Thinking Grand: The Journey to being a Fulbrighter

It all started in 2005, at fourteen years of age, when I qualified to join the world-renowned Kenyan Boys Choir, being an exceptional singer, and the youngest member to have ever joined. It was during this period as a Cultural Ambassador, that my worldview got widened and deepened. This was through participation in Cultural Exchange programs in the Americas, Europe, and Asia, interactions with Heads of State and Governments, Queens and Princes, Cabinet Secretaries, Diplomats, and Global Icons; learning music and dance from other cultures, and making friends from the places we visited. The highlight of this was traveling to Washington D.C. for the Inauguration of President Obama in 2009. This laid the foundation for my curiosity in International Studies, seeking to understand the systems that support human interactions, progress, and development. The choir also nurtured my leadership potential as I became the youngest member to have led and conducted the ensemble during performances at home and abroad.?

In 2010, I was admitted to the Institute of Diplomacy and International Studies (IDIS), University of Nairobi (UoN). I note that in 2011, as a Freshman, I was the youngest among the top 10 winners of an essay competition held across all University campuses in the country. This resulted in my selection to represent the University in South Korea, courtesy of the Government of South Korea. Among the notable activities in Seoul were visiting the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, learning about the country’s Foreign Policy, interacting with the Foreign Service Officials, and making life-long friendships. I developed my interest in the areas of multilateral diplomacy, and Strategic Studies, learning that it is in International Institutions where the collective aspirations of humanity are recognized, deliberated, and appreciated, and it is through Strategic Diplomacy that these aspirations are designed, programmed, and implemented either for a particular group, country or region. I recognize that in as much as there is a greater understanding of ourselves as humans now more than ever, strategic and security approaches remain adversarial to our collective aspirations.

Cognizant of this, in 2015, while a student in my final year, my classmates at IDIS and I founded the Know Your World Initiative (KYWI), with me as the Managing Director, to instill in the next generation the values of cooperation rather than competition and to decimate the empathy deficit by education against the established misconceptions and stereotypes of others through public diplomacy, cultural diplomacy, and global citizenship education. I developed a twelve-week curriculum for high school students that included: interactions with other countries’ political, economic, and social challenges through role-play sessions, linked diplomatic missions to the schools through visits by Senior diplomatic staff and Ambassadors, and students’ participation in cultural activities organized by the Embassies and other partners. The outcomes were inspiring, from students who went on to pursue undergraduate studies in International Relations, to those who employed their skills in Information Technology to create solutions around the Sustainable Development Goals (Global Goals), to those who later on after completion of their high school program returned to continue to serve the program and help many other students. Despite the challenges of being a start-up with zero budget, we established the KYWI in 10 Public schools across the country, a membership of over a thousand students per year, and reached out to over ten thousand students in high schools and later on universities. This program was invited to be established in Botswana and Canada in 2018.

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As a young professional, in 2017, I organized and convened the Nairobi International Political Forum (NIPFO) under the Centre for International and Security Affairs (CISA). This was following the realization that Kenya needed a safe space for diplomats, academia, government officials, and researchers to deliberate on International Relations in Africa. Despite the heated electoral season that year prolonging political instability to the next, we managed to hold two Forums in 2017 and several symposiums in 2018, all with progressive outcomes, notably the establishment of the office of the Cultural Attaché by the Embassy of Ukraine and increased coverage and reporting of diplomatic activity in the country by the media in Kenya. Through these engagements and publications, I was privileged to receive invitations to speak as a panelist in a High Level Forum at the MeDays Forum by the Amadeus Institute based in Morocco (2018), and present a paper in Nigeria

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The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the positive role multilateral diplomacy has played in safeguarding public health while also exposing the weaknesses and biases constraining the realization of collective aspirations. Driven by the conviction that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights, are endowed with reason and conscience, and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood, I have found interest in working in the international domain to ensure that the foreign policies and diplomatic strategies of countries reflect this fundamental understanding. This is critical in the promotion and maintenance of world peace and stability. During the COVID-19 Pandemic and courtesy of the institutions I was privileged to serve, I led and supported efforts towards enhancing the capacity of Persons Living with Disabilities to do business by spearheading blended finance approaches to setting up a business incubation center for this community in Tanzania. I also got to support Food Security and Nutrition efforts in Kenya with the intention of ensuring that the populace got proper nutrition and healthy eating habits as a preventive measure against the effects of COVID-19, which we did through the support of the Government of Kenya’s One Million Kitchen Gardens Program. In my last assignment prior to arrival in Washington D.C. I was part of the main team that was implementing a business development and financing program targeting 225,000 start-ups, and micro and small businesses in Kenya, to grow over 500,000 jobs and improve the quality of life of those in the value chain.

While my role as a Cultural Ambassador metamorphosized into a leader and public intellectual in diplomacy, having been enrolled in the 2022 Africa Policy Accelerator Fellowship of the Washington D.C. based Centre for Strategic and International Studies, served as a 2022 Council/Board member of the International Relations Society of Kenya and now a graduate student at the Graduate School of National Security, Intelligence and International Affairs-The Institute of World Politics (IWP) courtesy of the Fulbright Scholarship and the IWP Presidential Scholarship and having been previously (2022/2023) accepted to the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), I draw some inspirations from the life of the late J.W. Fulbright, May his soul rest in eternal peace.

“We have already fallen to the quarreling with Russia, like two big dogs chewing on a bone…To be tough or soft toward a nation is not a policy” - W.J. Fulbright (1945)[1].

He has been characterized by Daniel Yergin (New York Times, 1974), as the most famous senator of his time, a man of perception and courage; a historic figure, a statesman, a true critic, and a citizen of his country. As a beneficiary of the Rhodes Scholarship (1925-1928), he brought an international perspective to Congress through the Fulbright Resolution of 1943 which called on the Government of the United States of America to engage in international peacekeeping, an effort that further encouraged the conceptualization and development of the United Nations Organization in 1945. On the 1st of August? 1946, the Fulbright Scholar Program was signed into law by President Harry Truman. The Program was modeled around the Rhodes Scholar idea[2], reaching more students, with a greater emphasis on international cultural exchange, and exemplification of leadership, contribution to society, and academic excellence to its beneficiaries. Thus far, the Fulbright Alumni include 62 Nobel Laureates, 89 Pulitzer Prize Winners, 41 Current or former heads of state or government, and leaders from across? the Private Sector, not-for-profit, academia, and public sectors.

My fundamental truths are as follows. That development should not come at the expense of security, and security should not be pursued at the expense of development. While bilateral defense and security treaties support military training, arms and weapons trade among other related issues, multilateral defense arrangements tend to be more holistic, encompassing both human and physical security for instance when dealing with humanitarian issues, peacekeeping, and in entrenching civil-military relations in host countries with the example of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) among others. It is my view that countries would find more dividends in investing in security communities and complexes with guarantees of meeting more development needs of the population. I note also that commitments made at the bilateral level have the unintended effect of taking away from multilateral institutions resources and capacities, hence we now have large multilateral institutions that are less effective in guaranteeing cooperation in security and development.

As a champion of multilateralism, I contend that with strategic multilateralism, states without compromising their political sovereignty can find a perfect balance for the needful development and security. In practice, while security complexes exist, their role in development, peace, and security remains distant. This has led to calls for reforms for instance with the United Nations Security Council at the global level and in regional security complexes like the African Union Peace and Security Council, a re-examination of their capacity and competencies to prevent violent conflicts, in peace-building and development. I remain cognizant of the role Realpolitik plays in the governance of multilateral institutions and in finding the compromises needed to guarantee stability, human security, and development for all.

The transformation of our global governance institutions remains core to my exploration as a stakeholder in our universe, taking advantage of the ripe moments and times we are in. Going forward, regional security communities will play a significant role in global security, as such regional diplomatic activities should be augmented towards collective human security ideals and practices at the global level. Above all, the practice of dignity, respect of cultures and people's heritage, and humanization in the global systems are currently wanting even in "developed societies".

Thank you.

by

Joel Okwemba

?2023/2024 Fulbright Scholar.

M.A. Candidate, Statecraft and International Affairs.

#Fulbrighter #FulbrightAlum #ThankYouAmerica

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/1974/11/24/archives/fulbrights-last-frustration-the-great-dissenter-finally-found.html

[2] https://www.swtimes.com/story/lifestyle/2021/06/30/history-minute-senator-j-william-fulbright/5306579001/