A section of open minded elites including poets, Comedians, politicians, musicians, journalists engaged in a vibrant public debate at the Kampala Geopolitics Conference which went down in a two-day event from Friday 26th October – Saturday 27that Makerere University.
The highly heated up debate featured over 21 topics and 200 speakers liker Barbra Kyagulanyi, Winnie Kizza, France’s ambassador to Uganda Stephanie Rivoal, Prof Ezra Suruma, Nana Kagga among many others.
The conference was opened by a five-minute presentation by four prominent Ugandan bloggers, journalists and comedians in an “eloquence contest” on randomly selected topics. Some of the panelists in this session included comedian Pablo, Deedan, Daniel Omara among others.
The first session was followed by two breakaway sessions of: “USA not the policeman of the world anymore?, implications of the Trump presidency on global power relations”, which was hosted at Makerere’s main Hall.
The second breakaway session was debated under the topic “What is the economic cost of excluding minorities? This was held at Main Hall SCR.
The second day featured an artistic presentation by Ugandan poets, story tellers and dancers, an all women panel (most intense panel) and finally, a live music concert featuring Chameleon, Slick Stuart and Roja, A Ka Dope Band, and other local artists.
Some of the unforgettable moments at the conference emerged when an all women panel hit the podium on Saturday to discuss “Powerful Women: are they a threat to males or their best partners?” The panelists of this session included; Barbie Kyagulanyi, Ambassador Deborah Malac, Amb. Stephanie Rivoal, Hon Winnie Kizza, Maggie Kigozi, and others.
Winnie Kizza delivered one of the unforgettable statements when she highlighted that women don’t need to turn themselves into men in order to be recognized.
“As a woman, you don’t have to turn yourself into a man to be recognized or to make things happen. You don’t have to measure up to what a man is. Do what you have to do as a woman.” Winnie Kizza stated.
During the conference, Ambassador Stephanie Rivoal expressed her hope in Africa to become one of the world’s super powers.
“I strongly believe that Africa is one day going to be on the big table, heading security and other leading sectors in the world,” Rivoal said.
Speaking of education, Prof Ezra Suruma revealed that he dislikes investors just like majority of Ugandans because they bring about job competition with Ugandan graduates.
“I am sorry about pseudo investors, I dislike them as much as you do and we should certainly struggle to make sure that we don’t bring in people who are going to compete for jobs,” Suruma noted.
The organizing partners of the Kampala Geopolitics conference include: The Embassy of France, Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS), Makerere University, the French Institute for International and Strategic Affairs (IRIS), Alliance Française Kampala and UN Women.
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