Robinah Rubimbwa: Decolonising Aid, and the World Cup as a Window on America

Robinah Rubimbwa: Decolonising Aid, and the World Cup as a Window on America

In this episode of the leadership podcast If You Were In Charge, Sanam Naraghi Anderlini and Kavita Nandini Ramdas sit down with Robinah Rubimbwa, the feminist peacebuilder, poet and mediator who founded the Coalition for Action on Resolution 1325 (CoACT), an alliance of 64 peacebuilding organisations in Uganda. A leadership podcast about people, power and possibilities. Robinah does not hold back. The way international aid is structured today, she says, is colonialism, and it is time to decolonise it. No outsider can empower anyone, she argues. Empowerment grows from within, built on local knowledge, trust and the structures that already hold a community together. Drawing on decades of training women mediators and young peacebuilders across Uganda, she makes the case that funders should talk less about their appetite for risk and more about their appetite for trust. This is women's leadership seen from the ground up. Robinah shares how a single 60,000 dollar grant from ICAN seeded a youth movement that is still going years later, how networks of community women mediators now resolve land disputes and domestic violence cases for free, and what it really costs to prevent violence at the local level. And when Sanam and Kavita ask the question at the heart of the show, she answers without hesitation: if she were in charge, she would build a global Council on Women, Peace and Security, compel governments to fund peace the way they fund weapons, and make care and joy human rights. It is a conversation about money, power and trust, told through a feminist perspective on leadership, and a reminder, in Robinah's words, of "the stubborn insistence that liberation is inevitable." More about Robinah Rubimbwa and her work: Coalition for Action on 1325 (CoACT): https://www.coact1325.org/ [https://www.coact1325.org/] Robinah and CoACT at ICAN:  [https://icanpeacework.org/map_directory/coalition-for-action-on-1325-coact/] https://icanpeacework.org/map_directory/coalition-for-action-on-1325-coact/ [https://icanpeacework.org/map_directory/coalition-for-action-on-1325-coact/] Robinah at Conciliation Resources: https://www.c-r.org/who-we-are/people/robinah-rubimbwa [https://www.c-r.org/who-we-are/people/robinah-rubimbwa] Women Mediators across the Commonwealth:  [https://www.womenmediators.org/find-a-mediator/robinah-rubimbwa/] https://www.womenmediators.org/find-a-mediator/robinah-rubimbwa/ [https://www.womenmediators.org/find-a-mediator/robinah-rubimbwa/] Enjoyed this episode? Follow If You Were In Charge wherever you listen and leave a rating to help more people find the show. Get in touch and stay connected: Email ICAN: info@icanpeacework.org Sign up to the ICAN newsletter: https://icanpeacework.org/2025/03/sign-up-to-icans-newsletter/ [https://icanpeacework.org/2025/03/sign-up-to-icans-newsletter/] More from us: adapodcasts.com [http://adapodcasts.com] If You Were In Charge is brought to you by ICAN, the International Civil Society Action Network. An ADA Production. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

Laura Garcia: Finding Hope on the Front Lines of the Climate Crisis

London will host Climate Action Week from 20 to 28 June 2026, under the theme "Climate Cooperation in a Fractured World". As the world is beset by anxiety and upheaval fuelled by wars and the societal changes brought on by artificial intelligence, conversations around the climate crisis have receded into the background. But it continues to pose an existential threat to humanity. In this episode, we find hope on the front lines. On this episode of the leadership podcast If You Were In Charge, we ask what would change if the people on the front lines of the climate crisis were actually in charge. Sanam Naraghi Anderlini and Kavita Nandini Ramdas are joined by Laura Garcia, President and CEO of the Global Greengrants Fund, which has moved more than 135 million dollars to over 17,000 grassroots groups across 168 countries since 1993. A leadership podcast about people, power and possibilities. Laura argues that environmental destruction always happens in "somebody else's backyard", and that when communities control their own resources and decisions, the logic of extraction starts to break down. She tells the story of how small, flexible grants of 5,000 to 10,000 dollars to communities in South Africa's coal belt helped seed a 20-year movement, anchored by the environmental justice group groundWork, that pressured the government to commit to phasing out coal. She asks who development is really for, explains why less than 1% of philanthropic funding reaches grassroots communities in the Global South, and makes the case for participatory, trust-based giving. She also connects climate, peace and militarisation. War, she says, is total destruction of the environment, and in much of Latin America militarisation directly protects the extractive industries that environmental defenders risk their lives to resist. It is a hopeful, clear-eyed conversation about who gets to decide, and why nature, given half a chance, does the homework. Enjoyed this episode? Follow If You Were In Charge wherever you listen and leave a rating to help more people find the show. Get in touch and stay connected: Email ICAN: info@icanpeacework.org [info@icanpeacework.org] Sign up to the ICAN newsletter: https://icanpeacework.org/2025/03/sign-up-to-icans-newsletter/ [https://icanpeacework.org/2025/03/sign-up-to-icans-newsletter/] More about our guest, Laura Garcia: https://www.greengrants.org/2020/03/11/laura/ [https://www.greengrants.org/2020/03/11/laura/] More about the Global Greengrants Fund: https://www.greengrants.org [https://www.greengrants.org] More from us: adapodcasts.com If You Were In Charge is brought to you by ICAN, the International Civil Society Action Network. An ADA Production. 00:00 Development in the name of who? 00:18 Welcome and why climate, now 03:40 Climate headlines for 2025 and 2026 05:46 Meet Laura Garcia and the Global Greengrants Fund 07:10 If the people were in charge: somebody else's backyard 09:51 South Africa's coal belt: a 20-year story 13:00 Development in the name of who? 15:46 groundWork, and what has to change in philanthropy 19:52 Investing in trust, and the courage to do more than write a cheque 22:05 Trust in action: COVID community kitchens 25:51 The radical idea: flip the 1% 29:24 War is total destruction, and a nuanced take on USAID 36:37 Fortress conservation and false solutions 38:54 What gives you hope: nature does the homework Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

A Mid-Season Reflection on Iran: Sanam on How to Stop the War and Win the Peace

In this short mid-season episode of the leadership podcast If You Were In Charge, Sanam Naraghi Anderlini puts on her peace negotiation hat and asks a simple question: if she were in charge, how would she end the conflict with Iran? A leadership podcast about people, power and possibilities. Drawing on thirty years in peacebuilding, Sanam argues that war is not working and economic sanctions are not working, which leaves only one real option on the table: negotiations. But not the adversarial, who-won-who-lost kind we are seeing now. She makes the case for a more inclusive peace process, one built on two pillars, political will and inclusivity, where Iranians from the health, education, housing and environmental sectors have a seat at the table alongside UN agencies to decide how reparations and rebuilding are handled. She also tackles the question everyone is asking: who is actually in charge in Iran right now? And she closes with a reminder, in the words of the poet June Jordan, that "we are the ones we have been waiting for", and a reflection on what she calls advanced citizenship. A full episode returns in a couple of weeks to mark London Climate Week with Laura Garcia, CEO of the Global Greengrants Fund. Enjoyed this episode? Follow If You Were In Charge wherever you listen and leave a rating to help more people find the show. Get in touch and stay connected: Email ICAN: info@icanpeacework.org [info@icanpeacework.org] Sign up to the ICAN newsletter: https://icanpeacework.org/2025/03/sign-up-to-icans-newsletter/ [https://icanpeacework.org/2025/03/sign-up-to-icans-newsletter/] More from us: adapodcasts.com If You Were In Charge is brought to you by ICAN, the International Civil Society Action Network. An ADA Production. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

Naila Kabeer: The Economics of Care - Moving Beyond GDP

Feminist economist Naila Kabeer joins Sanam and Kavita on the leadership podcast If You Were In Charge to ask why we still measure success in GDP and what we could build if we counted care, peace and the planet. A clear-eyed, hopeful conversation about Beyond GDP, the absurd cost of the war in Iran for future generations, and the everyday agency that changes the world. A leadership podcast about people, power and possibilities. On this episode before we get to the interview, Sanam and Kavita pick up the threads Naila weaves through the conversation. They look at the $20 trillion annual cost of war, the way the care economy quietly runs on immigrant women, and the Iranian paradox where 65% of university professors are women inside a theocracy. A vivid reminder of why we need new ways to measure what's actually working in our societies. We then welcome in Naila who explains how GDP was invented in wartime to count what could be sold, and what it has always quietly excluded: the unpaid work that holds families together, the rivers and forests that hold up the planet, and a system now monopolised by a handful of oligarchs. She unpacks the staggering price tag of war nearly $20 trillion a year, around 11.6% of global GDP and asks what we could build instead if we counted care, peace, human capabilities, and the rights of the living world. We also hear about her new book “Renegotiating Patriarchy: Gender, Agency and the Bangladesh Paradox” — a study of how ordinary women, in some of the most oppressive circumstances, have changed their societies not through revolution but through everyday persistence. “Despair is a luxury for the well-off. I do not think we can afford to despair.” Enjoyed this episode? Follow If You Were In Charge wherever you listen and leave a rating to help more people find the show. Get in touch and stay connected: Email ICAN: info@icanpeacework.org [info@icanpeacework.org] Sign up to the ICAN newsletter: https://icanpeacework.org/2025/03/sign-up-to-icans-newsletter/ [https://icanpeacework.org/2025/03/sign-up-to-icans-newsletter/] More from us: adapodcasts.com [https://adapodcasts.com] If You Were In Charge is brought to you by ICAN, the International Civil Society Action Network. An ADA Production. Naila Kabeer Links. LSE faculty page: https://www.lse.ac.uk/international-development/people/naila-kabeer [https://www.lse.ac.uk/international-development/people/naila-kabeer] Naila's personal site (books, articles, talks): https://nailakabeer.net/ [https://nailakabeer.net/] Renegotiating Patriarchy — free open-access download (LSE Press, 2024): https://press.lse.ac.uk/books/m/10.31389/lsepress.rpg [https://press.lse.ac.uk/books/m/10.31389/lsepress.rpg] UN High-Level Expert Group on Beyond GDP — members: https://www.un.org/en/beyondGDP/members [https://www.un.org/en/beyondGDP/members] IAFFE Feminist Economics Podcast (Kavita mentions this at the end): https://www.iaffe.org/feminist-economics-podcast [https://www.iaffe.org/feminist-economics-podcast] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

Raffaella Bolini: Europe's New Arms Race - The Only Winning Move Is Not to Play

On the leadership podcast If You Were In Charge, Italian peace activist Raffaella Bolini was on the streets of the 80s peace movement against the Euromissiles. Forty years later, she's back, pushing back on a Europe planning to spend €6.8 trillion on armaments over the next decade. In conversation with Sanam Naraghi Anderlini and Kavita Nandini Ramdas, she makes the case for common security, the politics of care, and a multipolar Europe of intersectional regions. The only winning move, she argues, is not to play. A leadership podcast about people, power and possibilities. Sanam and Kavita open the episode with the latest flotilla to be intercepted on the way to Gaza, the unfolding war in Iran, and the absurdity of trillions being spent on defence at the expense of future generations, while everything from healthcare to social services goes without. But not without hope. They also remember the remarkable legacy of Cora and Peter Weiss, whose memorial was held this month, two activists at the forefront of the peace and justice movement for their entire lifetimes. Enjoyed this episode? Follow If You Were In Charge wherever you listen and leave a rating to help more people find the show. Get in touch and stay connected: Email ICAN: info@icanpeacework.org [info@icanpeacework.org] Sign up to the ICAN newsletter: https://icanpeacework.org/2025/03/sign-up-to-icans-newsletter/ [https://icanpeacework.org/2025/03/sign-up-to-icans-newsletter/] More from us: adapodcasts.com [https://adapodcasts.com] If You Were In Charge is brought to you by ICAN, the International Civil Society Action Network. An ADA Production. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]