Saray Khumalo shares the humbling and enthralling experience of breaking barriers and summiting some of the world’s highest mountains. &nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Saray Khumalo: &#039;Suddenly, The Clouds Were Beneath Me’" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2YYd6kKoa_g?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
</div></figure>



In May 2019, Saray Khumalo became the first&nbsp;black African woman to summit Mount Everest.&nbsp;In a recent interview with FORBES AFRICA, Khumalo speaks about her emotional, adrenaline-driven experience getting to its peak. &nbsp;



The South African has also just launched&nbsp;a&nbsp;Malaria&nbsp;No More&nbsp;emergency response&nbsp;campaign called&nbsp;The Bigger Picture Campaign&nbsp;alongside marathon runner Eliud Kipchoge and World Cup winning South African rugby captain Siya Kolisi.&nbsp;With Covid now taking up so much airtime,&nbsp;Khumalo, who has herself had&nbsp;malaria many times growing up, is helping refocus the attention on malaria, as it’s still one of the world’s deadliest diseases and especially in the African context. &nbsp;



Khumalo is also the founder of 7 Summits, an initiative that raises money for underprivileged schools through her climbing, and is now aiming for the Explorers Grand Slam involving summiting all seven of the highest peaks on the seven continents, completing a technical rock climb and reaching the North Pole as well as the South Pole.&nbsp;



With a day job as an executive at Momentum Multiply looking after e-commerce, Khumalo started mountain-climbing in 2012.



<div class="wp-block-image is-style-default"><figure class="alignright size-large is-resized"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/IMG_3503.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-48530" width="222" height="222" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/IMG_3503.jpg 720w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/IMG_3503-300x300.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/IMG_3503-150x150.jpg 150w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/IMG_3503-80x80.jpg 80w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/IMG_3503-600x600.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/IMG_3503-100x100.jpg 100w" sizes="(max-width: 222px) 100vw, 222px" /><figcaption>Photo: Supplied</figcaption></figure></div>



In this interview, she says: “I made a commitment to step on top of the highest peak on every continent, but use the journey to raise money for education. And that&#8217;s where the journey started. I&#8217;ve built five libraries. And I&#8217;ve raised money. And it&#8217;s the only way we can change the narrative for the next generation.”&nbsp;



She also speaks of her harrowing experience surviving an earthquake in Nepal in 2015, and returning to summit Mount Everest in 2019, and valuing every breath.&nbsp;



“The higher you go, the more appreciative you become about where we live, and the oxygen and a lot of stuff we take for granted.&nbsp;



“I remember thinking about my mother telling me and my sisters, that ‘the sky&#8217;s the limit’ and suddenly, the clouds were beneath me. I could not see any ground. And also because it was my fourth attempt [climbing Mount Everest], you know, all the people that said I couldn&#8217;t do it, nobody like me had done it before. How wrong they were at the top! &nbsp;



“It&#8217;s just a humbling experience and it also helps you realize how much of a speck we are in the bigger scheme of things.”&nbsp;



<div class="wp-block-image is-style-default"><figure class="aligncenter size-large is-resized"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/296135805560457128_928A0540-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-48528" width="388" height="258" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/296135805560457128_928A0540-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/296135805560457128_928A0540-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/296135805560457128_928A0540-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/296135805560457128_928A0540-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/296135805560457128_928A0540-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/296135805560457128_928A0540-600x400.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 388px) 100vw, 388px" /><figcaption>Photo: Supplied</figcaption></figure></div>

a4f5621d-1cfb-429f-9ac7-25879c715ecd

‘Suddenly, The Clouds Were Beneath Me’: Why The Sky’s Not The Limit For This African

In a world of extremely rapid change, we have seen plenty of things vanish, from rotary phones to electric typewriters to 8-track music cartridges. 



But there is one old-time tradition that seems to be holding on: the thank-you note.



To some it may seem laughably archaic to hand-write a note, drop it in snail mail and hope the recipient gets it a few days later.&nbsp;One study by staffing firm Accountemps found that only 24 percent of job applicants bother to send thank-you notes these days.



But here is the rub: 80 percent of human resources managers surveyed felt those messages were useful in evaluating potential hires.



Devotees of the thank-you note are numerous and cultish &#8211; and swear that it helps careers and finances, as well as personal relationships. A&nbsp;hand-crafted personal touch is not just thoughtful, it actively sets you apart from others.



Manhattan’s Christina Cookman knows all about the subtle power of a thank-you note. The performance and executive coach sends a whopping 200 of them each year.



“The business case for them is that they only take five minutes of your time, and 50 cents,” Cookman said.&nbsp;“I can’t imagine that anyone who gets a handwritten thoughtful note is ever disappointed by that. So even if the payoff is not direct, you are at the very least strengthening a relationship.”



Music manager Clayton Durant got a joint partnership out of thank-you notes. Durant, the head of artist management and branding firm CAD Management, struck a joint deal to work with Ashley Rose, famed Roc Nation songwriter and head of indie music label The Code.



How exactly did that come about? Old-fashioned thank-you cards, sent after the label had worked on one of his artist’s records.



“When I asked Ashley why she felt comfortable having our startup be her first joint venture, she mentioned the thank-you cards we sent to each of her producers, writers and staff,” Durant said.



<h4>EXPRESSING GRATITUDE</h4>



The biggest payoff, ironically, may be the effect thank-you cards have on the sender. In 2016, Indiana University professors Joel Wong and Joshua Brown published a study of college students who had sought counseling for common feelings like anxiety and depression.



Those who were counseled to write letters of gratitude reported better mental health both one month and three months later. Those differences continued to increase over time. As researchers concluded, “If you have never written a gratitude letter before, we encourage you to try it.”



So, how to strike the right “note,” expressing gratitude and powerboosting your career and network at the same time? Some tips:



&#8211; Write them at unexpected times.



Thank-you cards are rote and expected at certain life moments – like, say, in response to wedding gifts. That is well and good, but if you pen them at more unique occasions, you can multiply their impact. Cookman’s most recent one, for instance, was to a manager at a Manhattan Dos Caminos restaurant; her friends had their engagement party there, and he helped her secure some restaurant memorabilia before the location closed down.



&#8211; Make them as personalized as you can.



If you go to the trouble of writing a note, but then make the message something general that could have been written to anyone, you are defeating the purpose of the exercise. That is why Durant made sure each of his notes to the record label’s writers and producers&nbsp;was personalized. “That led to us connecting more frequently to talk about business and new artists,” Durant said.



&#8211; Spring for a stamp.



A “thank you” sent by email certainly counts, but if you are looking to create a true personal touch, real stationery is key. “When a handwritten thank-you note arrives, it is the ultimate act of personalization,” said Patrick Taylor, a self-professed “huge fan” of thank-you letters, who is founder of public relations firm 59Media and former communications VP for Meredith Corporation.



&#8211; Keep them succinct.



Many people are intimidated by thank-you cards because they imagine you have to write the Great American Novel. Not so. Cookman keeps hers to about four sentences – outlining how a person went above and beyond, and the impact it had on her. Her advice: “Make it simple as possible.” -Reuters



Chris Taylor

1131334665

A Career Secret Weapon: Thank-You Notes

Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame and head of the African Union speaks to CNBC Africa’s Chris Bishop on continental trade, business and China’s influence. Excerpts of the interview.

Q. Philosophers and poets have been talking about a united Africa for decades. It seems on the business front, it is on the cards. We are talking about an African Continental Free Trade Area. As Chairperson of the African Union, how are you going to make this happen? 
A. Africa coming together and being united is a very important task and responsibility for all of us. It’s never going to be a task of the Chairperson of the African Union alone. What the Chairperson does is to govern the understanding and support and everyone together so we do what needs to be done for our continent to be unified. We have already started with the Continental Free Trade Area; before that, we have been talking about regional integration. Regions with a lot commonalities can come together to do business, to invest in each other or deal with the rest of the world as one entity.
Q. How difficult is this going to be? 
A. It is going to be difficult bringing change even when it is very necessary… As Chairperson of the African Union or even as a president of my country, I know it is the task of other leaders to not only talk about nice things that should happen, but also do the hard work to lead all of us to the results of the effort we have to put in. So we have to keep raising our voices first of all, reminding people, assuming that they have forgotten, because some of them do not know what they are supposed to do. So you have to keep raising your voice, keep reminding people and we do it collectively. It is always going to be useful if we do it together and understand that together is when we are going to succeed.
Q. A lot of countries have not yet signed up to the African Continental Free Trade Area agreement. What can you do about this? 
A. The best way is to start from somewhere and demonstrate the good that can come out of such a thing as a free trade area and having an agreement over that and what needs to happen. Once you demonstrate the benefits, I think people will quickly move towards doing things that benefit them. And in actual fact, we also need to look at what happens elsewhere in the world. We know the stories of different parts of the world where people have come from and the paths they have taken and where they are today. And from Africa, we look at what has happened in Asia, the long history of Europe, Latin America, United States, Canada and so on. So we need to relate to where they are with a number of things that have happened or they have done to be there… But we can’t be there by just admiring what other people have done and not doing exactly what you need to do for yourself and get moving with the situation and improving it&#8230;
Q: What do you think a leader should be doing to keep talented young people on the continent? 
A: It is governance; we need to govern our people properly. But governance alone does not provide anything; what you do within those structures, and that comes to the investments we make that are responsive to people’s needs, aspirations and desires. It’s around the creation of a business environment, whether small or big businesses can make money, can do whatever they can and do that freely, because people know how to do some of these things, but until there is a conducive environment for them to play that part, that won’t happen. So leaders must make sure that this is the case and allow people to participate in all that. Once there is participation, there is benefiting, there is the feeling that what they have is what they wanted; at least they have hope, they are sure that things are moving in the right direction even if they do not have what they wanted now, they can have it tomorrow.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/life/2016/04/01/tribute-remarkable-rwandan-women/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: ‘A Tribute To Remarkable Rwandan Women’</a>
Q: To your role as Chairperson of the African Union, I mean if you can argue that this is Africa’s time, but still there is that lingering fear and concern sometimes about stability, even in your own region in East Africa. How are you planning to tackle this in your job? 
A. It is just to keep bringing out these discrepancies. The complaints people have are real. You need to listen to them and you need to get to the bottom of why there are these contradictions, of course the major problem being we have many of us who say the right things but the next day, we are doing the complete opposite. So until we exercise some conscientious discipline to an extent really, if we understand that this is what we need to do and it’s good for everybody, it’s good for you, it’s good for me and in fact if there is something that is good for both of us, we shouldn’t tamper with that, we need to only take it forward and make sure we benefit more but together. This is something we have seen over many years because even when we are talking about regional integration, which has made good progress over the years, we still have people who will talk about integration and will talk about all the good things and how everybody should do this and that and then you find the same people are the ones undermining integration. It has happened. We see it every day. So we need to keep shouting out to these people and say ‘please, you know this is affecting me and maybe at the end, it will affect you’.
Q: How do you think Africa is doing right now in persuading the businessmen of the world to put their money into this continent? 
A: Well, let me start with my own country Rwanda. On the continent of Africa alone, Rwanda is the second best place when it comes to the ease-of-doing-business index. I am saying every country on our continent is trying to fix different problems that create obstacles for business in Africa. Every country is making an effort, Rwanda is one of them. The whole of East Africa is involved in that. So on people’s minds, they know how important it is for countries to create a good environment for investors to invest in, for people doing business to do business or for the business people of one country to do business in another country or with the citizens of another country. This is now a very common discussion. People are always searching for better ways to allow that to happen, so I think things are on the upward trend, things are in the right direction but it’s never enough and I think Africa is still lagging behind many other parts of the world. Even if we look at intra-Africa trade, it is still very low, when it comes to other regions, it’s much higher, so we need to improve, we need to do better and we need to move faster.
Q: A lot of countries have run into a lot of soured private-public investments. How do you approach it as a leader when trying to negotiate private-public partnerships? 
A. You see, the starting point is, let’s say both sides, are we prepared? Do we know what we want? Do we know how to get it while we allow the partner to also get what they want? You see, there are two parties here. Why things have gone wrong is some people have gone into partnerships and this is mostly with governments; a lot of things happen that prove that either government did not know what they wanted or they knew but the people who were involved on behalf of the government ended up trying to benefit themselves instead of looking at the country’s interest, and the other partner who is the private partner. This has always been the case but if governments are prepared and governments have expertise, if they do not have it in-house, they can hire expertise to act on their behalf. There is so much out there that once you ask people to stand in for you as expertise, they will do that. So it is not the formula of private-partnership that is problematic, it is those who are involved in the transactions that become problematic.
Q: So you are talking about corruption here? 
A. Absolutely! Corruption comes in, there is no question about it. Corruption is part of it or just bad governance of the whole process.
<div id="attachment_37491" style="width: 750px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-37491" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-37491 size-large" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/GettyImages-825575448-1024x683.jpg" alt="" width="740" height="494" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/GettyImages-825575448-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/GettyImages-825575448-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/GettyImages-825575448-600x400.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/GettyImages-825575448-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/GettyImages-825575448.jpg 1654w" sizes="(max-width: 740px) 100vw, 740px" />Incumbent Rwandan President Paul Kagame greets the crowd after addressing supporters at the closing rally of the presidential campaign in Kigali, on August 2, 2017. </div>
Q: I know it is something you have tried to fight for a decade. How close do you think you are to actually getting it out of the system here? 
A. You will never kill corruption completely, but you can reduce it to the bare minimum and what has happened is to create an environment of accountability and transparency, where things will be done and without fear or favor, justice will be exercised. It does not matter whether it is a big person or an ordinary person. Once they are caught up in this, the law should apply.
Q: From all the corners of the continent, a lot of people are still saying China smacks of neo-colonialism – the influence they are exerting in Africa right now. What do you say? 
A. Well, tell me about neo-colonialism or the old one? The new or the old I don’t know, but they are all bad things, but again it comes to the whole point… There are Chinese investments in Africa; you do not make investments for nothing, and it is not charity, right? Africa needs investments and again, it goes back to the other point I raised – does Africa know what it wants in working with other people from other parts of the world? If China offers an opportunity, that’s the way I prefer to see it. What does Rwanda want from China or what can we ably get from China, where we will benefit and China will benefit because again it is not a charity relationship. So if we know that and have discussions about it, then we should have a fair deal. Do I want the Chinese to build a power plant for me, for Rwandans to have sufficient electricity? How much is China able to lend to us or how much actually do we owe, or different groups that have been lending us money, so we make sure that we don’t end up owing too much or more than we can actually absorb from China and if you did it with any other country anywhere, it would be the same problem so we have to be conscious of that but if they are able to give us resources or money or lend us and say ‘we build for you power plants because that’s what we want’, and we say ‘okay, we are going to have this much invested in it and this is how we are going to repay the debt’ and so on and so forth… why should that be a problem? Because I don’t know of any place where China has walked into and started grabbing things, and if it happened, then it is not a problem of China, it is a problem of where it is happening I think. For the country to just surrender everything and be grabbed, then there is a problem.
Q. Where do you think you would have been if you hadn’t gone into politics and become a president? What would you want to do with your life? 
A: Well, when I was in my youth, I used to like to do things, to make things. Maybe I would have pursued certain careers and professions. You would have seen me as an engineer, or somebody doing an innovation or creating things.
Q: So you would have been quite happy as a carpenter or… 
A: Absolutely! A mechanic or…
Q: And if you were, what would you be saying to your president of Rwanda today? 
A: I would say try to do the best, to provide us with an environment that does not stand in the way of people’s ability to realize their potential or do whatever they want to do, meaning, get the government out of the way of people trying to thrive and do things they wish to do. And this goes back to the same story, it’s like what we are always trying to say – what is it that we can get out of the way of business, investments or people who have benefitted from education to base on the knowledge and skills they have to do what they want to do and improve their standards of living. This would be my request to my president. If that was the situation, I would say make sure government does not stand in the way of the freedoms of people to realize their potential and do what they wish to do.
For the full interview, visit cnbcafrica.com

Rwanda President Paul Kagame At Harvard

Paul Kagame: ‘Together Is When We Are Going To Succeed’

The CEO and co-founder of FORT, Shukri Toefy, a creative production company present in five African countries, speaks about a ‘youth board’ and why failure has never been an option for him.

<ol>
<li> What are your plans for promoting youth development in Africa?</li>
</ol>
They are our future target market that will consume our content. [The stance] is so important for us that we started a youth board [with people] in their early 20s and we can ask them what is cool. [We ask them] is Snapchat still cool and are they still on Instagram? Because as we get older [as a way] to future-proof our company, we need to have our ear to the ground to know what young people are talking about. As the CEO of a creative agency, I have quarterly meetings with my youth board in which I speak to them to find out what are they wearing, where are they going and what is cool and not cool anymore, so that I can be better resourced to implement that with my clients and the rest of the people. It is a cool way of future-proofing who we are and what we do.
<ol start="2">
<li>What was your biggest risk?</li>
</ol>
It was starting our network across Africa. I think we put a lot of money in opening our offices in Kenya and Nigeria. If we count the flights, legal structures etc. it would be an estimate of R2 million ($136,000) to R3 million ($204,000).
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/7-questions-with/2018/09/03/37097/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: 7 Questions with Award Winning Designer – Paledi Segapo</a>
<ol start="3">
<li> What has been your greatest challenge in the industry?</li>
</ol>
Our greatest challenge right now is that when we are in recessionary times, [so usually] marketing and communications is the first thing that is to be cut. Secondly, independently, African companies don’t have the financial backing that some of these globally-owned agencies have. So they don’t have the ability to go out and scale up [on production] like they could.
<ol start="4">
<li> Who is the most influential person you have worked with?</li>
</ol>
The Oxford facilitator I met in June…gave me a different perspective on life and I came back with so many tools on how to see the world and view things. He calmed me down.
<ol start="5">
<li>Your views on mentorship&#8230;</li>
</ol>
I have had the benefit of having coffee or breakfast with highly successful people and I think that is one of the most valuable things you could have as an entrepreneur, to actually have people that you could bounce off ideas with. That you could learn from them and their mistakes and they could guide you.
<ol start="6">
<li> Your biggest fear…</li>
</ol>
I am not fearful of failing because I don’t think failure is an option. I just don’t see it. It is not constructed for me…You can’t beat me. Today you might beat me and tomorrow it will be me [on top of things] because I see it as all part of my journey.
<ol start="7">
<li> What would you say to your 16-year-old self?</li>
</ol>
Slow down and enjoy the ride because it goes so quickly. I was in a hurry to try and take advantage of every opportunity that I had. [As a young person] you have that militancy in you to say ‘you need to take every opportunity that comes your way’. I think that is why I am here but you later realize that it is all part of the journey and there is no such thing as failure. It is about failing forward and it is about failing often. And it is about seeing it as a much bigger journey rather than your day-to-day failures.
 
&nbsp;

pic-copy

Why Youth Can Future-Proof A Company

During her time away from Malawi, Joyce Banda served as a distinguished fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center in the United States, and has just finished writing a book, From Day One, on the issues around women and the girl child.
What are you looking forward to and how does it feel?
I am so happy I have done all I wanted to do and am going home. There’s much excitement in Malawi&#8230; I guess I am the only one not excited… It has been a week of hype and I am totally surprised and humbled because I didn’t know just how much Malawians love me.
We don’t have any female presidents on the continent at the moment… why are there so few women in politics?
Women’s leadership is under attack globally. Start from Australia, look at what happened to Julia Gillard. And you go to Thailand and look at what happened to the former Prime Minister… 
I’ve been speaking a lot in the US and the question I always ask is ‘tell me why [as] the oldest democracy for 200 years, [why] you have not managed to have one woman in state house’?
Coming back to Africa, we haven’t done badly, at least we had four women. We went to Beijing in 1995; we agreed that it was part of the work plan that we are going to come back and get into leadership. I remember asking Mrs Gertrude Mongella, who was the Secretary-General of the UN Fourth World Conference on Women, ‘because men are already sitting in the seats, how can we go to parliament?’ They said ‘go and push them if you have to’. And we went home, tried our level best and got into leadership.
In Africa, go one by one, and check how they left, go and see what Catherine Samba-Panza is going through in Central African Republic; see what is happening in Mauritius to our friend who just left a few weeks ago. So at the end of the day, you ask, why is it we don’t have any more female leaders in Africa? My answer is we have done well as a continent, we have found ways of getting our women into state house, but perhaps what we have to do is learn how to keep them there. And Africa hasn’t done badly.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/woman/2014/10/01/malawians-should-not-shed-blood/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: ‘Malawians Should Not Shed Blood’</a>
Somebody asked me, what can I say about feminism? I said ‘no, Africa shall have it all; it shall design its own because we can’t copy what’s happening elsewhere unless we are convinced it’s working there’. But how can we copy other models where women are still not getting equal pay, where women can’t even go on maternity leave, where for 200 years, there’s no female president? The continent with the highest number of women in parliament is Africa – three countries have 40% women in cabinet. And the time I was head of state, I took advantage of that position to appoint my fellow women… The advantage of us cutting into state house is we focus on social issues; we want people to have electricity, clean water and fuel every day. We want hospitals to have medicines, we want schools to have school materials but the challenge is how do we keep women in state house?
Is the patriarchal mind-set to blame?
It is. In fact I think the death of Mama Winnie Mandela and all that has been revealed these past weeks has opened the debate and women are sitting down and saying, ‘how could we not have seen?’ Because we never did… That’s what her daughter said when she spoke at the funeral: ‘why did you people wait until my mother is gone, to vindicate her?’ That is the kind of pain women are going through and nobody seems to care. I don’t know why the media doesn’t seem to dig more into this misogyny, and abuse to women leaders…
Do you have presidential ambitions again?
No. It is not up to me. I don’t care about going to state house… I am just going back home.
Are you returning to politics?
I am not planning anything. From this far, I don’t know the political landscape on the ground. I am highly experienced in politics. And I was very fortunate. When my husband retired [as chief justice], I decided I can enter politics. So I did at age 54, I was late… the president didn’t allow me to join the national executive committee so he sent me down to the grass roots. So I came from the grass roots as a treasurer in the village. I had the opportunity to study and I was fortunate when elected head of women in 2003 in my party…
What have you been up to in the last four years?
…In the time I have been away from home, I’ve spoken 37 times, received 12 international awards, written two papers, written a book, been appointed to five international awards and received an honorary doctorate. Everybody who has been with me in the US know I’ve run non-stop. It’s been time well spent. At the Woodrow Wilson Centre, they even assisted me to draw up a tool kit. I can now go into any country and speak with authority about how I feel women should be treated, how the space should be created at the table for women to participate in leadership.
In Malawi, what are your plans for women and children, through your foundation?
The Joyce Banda Foundation is bigger than Joyce Banda. I established it in 1997 when I received the Africa Prize so it cuts across all parties. It has 500,000 women beneficiaries in micro finance, it has sent to school 6,500 girls, it has a sponsorship program, and a youth program. We have five pillars in the Joyce Banda foundation: one is income, we believe that in the rural household if there is income the woman is in control and can provide better health and nutrition and even send girls to school and will also make decisions about her life; she can make choices to stay or leave an abusive place.
The second pillar is education for the girl child, because if she doesn’t go to school, then she is exposed to all harmful traditions. The third is maternal health. My research has shown that those that have died giving birth are between the ages of 11 to 19. So there is a connection with education. This girl child should go to secondary school. The four years in secondary school is not just about her future, it is also about her health.
The fourth pillar is leadership. I believe we must find ways; hence my research, find ways of allowing more and more women to enter politics and participate in leadership. And the last one is human rights which is a cross-cutting pillar.
What is the current investment climate in Malawi?
I believed the day I left office, I needed to step aside and look the other way. And provide an opportunity for the sitting president to freely show his capabilities. He is my president because I conceded and I accepted that he can become president, so the last thing that I want to is poke my nose into what he is doing right and not. 
I just feel sad and surprised when they say people are going 36 hours without electricity… I don’t understand some of the hardships my Malawians are facing because I say this boat is connected when you ask about the investment climate. There is nobody who is going to invest in a country that has 170MW of electricity. That doesn’t happen.
– Interviewed by Methil Renuka; for the full interview, visit www.cnbcafrica.com

Tag: Interview

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

‘Suddenly, The Clouds Were Beneath Me’: Why The Sky’s Not The Limit For This African

A Career Secret Weapon: Thank-You Notes

Paul Kagame: ‘Together Is When We Are Going To Succeed’

Why Youth Can Future-Proof A Company

‘Women’s Leadership Is Under Attack Globally’