your point is that, like, very rarely does it trickle down back into leadership at different spheres, and there's like, there seems to be a resistance. How can young people contribute to driving forth that cause that you were such an implementing moment of? Aya: You know, I'm quite frustrated because young people have done an incredible, incredible, incredible mobilisation. Have taken lot of risks since 2010, 2011 revolutions, from Tunisia to Libya to Senegal to Sudan to Algeria to Burkina Faso, you know. So, I think there is a lot of like always demand from youth, whether it's democracy or the climate movement or whatever cause is. The decision makers who are predominantly male and old, they always expect youth to call on or to champion or to, you know, drive the change, you know, but at the same time being really intimidated by these youth who are demanding change. So, you want youth to demand change, and then when they go on the streets, you're ready with tear gas and arrest and deportation or whatever it is. So, you know, I think there is predominantly a fundamental question of how the African state relates with its youthful population, that needs to be addressed. Because now that we're having, let's say, more young people in the system, whether it's head of state, we had two at least this year elected in their 40s or members of parliament, we don't see the system changing. So, it's not just now a generational issue. It's also a system-based issue. And these institutional systems, they're post-colonial systems that were built on a certain legacy and that they do not speak to the youth population aspirations, the way they're structured. They do not speak to the citizenship, which is predominantly young, the youngest in the world. And I think that's where we should really put our efforts, and our analysis and to address the root cause of this. We're pretty much focused on what's going on, very politically, on the political level, but we're not looking at systems change. Because if you, even if you put massively right now young people in the system. If the system is failing, it's not going to work. You're going to set up this generation to failure as well. And I think we need that incremental change in reforming the system and making it respond to the aspiration of this century and the next century for it to make sense. From Nalafem side, what we're trying to do is to really prepare this generation when they take on the system, because we know this is an army of women we're building to take charge of the continent, but we don't want them to perpetuate the same practices, the same norms, the same system, the same policies. We want to make sure that, first of all, they all know each other, they all understand where they come from and their stories and their context. So, when they're all at the same level of leadership, change can be accelerated. If you look at the whole of the African Union and you find more than 50% of these leaders actually understand where we're all going, actually, not disputing these small you know, self-interest debates and know where we should be going. Those policies will pass like, you know, very fast. And I think that's when you need that army to take charge with the same values, the same understanding of the future, the same aspirations at the same time. And that way you see a shift, I think that's one thing we're trying to do. And then the second thing is to make sure there is a generational healing. So part of what we do is a lot of work on multi-generational. It's not like, you guys are irrelevant, and we should, you know, take over you. It's more like, how can we co-lead this moment? Because we're going to take over anyway, and so without when we transition, we can build something better, and we can be better leaders than you were. Nolita:  Two questions, then. One is, you mentioned an aspiration of the century, or the aspiration of the generation. If you were to articulate in a few sentences, what would it be? And then the second one, maybe adding on to that is, part of it has to do with power, right? Because we look at it from a generational lens. But to your point, about like, systems are not changing, like we're asking for inclusion, but we're asking for inclusion in systems that fundamentally do not work for the type of makeup that we have. There's a point in there at the centre about it has to do with power and how we organise power, in that at the end of the day, there will only be one president, there will only be one minister of whatever, there will only be... so even if we're asking for inclusion, if at the end of the day it the system is still built that there isn't... I remember listening to someone saying that our ambition is that enough people have a higher education, but there's no scenario where we build enough universities for the 1 billion African youth that are going to be alive in 2100 etc. What would be your big bet in actualising that aspiration for the future? By challenging some of these dynamics of power and access and elite structures, etc. Aya:  Yeah, I think at least the millennials, I can talk of my generation mission. I was on the streets in Tunis demanding for regime change, and we ended a 23 year dictatorship, and our slogan was jobs, freedom and dignity. And I think our generation mission has been based on especially financial freedom. And now that I'm taking it to the feminist movement, and you know, the women platform, it's also about financial freedom. We talk about, you know, bodily autonomy and sexual reproductive health and all these issues, but the essence of it, the foundation of it - if you're not financially free, you have no choice over your own body. You have no choice to get out of gender-based violence. You have no choice of protecting yourself, protecting your community. Against your question of power, the financial freedom is your power, you know, to in the political landscape. Because even if you do not have at least a seat at the table or, you know, a position in the ecosystem, that can make you really drive policy change with your financial freedom, you can still do you, right. You can still drive sustainable initiatives. You can, you know, start your own organisation and make some sort of change for your community. So, I definitely think for this century, that is the mission. And I think, like my contribution to actualising that has always been, the past at least seven, eight years, is co-leadership, because that is the model I see the future. That is the movements. When movements across Africa organised, you know, for uprisings and revolution, even the recent protests of Gen Z in Kenya, their manifesto, they say, “We're leaderless”, right? But, I mean, of course you need you need structures. You need to organise yourself and something you can't just not have a leadership structure. But what they're trying to say is that the current model of leadership doesn't work. The one-man-show doesn't work anymore, and we need to be able to create systems that are more inclusive, and women are great at that. Women are collaborative, they're emotionally intelligent. They like to bring people together. They like to nurture some sort of collaboration. But and we know on the other hand, the masculine way of leading is very much egocentric, right? So, I think those are tough conversations we need to have. And it's not about men are not great leaders, but it's about, can men incorporate more feminist values in their leadership? So it can be co-led, it can be co-shared. It can be more inclusive. The consultative process of the United Nation, the African Union, institutions that are built on one type of way of leadership. Can they be more collaborative and not extractive of young people, voices and expertise and resources? So that's what we're saying. You know, that's co-leadership. You're bringing me to the table from the get go for us to co-design something, co-write these policies and co-implement them so we can have ownership over them. But if you bring me to this process to extract from me and not pay me for it, and then come back and do nothing in the community, that is the leadership we need to dismantle right now, which is causing a lot of the issues we're facing. Nolita: Youth consultations must fall that's been like one of my things is like, the next time someone called me into a conference just so I can give my two cents and say, thank you - I've had enough. I've had you know, but I think it speaks to what you're saying before about with political leaders, there's a lot of mobilisation that happens of young people for a specific cause, and then it's a thank you very much. You can go back to your life now. I've gotten what I need. Aya: We call it validation workshops. I mean, I advocated to get rid of these validation workshops because, literally, it's a ticking box. So, after you've done this whole process, you need a validation workshop. Bring, you know, the refugee, the one with disability, the women in rural area, and say, I had a meeting with this and this and that we've validated this document, and we're done. But yeah, to your point, I think what we're trying to advocate for, and have been advocating for, and it's our demand 10 of the manifesto, is intergenerational co-leadership. And that does not mean like pass the torch to us. That means co-leading now in all of these formats we're discussing, but on a state level. Of course, it's much more complicated, but it's very much possible, and we've seen young female ministers do it. We have the Minister of Namibia, 27-year-old. We had the Minister of Botswana. She was 29 when she was Minister of Investment Bogolo Kenewend, and she's now a member of parliament, again, appointed after a great change in Botswana, you know? And we have different examples across the continent where, when you give young female leaders a chance at a mayor level, a council level, a ministerial level, they have a different way of leading, and it gives results much faster. Nolita:  It's interesting you're mentioning Emma, who is the 27-year-old minister you were speaking about, her point is that we need processes, and we need people who understand processes. In response to the Kenyan youth protests saying we don't have leaders, was like, yeah, we don't need leaders. We need processes. That's what we need. That's how you go ahead and create that transformation. But as a Gen Z, to add a little bit of complexity to that, is that because we're coming into adulthood around where the climate discussion is alive and kicking, the question of financial freedom, everyone must have jobs, sits at this intersection with the fact that we also know that material growth, economic growth based on material means is not feasible. The challenge of financial freedom, knowing that we're having this climate catastrophe coming ahead of us, is such a complex thing that is hard to deal with, because I need my financial freedom. I need my freedoms to be able to contribute to society, as you're saying, but we're also living in an environment where it seems like there's an unspoken discussion of how improbable and how difficult it's going to be. I don't know if you have any insights or any words to share for anyone who holds a similar anxiety that I do when it comes to that particular question? Aya:  Yeah, no, I think it's a really important question. And again, because when you have financial freedom, you are not only able to give back to your community and be more resilient. So you're not waiting for all these processes, complex processes, to come to fruition. When you know, I was at the UN just couple of weeks ago, and I was telling the cohort of member states that while you are figuring out anything when a crisis happened, like a pandemic or a war come out, you're still debating for weeks and weeks to pass a resolution. Young people already open pathways to humanitarian intervention. Young people already set up community and donation, fundraising, you know, projects to get going so they have already not only mitigated, but kind of responded to the crisis in the first phase, while you all are figuring out. So imagine, and this is with no resources, right? And this is with 70% of the continent offline, with no digital access. So imagine if you give young people of this continent the financial freedom, the digital access that they can have. Not only they can give back, not only they can make an important intervention, but also they have the freedom if the crisis is really, you know, that's it like they have to move to another country or that they're going to be displaced, you still have your financial freedom to start a new life. And we're struggling today to protect women and girls in conflict, in displacement, in migration, because they do not have the financial freedom, you know, to move somewhere else or start a new life. They do not have financial freedom to be a nomadic employee or a freelancer or a consultant, things and structures that still we are fighting for frameworks to exist in our countries to, you know, allow for these jobs to exist, right? So I think again, even with that gloomy picture of the future, we're not running away from climate change. Whatever we're trying to do to save the earth and mitigate, it's still going to be a lot of catastrophes. It's going to still going to be a lot of disasters we have to deal with. But I think with financial freedom, we're allowing better livelihoods for this generation and better transfer of that generational wealth for the next generation. Because if we build it with this generation, we build that basic financial freedom, then the next one will have much better living conditions. The next one will have much better consciousness, because when you also have financial freedom, you have responsibility, right? And so when you have displacement, when you have disasters, when you have climate crisis, you're going to be worried more about your poverty as a first line, because that's your first struggle, rather than what's going on around you, or rather than saving you know, your country or the world. So I really hear your concerns and I share them. The future is scary, but I think we should double down on making sure that young people, young women, have their financial freedom to make choices for their lives and to make choices for their livelihoods and to make choices for their countries. We've been having discussion at the Nalafem Council, you know a lot about women political leadership, and you know, how are we strategising around getting women in masses, in politics, right? But you look at the women who go into politics, and they're financially like their campaign budget is zero. They're relying on all of these things to run their campaign. They go there. They're focused on political change. They go out with zero, you know, financial freedom, with zero, economic empowerment. And we were, at some point asking ourselves, shouldn't we, you know, when we say we want women political leadership, shouldn't we be focusing first on empowering them economically? Nolita:  It's a complex one, so doubling down into economic freedom. And earlier, however, earlier, you also mentioned that, like a lot of this work is happening, largely unfunded. So where does this economic opportunity potentially come from? I spoke to one of your fellows, like, a year ago, and she was speaking about how she ran for office, and it was largely crowd funded, and she didn't. And she was saying, first of all, you're competing in environment where people are just giving other people cash to vote, like, “Hey, here's a few shillings so you can go to the ballot, etc.” And but she was saying that she felt when, when she lost, she did feel a bit like this is people's money that just didn't go anywhere, didn't do anything. Could I have done something more useful with the support that I have? What are the opportunities to get that type of resourcing? Or is your proposal to maybe more people should have a little bit of a career before they go into politics? Aya: What we're trying to breed now as a generation of female leaders is to be Pan African, right? It's because, like, you can't just be feminist, you have to be Pan African. And to go back to the foundation that as a continent, we're the richest continent in the world, like we have 33% of the global diamond reserve we have, I don't know, 80% of the arable reserve, the Democratic Republic of Congo can feed the entire continent, you know, and I can go on and on, with the kind of resources we have, we can, as a continent, as countries, be like self-reliant on our own and feeding our own population, building our own economies and creating our own jobs. Like we can. This, we have to make sure that this is not a dream. This is not some fantasy, you know, for Africa to realise. Without the help of anybody, we can as a continent, and not only for ourselves, we are nourishing the world’s economy, right, and the closest one Europe, we have been nourishing European economy. So on that level, on that scale, there are decisions, there is political will, there are political policies. There is an African integration that can play a huge role in fixing this unemployment challenge, in driving the financial freedom challenge. And we have to look at it at macro level, continental level, because it's going to be much faster. And there are a lot of things are into place and going slowly, like the African Free Trade Area, the e-commerce platform, you know, the financial infrastructure and regulations. I moved here in Kenya and Nairobi, I love M-Pesa, and I love how since I've known M-Pesa for the 10 years, they have been even improving their financial ecosystem further right. So we cannot talk of us as in our tiny countries and, you know, and our tiny jobs in a company somewhere, you know, on the southern of Tunis or on the east of Ghana, like, if we really want to uplift our livelihoods to the level where we deserve all to live as African youth, that's how and where we should start. Now, in terms of, like, individual careers. So the fellowship you're talking about. What we're proposing is that whether you want to go into politics or not, you have to have an experience in government. So yes, we're going to work on the financial part. We're going to work on the financial literacy. We're going to work on the training for, you know, career development, whatnot. But whether you want to make change and impact outside the government for your country or inside, you have to understand government. The first thing we need to make sure this generation understands is how you navigate power. Who has power, and is it power over you know, where is where are you at that scale, and who are the allies and that power? And I think for us, building that ecosystem of them, for them, in terms of power, if you don't feel like you're holding power right now, where does power realise and how can we give access to that? So that's part of it. It's not one answer. Financial freedom, as I said, is one of them. But they're complex of things, especially for African youth, because they're the most discriminated, the most excluded by age, by gender. It's a reality we live in, and the smallest access you can give to them, so many miracles can happen, and we've seen them in many of the parliamentarians who are now in Kenya's parliament, the young women, once they had access, they're out there, you know, changing laws and driving progressive agendas, and in many of the countries right now, they are facing elections as well. But those parliamentary seats are not enough. You have to maintain them in politics. Nolita:  So I know we're almost out of time. If I were to ask one last maybe simple, maybe not simple, question is, if you could, at the snap of your fingers, create a little miracle? Oh, what would it be? Aya: Oh, Nolita, we need many miracles in this world. I mean, the first miracle I want is a ceasefire for the Palestinian people and women and children, but also across conflict settings in Sudan and Congo and so many of our African people as well. But I really like a miracle would be to uphold peace in the world. Let's start there. Another miracle would be to hold perpetrators accountable. Like I would love to see justice, accountability. It would just heal a lot of the people, a lot of women who've gone through sexual violence, in conflict, in domestic violence, in whatever, you know, violent situation they've been at. It's just like seeing justice is more than 50% of that healing process. And I think even as Africa, we haven't seen justice as a continent to a lot of the atrocities that happen to us. So that would be two, and then three would be equality, for sure. I just want to smash patriarchy and just get over it so I can live my life free and just be! Nolita:  Yeah, to just, you know, be, be yourself without having to think too much about too many things. But yeah, thank you so much for taking the time to speak to us today, and thank you all for listening in. For more information, please visit clubofrome.org.  

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• From financing change to changing finance with Peter Blom and Till Kellerhoff

  From Financing Change to Changing Finance Today’s financial system extracts value from natural, human, and social capital while increasing the gap between rich and poor. This has significantly shifted the interaction between financial and economic systems from ‘finance supporting the economy’ to ‘the economy supporting finance’. In this episode, Till Kellerhoff, Program Director at The Club of Rome, speaks with Peter Blom, former CEO of Triodos Bank, member of The Club of Rome and chair of the Club of Rome Rethinking Finance Hub, about the urgent need to transform the financial system. They explore the transition from financing sustainable projects to changing the financial paradigm itself, the concept of financialisation, and how it impacts the real economy, ecological health, and social equity, as well as the possibilities and obstacles in achieving these transformations. Watch the video: Full transcript: Till: Welcome to the Club of Rome Podcast, exploring the shifts in mindset and policy needed to transform the complex challenges we face today. My name is Till Kellerhoff. I am Program Director of the Club of Rome and leading the Reclaiming Economics Impact Hub. I am very pleased to welcome today Peter Blom. Peter is the former CEO of Triodos Bank, which won the Financial Times sustainability bank of the Year award in 2009 and has become a global reference for value based banking. Peter also founded the Global Alliance for Banking on Values in 2009 and was the chair of the board in 2021.Alongside many other things, Peter is a member of the executive committee of the Club of Rome and Chair of the Rethinking finance Impact Hub, which aims to contribute to the evolution of the financial system so it can serve the transformation of our economy to achieve human well being within planetary boundaries. Welcome Peter. Peter: Thank you for being here. Till: Thank you for joining. And let's start with a general question on the Club of Rome to which you became a member in 2015. What motivated you to join the Club of Rome back then? Peter: Well, what motivated me to join was actually the invitation I got, and I was very surprised by that. And what I was surprised of that people said to me from the Club of Rome, you're relatively young. I just had then become 50, but anyway, you have a good track record, so we are very happy to have you in the club. So that was I felt very honored as an as a useful new member to the club, and really was happy that I could contribute to the to the thinking of the Club of Rome. What in that time, was not so exposed anymore as it was in 1973 when I read as a very young guy, this first book, Limits to Growth. But I've seen in the last, I would say, decades two decades, that there has been an increasing interest in the Club of Rome thinking. And that we are very doing very well in transforming this idea of limits to growth, so a more system change approach what is needed today and tomorrow. Till: Very good. And you mentioned the Limits to Growth, already published in 1972 by a group of MIT researchers, and the Limits to Growth spoke about the material limits to growth on a finite planet. Now your background is in banking and finance. What is the connection of finance and the financial system to this boundaries of growth on a finite planet? Peter: Yeah, actually, if you look back at this report, it's it's quite a linear approach. It's not a circular approach at all. It's a quite linear approach. But first we had to be more conscious and aware of the linear limitations of our system before we could really think about the circular approach we need today. And in banking, it's very important, and finance very important that you don't look only to the next two or three months, although that happens more and more in banking, but the next 5 to 10 years. So limits to growth, what is possible, how you can grow your business in a sustainable way, is highly relevant for banks. It was already in the 80s, when I started my career in banking, but it's even more today. So circular thinking, not only counting on growth, also considering that substitution from non sustainable business to more sustainable business is a very important aspect of banking today, and so I think the club of Rome's thinking about system finance is highly relevant for the financial industry, the financial sector. Till: And you mentioned already, one point of finance very often connected with is that it demands short term financial returns. Before we come to the broader systemic shifts of the finance system, is it even possible as kind of one player to change the game? So if the rules are in such game that they value short term returns, how easy is it to change that as one player in this industry? Peter: I think you cannot change yourself the whole system as one single financial institution. That is one of the reasons where, when we founded this Global Alliance for Banking on Values, I realize already, uh, 20 years ago, that we did quite well and grew very well as a bank, that just being one bank growing is not enough to change the system. Maybe with an alliance, we could contribute, and I think that is happening at the moment. At that I'm also very happy that the Global Alliance is so successful at the moment. But I think what you can do is stretch. You can say from getting even more short term. You can make it slightly more longer term, and can make clear that maybe it's not the next year you're only looking at, but the next five year, the next seven years, maybe the next 10 years. But you can never say, Well, I only look at the long term and not at the short term. Banking is looking at both. But many banks forgot about the long term and only looked at the short term. I think that's what we corrected, in a way, by the practices of Triodos Bank, and I must say, where many other banks also are looking at because they also can see that the system is much more vulnerable than it was maybe 20, 30, years ago, where you really couldn't count on linear developments what you really can't anymore today. Till: And we saw the vulnerability of the banking sector in the crisis, 2008,  2009. Do you think regulations were put in place that changed the system to the better since then, in the sense of the banks that were too big to fail, in the sense of the public having to buy certain banks out of that, did regulation and governance pick up on that issue? Peter: Let's stay positive. It helped. It helped to calm down things, to create bigger buffers for the banks, what was good. But they did not change fundamentally the system. So it was still possible to create more money, to create to grow faster the financial sector than the real economy, what, in itself, brings a lot of vulnerability into the whole system, including the society and what we having to deal with as people. So I do think it helped, and we learned from it, but not fundamentally. Fundamentally. We have to look much more closely to what is the role of banking and how can it? How can we make it much more structurally supporting the real economy, instead of making it less vulnerable and slightly more more stable compared to what it was in the past? Till: Yeah, and you mentioned that certain changes and improvements might have happened, but not on a systemic level. And I think that's one of the goals many Club of Rome members could subscribe to, right achieving something like well being for all within planetary boundaries from a systemic level. How helpful do you say now the financial system today is in achieving this goal, achieving well being for all within the planetary boundaries? Peter: Well, I think what is a very important notion in this whole financial debate, I would say, is that you can talk about finance change, and that's what we learned as banks. We really started to focus on different asset classes, made some parts of the economy greener. Also thought it was a very interesting new sector for the banks. But what we didn't look at as if on a financial system level, in change finance. How do we change the finance system altogether so we can more, structurally avoid that we are still financing brown assets and not green assets. How do we not continue to tweak a little bit the current system while we are not really addressing the more systemic questions? Till: It's not enough to finance change, but actually to change finance, and that was the title as well, of a paper you co authored last year entitled From financing change to changing finance. And one of the starting points there is that you speak about the financialization of societies. Could you briefly explain what that financialization is and maybe also how we got there? Peter: I think if you look at the volumes in the financial sector, you see an incredible growth where in the banking sector, in let's say, in the in the Western world, it was only a percentage of the gross national product. What we did in the financial sector, in banking, and now we have sort of three, four times gross national product. So the importance of the financial industry has become major. We depend on it with our pensions. We depend on it as businesses, citizens, for taxes and so forth and so on. So we financialized a lot of things, and we became dependent on it. And it's a little bit abstract. What do we mean by that? And I think many things we take for granted now and who function in the real economy sphere have been discovered by financial institutions, by asset managers, including CO2 carbon emission markets and biodiversity, and you name it, everything can be financialized and be brought to a market. And I think we have to think much harder about where a market is a good thing to help to allocate resources, and where markets only create more dynamics and more growth and actually create a problem because there is a market for it. So I think that is something, what the Club of Rome should do really make clear where markets work and where they don't work. It's very clear it's too easy to create markets for financialized products, and biodiversity is one of them they're thinking of at the moment. And it's not because we think we can help by the biodiversity to grow. It's more to make money out of it. And that is in itself, a real unbalance in the system. And that's where the cup of Rome has a role to play to to reveal what is this unbalance? What does it do? What are the wrong side effects of that. Till: So when you mentioned the financial markets and finance kind of outgrowing the real economy to a certain extent, who is benefiting from that and who isn't benefiting Peter: To a certain extent on the short term, we all benefit from it. It creates money for the system, and people can spend that. But what you see as a real big issue is the difference between asset owners and non asset owners. It's the inflation of asset prices what creates, really the divide between the haves and the have nots. You can see it in Western countries. You can see it on a global scale between emerging markets, poorer countries and Western countries. When you have certain assets you can value, then you are well off, because, in a way, they follow the money in that sense, and then people are secured. Simple, if you are renting a house, you have a real issue. Rent go up every year. If you buy a house and pay off your mortgage, your assets become more and more and more valuable. So you see really a social divide between the haves and the have nots. And I think that's a real, serious problem we should avoid. And that is what financialization and fast growing markets creating too much money in the market, what it does really, it's not stable. It makes the differences much bigger than we want them to have, and that creates unrest on a global level, also on a national level, even on a very local level. And all the unrest, people get more fearful. They don't know, can they live tomorrow? Can they live next year? And therefore, the real serious questions like the climate change, like biodiversity, like resources questions are not taken serious enough, because it makes people think and feel more short term, and that's a really, really distractor from looking at the real issues we have to look into. So it has a big effect indirectly, on dealing with the bigger issues, I would say. Till: And now you already mentioned the interests in the game, why people want to increase the value share, the value asset, looking for that. Now being coming from a Club of Rome perspective, we know it's usually not the individual, but individuals behave according to incentives the system gives them. And Donella Meadows, basically one of the main authors of the Limits to Growth, always thought about the leverage points in a system that can change these incentives and that can change then also individual behavior. What would you say are these leverage points in the rethinking finance dimension to really achieve system change and not just individual change? Peter: Well, I think what is so interesting about the approach of Donella Meadows is that she, she really not, is saying, well, it's only about big, big ideas, paradigm shifts. It's also about changing the practices day to day. And on the spectrum of the 12 levels of Donella Meadows, I think you can see the whole spectrum of finance change to change finance. And I think what we have been trying to do with our paper and and with us many others, like the Bill Bretton Woods movement and so forth and so on, we have tried to bring it more up off the ladder of Meadows and think more about the paradigm shift that is needed. What means a new approach to money, a new way of thinking about money, a new way of looking at what the role is of financial institutions. I think there are many things we just need as businesses in the real economy, but finance is something we have created, and it's sort of gone out of hand.  We now have to sort of re look at it and say, well, in what service do we have, actually these financial institutions? Can they be privately owned? One of the questions we also raise in our paper, it's very common that it's privately owned when those goes well, so privatized profits, socialized losses when it doesn't work anymore. We need them for our system, for our structures, and then the government have to come in, we as a community have to come in to save them. And I think that is the sort of thinking we have to look more, consequently, into it. And I think many bankers actually understand that, and many financial people understand that, but it's only the problem with money. It's so easy to make money with money that it's very hard to say goodbye for that and make a financial system what does not count anymore with double digit profits, but make reasonable profits, who match the profits of a real economy in average. Till: And you make a very good point on the privatising wins and socializing losses, which also shows that we often speak about bubbles and specific aspects of the financial system and disconnecting the financial system to the real economy. However, when bubbles explode, the links to the real economy are still very clear, because it affects the whole economy, right? So it is a very embedded in a very complex system. And describing what you just described, the diagnosis demands for change. In the paper, you write that the diagnosis requires more than tweaking the current system, the sustainable finance or green finance policy agenda should be aiming for transforming the system itself. What are the differences between these things like, what's the difference between greening and system change in maybe some also concrete examples, like, where do you see some minor improvements, incremental changes that might, however, not be enough for the real system change we need to see in order to make finance serve planets and people. Peter: I think what you see now that by new government regulation, like the taxonomy in Europe, we have we, we see that we force banks, financial institutions, to take a better look at the green aspects of of the assets they finance. But what would be much more structural if you say, Well, if you continue to invest in brown assets, you really need a higher capital ratio. You cannot use the same capital ratio for brown assets financing as green. And that is now coming more to the consciousness of regulators. Central banks talk about it already. They didn't do that five years ago. So things are changing. So that's what I mean by really structural changes. You make clear that it's not just about a nice marketing tool to look greener what is very easily become green washing, but make very clear that it's too expensive to continue to finance on such a big scale, brown assets, and if you do that, you need a lot of capital, and you cannot make the return you need as a bank. So going to green assets is a more structural approach if you relate them to the capital requirements. That's one example. You could also say, well, for banks, we need different., andthat's that's a much more fundamental question that you could say, maybe banks cannot be listed companies anymore. Maybe they should be more companies who are in the commons. The commons, who is really a structure for public private interest, and that we have to define much better. What is the public interest, what is the public cost and the public benefit? And where can you bring in private investors? We haven't thought about that. I think cooperative banks are a good example. They have really the opportunity to look more from a commons perspective for their role. And I think steward ownership, enterprise, foundation owned banks, I think is another alternative. Till: What are then the barriers of implementing systemic changes? Because you mentioned, you know, many bankers understand the value of the green transition, but obviously there are very, very, very strong interests opposing this view as well, otherwise we wouldn't see the investments into fossil industry. So you also mentioned that in the paper that there are certain barriers to implementing those changes. What would you see as those barriers? Peter: Well, I think there are a couple of barriers. One barrier is from it's very difficult for a Risk Management System. What a bank is in the end, the bank has to manage risk. It's about lots of money, relatively small margins, so you have to be very keen on your risk management. And what you have seen since, particularly since the last financial crisis, that that needs improvement. And what you have seen that mainly old data of the old economy determine what your risk model is for assessing new risks, and that's actually holding you back from financing transition. You always come with more risk. Maybe you don't know the benefit so well, but you can identify the risk much more easy, and the risks are bit bigger because they do not refer to the old system. So whatever is new, that's a real issue for a banker. If you and you cannot explain that to your regulator, and the regular say, Well, if you take all this new stuff on you, you probably need more capital. More capital means lower profits. Lower profit means very hard to get new capital so it stops itself from a system point of view. The other thing is, the other solution could be that you have a different type of shareholdership. What is much more hybrid combination of government interest and some private interest where you maybe can lower the return for the investor by reducing some of the risks he has evolved in. And I think that's where the government can play an important role. And therefore you can create banks who do not go for double digit profit anymore, but for a reasonable profit of 5, 6, x7, percent, but with lower risks and with more involvement of governments to make that possible. So you have to create new institutions who are more regulated, also from a governance point of view, where you allow for entrepreneurship, but you make it possible for banks to work with lower risk profiles, and therefore also can reduce the profit demand from the market if you still want to finance things through the market. But that's the big thing. I mean, it's not something easy, but you cannot solve these things with easy measures, you have to look at the bigger picture. And what does it mean for not only regulation, what is still a sort of tweaking, but what does it mean for the more fundamental approach to who owns, actually a bank who owns asset managers, as they are so important for the development of society and transformation, and we don't want to have any control and say, Well, that's what the market will decide. The market will not. The market is not conscious about the future. The market is about conscious about the transaction next hour, even next second. Till: Yeah. And that is part of the market system and market logic as well, right? Money flows into the highest profitability, and that's it's not even blaming individuals in there. They behave according to that system, but when you mention the new institutions and new regulations, they kind of need to make sure that money can flow into things that might be less profitable, but at the same time more beneficial for societies. And that is, of course, one of the big challenges. Peter: Yeah and all this notion of profit, and I hear it also in the impact community. Actually, I think it's very hard to define if there is a real profit or not. There are always externalities. We are not conscious about and, we have to be very awake and looking from a holistic point of view to things before we decide this is profitable or not. The easy way of saying, but it has to be market conformity, in many things market conformity means that we exclude certain costs and leave them to others, and then it looks very profitable. I think that's not the way forward. It's far more complex. So we, we people say, well, it's easy when you talk about money, it's more difficult when you talk about climate impact, social impact. I think even from a money point of view, it's not so easy to define if something is profitable or not? Till: Yeah, that's a very good point, and goes back to the roots of the Club of Rome, actually, that profitability maybe should be seen as more than the monetary value, but that there are all these externalities. And one part of the policy agenda is trying to internalize these externalities, but we need to be aware of the ecological ceiling of our economic system. Peter: Exactly. Till: And one part one project where we try to tackle this financing change aspect a little bit more also is the Project Earth for all, one of the last reports of the Club of Rome, where we argue for five different turnarounds connecting the social and environmental dimension. And one estimate we have there is that the transition will cost, or will be investments into the future in a range of 2 to 4% of GDP per year short term, because things that need to happen might be more expensive short term than just continuing with business as usual. So if we speak about these enormous amounts of kind of changing capital and work from one sector to the other, how do you see a split in that between public finance and private finance? Because we speak often about the public dimension of subsidies of investments of states, as we see it, also with the Inflation Reduction Act in the USA to starting this transition. But of course, private finance plays a big role. So how do you see that split? Peter: I would say we should make it not absolute. So that's why I think, particularly where I come from, the Netherlands, they have this funny idea that things have to be made ready for the market. So there are huge investments through subsidies to make things ready for the market. And then you see the market waiting, waiting, waiting until it's ready for the market. And they pick it up then, and they take that gift by making it ready for the market, like for granted, and then start to make profit for the shareholders. Where I think we should be much more conscious about the public role of pre investing in new developments. That's why I'm so a big fan of national investment banks who can take a higher risk a long term view. KfW in Germany is a good example, but you have the same in the UK, you have the same in France. I think national investment banks are key in making this transition from a new idea scale it up to something where also other parties can step into. And what I think is important that this is not a subsidy driven organization, but it makes an investment with another risk profile. And sometimes they make good returns and they can use it for new investment, and sometimes they have big losses, because it has not been the development they envision. And I think it's very healthy for an economy, for our society, to have a sort of middle organization, like a national investment bank or institution to to bridge actually, to this more standard market approach. And I think they will also have an effect on the market, because if there are serious institutions, they will have an effect on those banks, asset managers that they step by step, will taking more risk on the real changes that are needed where now in this system they can't. It's like completely without any risk taking anymore. The margins are very thin. There's too much money anyway, so you cannot afford to lose anything, so nothing happens. This would be, for me, a very important step in many countries to much more consciously use public money in combination with private money to have these investment banks, national investment banks, working more from a commons perspective. Till: And it's a good point, because this Commons perspective then also includes kind of the social dimension, right, where we often see that maybe the biggest challenge to solving climate change is not the technical dimension, but rather social acceptance and making sure that we don't also by subsidizing, by channeling finances in other ways that we don't kind of recreate a trickle up effect, where then not a few people in the fossil fuel industry benefit, but then a few people in the renewable energy, but that really all people benefit from that. Which also comes back to your point on ownership. Peter: Particularly when financial exclusion, I must say, for the haves and the have nots is really happening, therefore you need a sort of countervailing power, and that is the commons, I would say, who help to for people to realize that we are all bankers, we own together, the banks, they just fulfill a function collectively for us. But there's not like a special knowledge or a special smartness they have to bring in and can make money out of that. That's maybe with technical products differently, but with banks, is just a a service to the whole system, and we should do that in a very good way, also entrepreneurial, but not in the way that you are positioning yourself opposite the customers. You are actually the customer and the shareholder should be the same, in my view, they should have because it basically is the same, because the shareholders only can get a return when the customer still believes the bank. And it has nothing to do with technology whatsoever. It's all about trust. And I know, because I've been there, I know how it works. It's all about trust, and the trust comes from the consumer, the consumer of banking products, and not from the shareholder. Till: Which also shows, again, that economics and finance is not an objective natural science, but it's related a lot to psychology and values and belief systems. And now, I think more and more people, after the financial crisis have realized that, and there is a lot of movement with different ideas in the sector. So there are more and more organizations trying to see what different ways to finance are there. You mentioned the taxonomy. We have read a lot about green quantitative easing ideas in the last years, we hear a lot about modern monetary theory, basically arguing that a government that issues its own currency cannot run out of money. How does that give you optimism that there are so many new ideas coming up? Or what do you think about the current landscape there? Peter: Yeah, in different ways, I think there are some very light tweaking things. What I think is okay, but will not change the system to the more fundamental modern monetary system theories. I think can really help to get us out of the idea that that there is an autonomous system of creating money, where you should look very carefully, what are the resources in the economy and support that with the money you can issue, so to speak, what is a different approach than we have we have now seen it as something you can steer with money because you have certain purposes. You can also see there are certain resources available. Let's make sure that they get financed. And I think that was, MMT I thought was, I think, in that sense, a very interesting approach. What I've heard, not enough yet, is, is this whole governance, ownership question around financial institutions, I think that is in the background, more fundamental than we realize, because is, in the end, it's still the shareholder interests, or maybe as a very important stakeholder on a group of stakeholders. I think there is still a sort of exclusive interest for certain people connected to it, and I think we should, in that sense, democratize the financial industry much more stronger than we did in the past. That doesn't necessarily mean that we make it all to state banks, because that will slow down things a lot. So there is a sort of in between area, the commons, where you can, well, you have to be much more creative to unlock the entrepreneurial qualities you need there as well. But not turn it, automatically in individual profit making, but make it much more profit making what is between good results, but also the community where you feed it back to. I think that's a very important principle. What I think we should pick up, there will be a lot of resistance, because that doesn't fit the ownership agency ideology in economics, but I think for finance, this is critical. Till: And in that context, I might also recommend deep dive papers by Ken Webster, who speaks exactly about the third element between public and private. And get us out of the dichotomy of the last century, but get into the new one. So there is a lot of movement. There are still many blind spots. And last question, what do you think the role of the Club of Rome can be in this regard, in filling these blind spots? What should the Club of Rome do to not only finance change, but also change finance? Peter: Well, I think in isolation, only to deal with change finance doesn't make a lot of sense. We simply have not the background as the Club of Rome to come up with lots of new ideas in finance. But put it in the bigger picture of system change, and do not speak about an isolated financial crisis. A financial crisis, first of all, is the result of crisis in other areas. And I think Club of Rome can really reveal that. Make that clear how they are in the poly crisis approach we are taking , how, particularly in the background to the financial system, is actually impacting that. In sometimes a positive way, but sometimes also in a negative way. So I'm very happy that the Club of Rome included finance now, because they realize that in the background, finance determines a lot of the interaction between the different crisis. And I think in this holistic approach in this system approach, I think there is where the Club of Rome can really add value. If you only leave it to monetary professors, I think it's not enough. You need ecologists. You need system thinkers. You need lawyers about governance experts. You need social experts, and they and that is what the Club of Rome is about. They bring together the knowledge and start to learn how things are interrelated. And we should really try to to work with that, with all these partners who have maybe more special interest and special issues like finance, like agriculture, like, economic thinking, like social questions, and bring them more together and say, Well, this is this how all those things are interrelated, and how we can make that work great. Till: So even after 55 years of the Club of Rome, there's still work for us to do, and we will continue working on this. I would recommend everyone to check out the From financing change to changing finance paper. Thank you very much for joining Peter. Thanks everyone for listening to the Club of Rome podcast. And for more information, please visit Club of rome.org.

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• Music, film and authenticity for social change with Sishii and Nolita Mvunelo

  Music, art, and media have always played powerful roles in social movements that created long-lasting societal change. Will the 21st century be any different? How can we inspire a generation to liberate their future actively? In this episode, Nolita Mvunelo is joined by Sishii, an award-winning singer and activist. Together, they dive into the role of art and music in inspiring young Africans to make a difference in the face of adversity. They question why more artists do not address the climate change crisis and other systemic issues while reflecting on the importance of art in raising awareness, inspiring action, and shaping the future.  Watch the video: Full Transcript: Nolita: We kind of need a revolution. Welcome to a special edition of The Club of Rome podcast exploring how we can work together across generations, across continents, across contexts, to mobilize action for a regenerative future. I am Nolita Mvnelo, Programme Manager of the Club of Rome, and in this episode, I had a conversation with someone I am proud to call a friend, Sishii. Actor, R&B, singer heard by millions, based in South Africa and changing the world. Against a backdrop of all the concerns we are facing, we discussed the role of art and music in inspiring young Africans to make a difference in the face of adversity. Thank you so much for joining me and joining me in my world of big picture and asking big questions and asking about the future of humanity and society, but also the future of us as Africans. Other people won't know this, but you're partly responsible for why we're doing this limited series, because you're the one who said, "Yo, you we always have these interesting conversations. Why don't we, why don't you sit down and try to have more conversations with more interesting people?" So I'm very grateful for you taking the time to chat with me today.  Sishii: Thank you for having me and thanks for doing it.  Nolita: I have, like, a handful of questions that also, again, are very reminiscent of some of the conversations we've had. The first one being, we always share a sense of, like, these concerns about the future of South Africa, the future of Africa, and our place in making a difference in those concerns.  Sishii: Yeah. I mean, a lot of the time the conversation is about leadership. It's about what we as young people are doing currently for, you know, our country, our continent, our world, and what we're trying to do to make things better for this world. And I'd say that the concern, it's like, there's so many facets of life, obviously, there's the economy, there's politics. I'm an artist, so there's the future of the arts. And we kind of cover a lot of those subjects, you know, in the conversations that we have, but I think in all of those subjects, the primary concern is what we're doing to make things better, because we recognize that something is, something's definitely wrong.  Nolita: When you say what we're doing, do you feel like there is enough opportunity to do things?  Sishii: I think a lot of our conversation is about how we feel like those who do have the opportunity to do something aren't actually doing anything, and those who don't have the opportunity to do anything are not even really considering what possible changes there could be. And in terms of what I'm doing, I'm just doing what I love, which is being an artist and inspiring other artists. Inspiring, you know, young people, according to them, also, this is not, I'm not saying I'm an inspiration. I have been called one on a few occasions. Yeah, inspiring African artists to pursue their dreams of being artists and inspiring Africans in my little corner of the world, which is South Africa, to just believe in themselves, to believe that they can come from circumstances that aren't necessarily great and make a change in the world and try and do positive in the world. So yeah, I think that's what I'm currently up to, and I hope I'm doing well at it.   Nolita: Do you think you have a sense of what does it take to inspire someone who feels that they don't have enough opportunity to rise to leadership or to make like, like groundbreaking, world changing art.  Sishii: It's weird, but like, as an artist, it's when your intention is to inspire, and you create from wanting a certain reaction, right from certain people, it doesn't really work as well as when you're being true to yourself, it doesn't work as well as telling your story in the best way you know how with whatever it is that you have and so what I've learned is this road for me, has just been about storytelling and using whatever resources I can find, gather people. This is a people's business, yeah, just essentially using all of that to tell my story. And in the process, I found that there are people who find that inspiring. Because if you have gone through hardship and you're talking about it, I'm pretty sure there's someone out there, at least one, I mean, there's billions of people in the world, and surely there's one, if you just stay true to who you are. So that's been my journey of what I've been trying to do, and I've found that I've inspired people in the process. But I didn't kind of start my journey saying, oh, I want to inspire people. I just wanted to express myself. And I found that a lot of people just want to express themselves, and they really struggle to do so.  Nolita:I think you've hit, like, a very important point on authenticity. Because, like, as I started a conversation, I said, welcome to my world, this, podcast. But also a lot of the things that the Club of Rome and the international contract are working on are very much concerned about the question of leadership, but leadership, specifically when it comes to climate change and sustainability and the types of decisions that people are making. You make a point about storytelling and also authenticity being important for how to bring forth that messaging and that voice, but very often, I feel that it doesn't land. But from your perspective, when it comes to like, the concerns about climate and the risks that we're facing, do you feel that it's being, the storytelling is being effective, and if you do what is effective about it? If you feel that it's not being effective, what do you think could be done to improve it, from your perspective as an artist?  Sishii: So, I've not found a lot of artists talking about climate change, it's interesting. I don't think we take it as seriously as it is. I really don't. And as a result of that, I don't see much art talking about that, and I don't see a lot of people my age talking about climate change or even really thinking about it. There are people who think it's a lie, there are people who think, and a lot of the time, you ask those people why they think it's a lie, they go, "Ah, it doesn't make sense". "Well have you read anything about it?" It's like, "No, I haven't actually read anything about it. I just, I just think it's a lie." So there's this weird kind of choosing of sides without having any information on which side you're choosing, but saying, okay, it seems like there's a side I have to choose, so I'm just going to choose the side without actually figuring out why I'm choosing said side. Yeah, I don't know if that answers your question.   Nolita:Actually, I feel like, as you're speaking, in my mind, I immediately thought, imagine a song about climate and like, a song about climate and like, would it hit like, the Spotify 1 million streams or Apple Music, you know, like, would it? Would it hit?  Sishii: I mean, the only person I can think of who ever did stuff like that was like, Michael Jackson.  Nolita: Oh yeah, heal the world or something.  Sishii: Yeah I mean, this is my kind of perspective on life in general right now, which is that I think we have become a lot more self-absorbed, not necessarily in a negative way, but a lot of the time it does show up negatively. And that when it comes to a change that inspires or affects more people than yourself, you know, or more people that do not actually include yourself, you know, we're not finding people not being interested in doing that anymore.   Nolita: When I imagine like a challenge that's as big as climate, right, which requires collaboration on such a broad level, but also requires collaboration across different cultures and perspectives. One of the best ways to share values and perspectives in culture is in our art, right? So the role of art in making sure that everyone is involved in this big group project is incredibly significant. But for some reason, we are struggling to imagine that we could get a million Spotify streams on a song about climate. So how do we make it, yeah, so how do we make it happen?  Sishii: Right?   Nolita: Is there something about maybe it's where from, where we understand the innovation comes from. Like, not to quote him, but we know who said, listen to the kids bro. And he was making a very specific point about the tastemakers are young people. In your creative process, is there any like consultation that you do about like with the people who listen to your music and care about your music? Do you ever try to get a sense of like, this is what is interesting. These are the topics people are listening to. Or is it very much like me and my creative process.  Sishii: I would love to say absolutely not. I would love to be an artist who's so, you know, self-sufficient that people's opinions don't actually matter to me. I do subconsciously, I definitely subconsciously digest what people are thinking about and talking about, and sometimes it does affect my music. I'm trying to make that less of a thing, now. I think I'm doing better at that, but it's really hard. I think the kind of thing about being an artist is like, you've really got to be self-sufficient. Don't care about what people think. Don't care about what people are talking about. It's very weird, because I believe that if this was, I don't know, 50 years ago, and every artist was talking about climate change, and every artist was talking about how the world is, you know, "Oh, no", you know. I do feel like I'd be saying about that too, maybe perhaps, but I just yeah, I think now the goal is to talk about yourself and what you're going through and your own emotions, and so I have tried to not engage what people are thinking about my, you know, about my music and their opinions. So, yeah, it's not, it's not really collaborative. It's not like I collaborate with people to try and find out what the world is thinking about and then make songs that are in line with that. I, no.  Nolita: Maybe it's time? Like, even like political music, you know, like in the last election, did it pass your mind?   Sishii: But the issue is that when I was very collaborative with people, as in, you know, hearing their opinions, a lot of my music was actually a lot more self-absorbed. Because that is what's, you know, if we're talking about, like, listening to the kids, the kids right now are primarily talking about, hey, I'm, like, going through this. Hey, there's this that happened with this person and this girl, or whatever. You know, my peers, the people I make music with, no one's ever brought up climate change. And so it's like even so if I were to listen to what people are talking about so that I can make music about what people are talking about, it would actually take me further away from politics and climate change. I found that it's my own proactivity in wanting to be involved in politics, in voting, and that has made me go, No, man, I've actually got to be more concerned with what's happening in the world.  Nolita: Is it fair to say your your genre, is it like more pop, or would you say, like, what's your primary? Because, I mean.   Sishii: Alternative.   Nolita: Alternative, yeah. Because I was going to say, like, a lot of South African jazz does speak about politics, right and the state of affairs, but then again, like on that whole listen to the kids bro. Part of it, is how many of our peers actually listen to South African jazz? Yeah, there's not that many people, or even just the tradition overall over time, like in the 60s and stuff, there was all of this, but it was called protest. It's retrospectively, it's called protest music, and not just, like, music of the time. Yeah, and so, I guess, like, does that? Do you ever think about that, like, as an artist, of how will I be categorized over time, with the message, message that I've had and how people have received it?   Sishii: Interesting. That's a deep question. I've never, I've never thought about that. I've actually never thought about how I'll be remembered, I guess. Yeah, but I don't think they were making protest music. I think they were making music. They were just telling the truth about what was going on. And then now, in hindsight, we're like, oh, that was protest music. Oh, that's, you know, yeah, I've not thought about how I'd how be remembered, but I remember once trying to write a song about the state of politics. It was so bad. It was about such a bad song. It was so bad.  Nolita: Why don't you release it? Let's do like a limited release, like a Club of Rome special.   Sishii: I'm an artist at the end of the day, I want to make good music first. And so there's this weird kind of dilemma I find myself in where, when I am talking about the things that really, really matter, I'm like, this doesn't, this kind of sounds, I don't know, tacky, corny, I don't know, you know?   Nolita: Like a sermon?  Sishii: Yeah, like a sermon, you know? And there's even this, this category of rappers called corny rappers whowill talk about, like, serious issues. You know, we have, like, a  Kendrick Lamar who is -  Nolita: Was going to say  Sishii: Phenomenal, right? He's able, he found that, like, kind of, I'm going to talk about the things that really matter, and I'm also going to talk about and I'm also going to make good music. And it's so rare to find that, because a lot of people who do talk about the things that matter, you're like, “This is not really a good song”.  Nolita: Yeah, because then you're not a rapper. You're a conscious rapper, if you're, if you don't have the, if you don't have the skill level of a Kendrick to, you know, to speak about, like, significant things, you know, looping some jazz, etc. Then it goes from, you know, Pulitzer Prize winning to you're on the conscious rap playlist on Spotify, which has significantly less plays than like the Atlanta Hip Hop.   Sishii: Exactly  Nolita: Yeah, okay, I get what you mean. But you're not only a musician Nto, you're also an actor. So, movies and TV shows about politics and climate and all of the things that we're concerned about, is there opportunity there? Does it suffer from the same struggles that you were speaking about when it comes to music?   Sishii: So interestingly enough, in South Africa, things that like films, series, whatever that has to do with crime, it's like always going to be the top hit, you know, and we're aware of the fact that crime is a serious issue in our country. What I found on that side of things is that this young well, let me not say this whole generation, I don't know the whole generation, but the kind of pocket, the circle I'm in, of people I know, of filmmakers, are kind of tired of that. They're kind of tired of, why does every South African film have to be about,  you know, the serious issues, and that's the only time we're ever taken seriously. And as it's like, even the feeling that, like as Africans, we're only rarely taken seriously by the West when we're talking about the plight of Africans, but there's a lot of joy in being an African that when that is spoken about, it doesn't get as much attention, because it's like, no, no, you're sad, you're, you know, angry because of crime and poverty, you know. So, it's very interesting how there are real issues in the world that need to be tackled in art. But what we're finding is, over time, people are deliberately trying to not tackle those things because they're tired of only being taken seriously when talking about those issues. So that's what I found on the film side of things.  Nolita: As you're speaking, I was thinking about Black Panther, and remember how excited we were, yeah, when Black Panther was coming in. And I guess, like, if I tried to, like, put deep thought into it, was like, one of the first few times where it was movie about African identity that was actually more about, like the success and the opportunity, and not a movie about, as you're saying, organized crime, which is typically the stuff that comes out of.  Sishii: Yeah, yeah  Nolita: The stuff that comes out of there. And I guess, like the US equivalent is, like, not every movie has to be about Jim Crow and slavery, you know, yeah, like, black people are capable of being in movies about being at an office, because we have jobs too. Yeah, yeah. But okay, let me get out of the radical part, because next thing I'll speak for 10 minutes about that. And I think I mean, but Black Panther was what, like six to eight years ago, and since then, there has been some. Yeah, we're that old, yeah.  Sishii: Please don't remind me. Oh, my word that was...  Nolita: Yeah. And I mean, there has been some shift somewhat. But again, I'll take you back to I'll say my world, and say outside of, like, the DiCaprio documentaries and the Zac Efron documentaries, etc. Oh, there was also The Boy Who Chased the Wind that was interesting. But, like, I don't yet see a mainstreaming of the challenges that come with, like, nature crisis and climate and the storytelling that comes there. But I think it also has like an effect of, like the listen to the kids bro part and the authenticity we were speaking about on whose stories are we telling?   Sishii: Yeah, on that, on that. No, what I have heard from some people right is we've got more serious issues to deal with in Africa then than the nature crisis. Yeah, we like, I don't have time to think about nature right now, because how am I going to feed my child? How am I going to think about, you know, I don't, I don't care about. How much you know, I wish I knew the names of the chemicals. I don't even know the names of chemicals that are ruining the world - but I don't have time to think about that, because, you know, I'm starving. I need a meal tonight. My child needs to eat tonight, so that's the least of my worries.  Nolita: But okay, we're from Durban, and for context, Durban is a city on the east coast of South Africa, and it's a very tropical city, so we get a lot of rain. And so flooding has become, you know, a biannual event, like twice a year there'll be, like, catastrophic floods in the city. So Durban is one of those few places where even if you met a homeless person in the streets and you said, Hey, climate change, they would probably be like, Yeah, climate change, hey. So that's an example of where this issue is, like, prevalent and pressing for everyone, young, old, etc. People are losing their homes and all that sort of stuff. But I'm yet to see a telenovela about a family that went through a flooding crisis, and we've been having these for over five years. So, you know, maybe that's your next role. Your next role is young man from-  Sishii: I could definitely find that movie for sure. I mean, it's about my home town. You're right though, like you're you're very right that it's happening in our own hometowns, like this is happening at home. I'm hearing about this every single year, multiple times a year, and it's just like, yeah, it'll, you know, it'll pass, it'll pass, it'll pass. And yeah, I think that's concerning, yeah.  Nolita: And we're full circle into the first point you made about leadership and the opportunities for leadership, and where young people believe that there's an opportunity for them to lead. Because, again, on the Durban example, we also know that, like the two examples that you gave, that those who have opportunities are using them, but probably not for these types of concerns, and then you have everyone else who's not aware of what opportunities are available to them. And I guess that was a statement, but my question is more about from your perspective, how do we listen better to the kids, but give more opportunities to the kids to share their perspectives and maybe make a better Durban, South Africa and Africa for themselves.  Sishii: I do think that this all kind of starts with self, right? Like, I know that I could be using my platform to talk about these things, but I'm thinking about, you know, my bottom line, you know, and I think that's what it comes down to is each one of us who has the platform and the opportunity to give opportunities, instead of thinking about our own bottom lines providing opportunities for others. I think that's where it stems from. That's where it starts. But there's the short term and the long term kind of payoffs that I'm always thinking if I'm going to be concerned with what I'm saying today, that can hopefully have a long term effect on people by providing them opportunities, I'm going to lose my opportunities. So that's, that's where it all starts from. But I do, I do think that there's also a serious mental shift that needs to take place. I mean, we've spoken about this before, where there is a kind of general pessimism in our generation, including myself. I mean, I've admitted to this to you as well before that. I'm like, Dude, why? Why are you so motivated to make a difference in the world? You know, personally, I'm like, bro, it's all going down, and I don't, you know, I think that we can try and but I don't think anything's going to get better. So I guess it is shifting that perspective.  Nolita: A quote that I read yesterday was Wangari Maathai's Noble lecture speech where she says her wish for young people is that they invest in the long term. So like to the point you're making about, like, you know, the short term, term gains. There's long term things we could gain? Yeah, the investing in the long term part is so important, because at the end of the day, then what is it for? Final question for you, what gives you hope? Because for me, my faith has a lot to do with it. I kind of keep a perspective that I am here for a reason. I have the opportunities I have, for some reason.  Sishii: Yeah, my response is believing in God, believing in that there's something greater than this world. Because there have been a lot more times in my life where I've been more pessimistic about this world and I'm optimistic. I still struggle with my optimism in this world. I'm like, I don't, you know, you know. I don't think people are going to get any less self, you know, absorbed, even when I look at myself. And so I'm like, I've got to believe there's something greater than this that's ensuring that everything is where it should be. Everything is in the right place right now, and we're okay, because there's a greater purpose for everything else. So yes, my belief from God.  Nolita: Thank you Sishi and thanks for listening to the Club of Rome podcast. For more information, please visit ClubofRome.org 

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