Africa’s Youth Raise a Global Voice to Shape a Just Future
Tuesday, March 7th, the Climate Cafe Multifaith welcomed global leader Pato Kelesitse for a conversation about local and global community, sustainability solutions, and climate justice. Kelesitse, from Botswana, is a recognized youth leader by Global Shapers, The Climate Reality Project, South African Climate Action Network and more. Kelesitse attended the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos with 50 other young Global Shapers in January.
During the conversation, Kelesitse shared her experience at WEF with a heart in the telling for the collegiate admiration of her fellow Shapers, her spirit for organizing community, her concern for the desertification her homeland, and her admiration for the voices of women, youth and communities across Africa raising lifting a call to action for sustainability and local empowerment.
Her story begins with her family farm in Botswana. Her family are small holder farmers, and climate change has already impacted their lives. Says Kelesitse, not only have they seen “less yield,” including less forage for the animals, but also “where we used to take food from the farm to the village or to the city, now it is the other way around.” Kelesitse explained that now, whenever she drives home to the village, she has to “bring extra food…and bring extra supplements for the animals because of the drought.”
Her friends, neighbors and wider community have of course heard of climate change. But the conversation around climate change centers things that are far removed from small farm life in Botswana. Botswana is a landlocked country, there are no rising coast lines and there is no arctic ice. Says Kelesitse, “when people say climate change or global warming it’s polar bears, it’s arctic…things I’d never ever seen.” Stories, images, and research centers the climate change conversation in the experiences of the global north. For people in the global south, this can lead to a “disconnect” that Kelesitse seeks to remedy.
Kelesitse believes a key imperative for re-connection is to better communicate the impacts of global warming to the people of the global south. She believes that discussions and remedies must take people into consideration, not just carbon offsets. Kelesitse asks, “how do we center people, how do we center justice, how do we center humanity? …How is it justice for those people who have been displaced from their homes of many, many years?” She points out that, however well meaning, a rush to plant forests in the global south, in order to sequester carbon emitted in the global north, is not a successful local solution for Africa.
“…as you advocate for climate action, it's important to also take into consideration people and justice; not all climate action is climate justice.”
—Pato Kelesitse
Photo, small holder farm, Botswana, by Pato Kelesitse, used by permission.
Even as Kelesitse calls for the empowerment of local people, especially women, in local communities, she is also aware that larger national and international policy making and economic activity have a huge impact on those communities. To protect people and environment, the global south must be seen and heard and visible in places where international decisions are made—such as at the World Economic Forum (WEF). As a Global Shaper—a young person connected with the WEF organization—Kelesitse believes youth engagement can bring moral reflection and potentially important change.
“We all know that the WEF space has a reputation of billionaires coming together on private jets. It does not have the most positive reputation, so to speak,” says Kelesitse. Yet, “one thing I concluded was that we can't afford to not show up to those spaces.” She explains, “the conference [WEF] is one of the biggest concentrations of wealth and power that happens in the world. Decisions will be made with or without us.”
Kelesitse’s experience at WEF was mixed. On the one hand, she felt that the presence of youth and activists and faith-based groups impacted decision-makers—but perhaps not for the reasons she would have wished. While she was “impressed at how big a topic environmental sustainability was for private businesses,” she was also “worried that the motivation behind this is that it makes business sense,” because “there's a lot of things that make economic sense which we shouldn't do.”
In many ways, the burden of ethical consideration seemed to fall largely on activists and advocates. Kelesitse seemed proud of, but also disappointed by this reality. “We try to channel the conversation, not only for it to make business sense, but also for it to make sense morally, for it to make sense ethically.” It was reality, perhaps, but also lamentable to realize that “we are the outsourced moral compass of private business.”
One thing that really impressed her about the Davos gathering was the degree to which business leaders are organized. Says Kelesitse, "the private sector is really, really organized. They come together, they know what brings the profits, they are organizing. It's a wonder to see just the level—even just the efficiency—of the World Economic Forum and the planning. Nothing started late, everything started on time. I found myself craving that level of efficiency.”
Kelesitse would like to see that kind of organizing efficiency in civil society to address climate change. There is a sense that despite the COPs and other conferences, “a lot of young people feel like not enough action is happening.” While the COP commitments are good, she says, “we want action.” Young people want to “get into negotiating rooms so that they're represented. They’re getting into policymaking spaces so that policies protect their future.”
Kelesitse would also like to see that kind of organizing efficiency in the climate justice movement. “We need to come together and as much as possible act as a unit. At WEF we saw that a business in Singapore and a business in South Africa and a business in Brazil could come together because they knew that what they collectively wanted was profits and they made that work for themselves. What we want is to secure a secure future. We need to organize it so that the pressure is on. There's power in numbers.”
“Listen, young activists came in just to demand action, because really, it's our future at risk.”
—Pato Kelesitse
Pato Kelesitse attended the World Economic Forum in January 2023, and spoke at the Africa Economic Forum in December, 2022, photo.
Numbers are needed, not only to speak and be present in spaces where policies are decided, but also to communicate and organize on the ground where the impacts of climate change are worsening. Sub-Saharan Africa will be one of the hardest hit areas on the globe, with heat potentially surpassing human endurance. Climate change-worsened drought and flooding have already caused displacements and contributed to civil conflicts. And in March, Cyclone Freddy, the largest cyclone ever to be recorded, traveled 5000 miles over 36 days, displacing thousands in Malawi and Mozambique.
For the continent of Africa, storms and displacement heap injustice on injustice. These are nations that have suffered impoverishment and civil war from centuries of colonialism and industrial extraction of resources out of African nations for the benefit of the global north. Africa is not the driver of consumer and industrial CO2; Africa produces just 2-3% of global emissions. And, the lopsided influence of the global north is not restricted to emissions and extraction. Even projects designed to support African development are often decided on and administered by people who are not Africans.
Kelesitse notes that “a lot of the research that's coming out of Africa, that's coming out of Botswana, that's funded and that actually influences policy, is not done by Botswanans.” The result is that the “recommendation usually won't take into consideration cultural differences, traditional differences, and so many other nuances…. these responses and solutions will end up failing in Botswana or on the continent.” Kelesitse wants to redirect these efforts toward local people, toward listening to, empowering, and resourcing them, saying, “communities know exactly what they need.”
If you are interested in supporting Kelesitse’s efforts to raise up African voices and African solutions, consider supporting her podcast, the 367 Sustain Podcast. To fully launch the project, she is still seeking subscribers. You can find past episodes that cover Indigenous African Voices, Social Inclusion, Disaster Capitalism and more. Kelesitse also has a booklist for those interested in hearing the voices of African leaders on environment and climate change.
Kelesitse is also a trained Climate Reality Leader. Hear from former Vice President Al Gore, who spoke on a panel during the World Economic Forum this last year.
Pato Kelesitse is a sustainable development practitioner who advocates for climate justice with a gender lens as a critical development pillar. She holds a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in Accounting and Finance. She is a Masters of Arts in Development Studies candidate at the University of Botswana.
Kelesitse hosts the Sustain267 Podcast, a series of climate change and sustainability conversations with Africans to amplify their voices and solutions within the climate justice movement. She serves as a project officer at the South African Climate Action Network and Curator of Global Shapers Community Gaborone Hub and is an advisor for Urgent Action Fund- Africa. Kelesitse is a FuturElect Fellow, Class of 2023.
Find her on insta and twitter. Support her podcast on Patreon.
Find more articles and video at the intersection of faith, climate change and climate justice on the Faiths4Future blog.
Rev. Richenda Fairhurst is here for the friendship and conversations about climate, community, and connection. She organizes the Climate Cafe Multifaith as a co-leader of Faiths4Future. Find her in real life in Southern Oregon, working as Steward of Climate with the nonprofit Circle Faith Future.