I'm trying to tell you that there's a new wave on the continent. A new wave of openness and democratization in which, since 2000, more than two-thirds of African countries have had multi-party democratic elections. Not all of them have been perfect, or will be, but the trend is very clear.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the positive trend of democracy in Africa since 2000.
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala emphasizes a significant shift towards openness and democratization in Africa over the past two decades. She acknowledges that while not every democratic election has been flawless, the overall trend is clearly moving towards a more democratic structure in many African nations, indicating a hopeful future for governance in the continent.
In practice
In a speech addressing youth leaders, you could use this quote to inspire hope in the future of African governance.
When I became finance minister, they called me Okonjo-Wahala - or 'Trouble Woman.' It means 'I give you hell.' But I don't care what names they call me. I'm a fighter; I'm very focused on what I'm doing, and relentless in what I want to achieve, almost to a fault. If you get in my way, you get kicked.
The best way to help Africans today is to help them to stand on their own feet. And the best way to do that is by helping create jobs.
When you save the life of anyone, a farmer, a teacher, a mother, they are contributing productively into the economy.
Investing in women is smart economics, and investing in girls, catching them upstream, is even smarter economics.
I felt Nigeria didn't have to succumb to the image of being a corrupt country; we didn't have to let the economy stagnate.
I know what it means to go to the stream to fetch water... what it means when people are poor and don't have enough to eat. It's not enough to say you know about poverty. You have to live it.
An end of something means the beginning of something else, and I don't think that something else is going to be the death of the manned space program.
'Middle class' used to be synonymous with secure, with steady, with boring, because middle-class people were people who were pretty much safe from the time they first started work on through retirement and until their deaths. No longer.
While she cut the mushrooms, she cried more than she had at the grave, the most so far, because she found the saddest thing of all to be the simple truth of her capacity to move on.
I didn't want to be a slave to any passion anymore. I gave up card playing altogether, even bridge and gambling - more or less. It took me a few years to get out of it.
As a newcomer to America who learned to 'speak American' by watching movies, I firmly believe that to change the politics of immigration and citizenship, we must change culture - the way we portray undocumented people like me and our role in society.
Susan Burton's life story - filled with trauma, struggle, and true heroism - is precisely the kind of story that has the potential to change the way we view our world.
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