Farida Nabourema

Farida Nabourema spoke to podcast listeners from an undisclosed location in West Africa, out of fear for her personal safety. Farida is a prominent Togolese activist and these are very tense times in Togo. Several people have been killed in protests in recent months amid a growing opposition movement that is calling for the re-instatement of presidential term limits. These term limits are guaranteed under the Togolese constitution, but nonetheless are being ignored by the regime.

Togo is a small country in west Africa, with a population of about 7.5 million people. It has been ruled for the last 50 years by the same family. Eyadéma Gnassingbé came to power in 1967 and ruled until his death in 2005, whereupon his son, Faure Gnassingbé became president. Faure is ruling to this day and is seeking to undertake some moves of dubious constitutionality that could extend his rule far into the future.

It is in this volatile political environment that Farida is engaging her activism and supporting a movement to enforce president term limits and a return to democracy.

We have a very interesting conversation, not only about Togo, but also about the role of anger in sustaining an opposition movement and also the strategic value of non-violence.  We also discuss how she became an activist, which you will learn was something she very much grew up with.

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International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), winner of the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize, holds press conference at UN Headquarters, led by Beatrice Fihn (centre), Executive Director of ICAN. UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe

Exactly two weeks to the day before this interview, Beatrice Fihn received a phone call from Norway. It was the Nobel Committee informing her that the NGO she leads, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, was awarded the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize.

The committee cited ICAN, as the NGO is known, for its work to achieve an international treaty against nuclear weapons. The treaty is often compared to the Landmine Ban Treaty and Convention Against Chemical Weapons in that it invokes broadly humanitarian principles to ban what is an inherently indiscriminate weapon. The treaty was finalized in July and has already gained over 50 signatories from governments, with many more expected in the near future.

What does this treaty hope to accomplish? What logic do Beatrice Fihn and her colleagues  use to press their case against countries who include nuclear weapons as part of their national security strategies?  How will winning the Nobel Peace Prize affect her organization’s work? Fihn discusses these questions at length, and explains how campaigning to abolish nuclear weapons takes a kind of fearlessness and disregard for traditional power dynamics.  (And it’s worth pointing out that this is a treaty that is opposed, at least for now, by all nuclear weapons possessing states.)

We also discuss Beatrice Finh’s life and career and how she first became interested in nuclear issues. It’s an inspiring conversation.

We kick off with a discussion about the moment she learned her organization had won the Nobel Peace Prize.

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Mark Shriver is president of Save the Children Action Network, which is the advocacy arm of the global humanitarian organization. We kick off with a discussion of what advocacy for global development and humanitarian issues looks like in the age of Donald Trump, including the unique role that congress will play in maintaining American leadership on global health and humanitarian issues.

Mark is a member of the Kennedy family. His uncles were President Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Teddy Kennedy. His mother, their sister, was Eunice Kennedy who founded the Special Olympics. His father was Sargent Shriver who was a key aid to his brother-in -law John Kennedy and is widely credited with establishing the Peace Corps. Mark wrote a best selling memoir about his father and we have a fairly extended conversation about the origins of the Peace Corps.

We also, of course, discuss Mark’s own career and the influences of his extremely unique upbringing on his life and career.  If you have 40 minutes and want to learn about global humanitarian advocacy in this new era, and also glean insights from his interesting career, have a listen to this conversation with Mark Kennedy Shriver.

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My guest today Jeffrey Smith helps bring down Africa’s “presidents for life.”  His organization, Vanguard Africa, is very new but they already have one success under their belt– assisting the peaceful transition of power from The Gambia’s longtime ruler. He now has his sites set on Africa’s second longest ruling leader, Paul Biya of Cameroon.

We kick off with a discussion of the situation in Cameroon and have great digressions about the Zimbabwe, some deficiencies of the NGO community in D.C. and, of course, the Gambia.

Jeff discusses how and why he came to focus on issues of democracy and human rights in Africa and how he found inspiration from the hero of an anti-apartheid movement in South Africa. If you want to learn how foreign NGOs can help local democracy activists topple longstanding “presidents for life” then have a listen to this Global Dispatches podcast episode.

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Laurie Adams is president of the NGO Women for Women International which works with women survivors of war. She has had a long career in the NGO sector and as an activist, including many years with Oxfam in various parts of Africa and with the NGO ActionAid International.

Laurie also had a career as an activist initially inspired by the anti-apartheid movement. We have a really thoughtful conversation about both the role of activism in international affairs and also just how one becomes a “professional” activist. Laurie describes the tension she felt between doing long term advocacy work to change public attitudes and public policies versus the direct aid that has more immediate impact on individuals lives.

This is a great conversation with someone who has lived an interesting life dedicated to progressive change and in service of the common good.

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Bonus episodes for premium subscribers include:

#1: International Relations Theory, explained.

#2: A Brief History of Nuclear Non-proliferation

#3: A Brief History of NATO

#4: The Syrian Civil War, explained. (Well, sort of — it’s complicated!)

#5: Meet the Kim family of North Korea.

#6: The Sustainable Development Goals, explained (Coming soon!)

#7: The Six Day War, Explained. (Coming soon!)