Lilongwe, Malawi – Moyenda Mutharika Knapp, daughter of former Malawi President Peter Mutharika, has been shortlisted for recognition among the 100 Top Black American Lawyers in the USA by the National Black Lawyers Association.
The association highlights Mutharika Knapp’s distinguished legal career, noting her in-house law firm experience in handling employment law, commercial litigation, and long-term disability matters.
Moyenda is admitted to the Illinois State Bar and has built a reputation in the U.S. legal profession through her extensive litigation and advocacy work. In addition to practicing law, she has served as an adjunct professor at Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law since 2005, teaching trial advocacy and civil discovery.
Her dual role as a practicing attorney and legal educator has positioned her as a mentor and role model within the legal community.
Recognition in a Competitive Field
With over 1.3 million active lawyers in the United States, according to the American Bar Association, being shortlisted among the top 100 is a significant milestone that underscores her exceptional contribution to the legal profession.
Back home, legal experts have applauded the recognition. Professor Ngeyi Kanyongolo, a respected legal scholar in Malawi, described the achievement as a testament to excellence and perseverance.
“This recognition speaks to a high level of excellence and is an inspiration to many lawyers, especially female lawyers in Malawi,” said Kanyongolo.
Moyenda Mutharika Knapp’s recognition not only celebrates her personal success but also places Malawi on the global legal stage. Her story serves as an inspiration to young legal professionals in Malawi and across Africa who aspire to achieve international recognition.
Winnie Wambui, co-founder of Harcourt Agri-Eco Farm in Kenya, speaks to IPS outside the Dealroom at the Africa Food Systems Forum 2025, held at the Centre International de Conférences Abdou Diouf (CICAD) in Dakar, Senegal, September 4, 2025. Credit: Chemtai Kirui/IPS
DAKAR, Sep 15 2025 (IPS) – Winnie Wambui leans forward on the panel stage, microphone in hand, scanning the room until she spots a raised hand.
Everyone in the room wears headphones, each voice isolated so that discussions don’t clash with sessions in adjacent halls. A question cuts through: how did a student science project become a commercial business?
At 24, Wambui, a Kenyan agripreneur, runs Harcourt Agri-Eco Farm, which recycles organic waste into animal feed using black soldier flies.
“Back then, I didn’t know it would become a farm or a business,” she said to a room of agripreneurs, researchers, and investors, describing her first experiments in 2022 as an energy engineering student at Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT).
Today, her eight-person team processes around 30 tonnes of waste each month and monitors the carbon emissions avoided.
The enterprise now generates at least USD 1,000 in monthly revenue, a modest but steady profit by Kenyan standards.
Inside the calm Knowledge Hub, on a panel organized by the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (icipe), Wambui tells her story to a dozen listeners in an intimate, almost subdued setting. But just outside, at the leafy Centre International de Conference’s Abdou Diouf (CICAD) in Dakar, Senegal, the atmosphere is charged.
Presidents, cabinet ministers, development banks, and agribusiness executives pace the halls at the annual Africa Food Systems Forum (AFSF) 2025, the continent’s flagship platform for agricultural policy and investment.
This year, the forum positioned youth at the center of Africa’s food security agenda.
Wambui is part of a new generation of innovative agripreneurs that governments and financiers promise to support.
For the first time, youth agripreneurs joined heads of state on the Forum’s opening stage, a symbolic gesture of recognition in a region where nearly 400 million people are under 35.
“Our median age is just 19. And by 2050, one in three young people in the world will be African,” said Claver Gatete, Executive Secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA).
He said that if given land, finance, technology and markets, the youths can feed not only Africa but also the world.
However, turning such vision into reality is where the continent struggles.
The African Development Bank (AfDB) often says that Africa holds roughly 60 percent of the world’s uncultivated arable land, yet poor infrastructure, limited financing, and climate shocks keep much of it idle.
With the continent collectively importing approximately USD50 billion worth of food annually, according to the African Export–Import Bank (Afreximbank), the stakes are high.
At the national level, countries like Kenya continue to face hunger crises at emergency levels.
At the start of the year, the World Food Programme estimated that around two million people were experiencing acute hunger—a recurring crisis in a country with relatively better infrastructure and higher investment flows than many of its East African neighbors.
Experts say that despite localized crises, structural issues in African agriculture worsen food insecurity across the continent.
“We have relied on grants and aid to keep agriculture afloat, and this has made the agriculture sector stuck in a risk perception trap,” said Adesuwa Ifedi, Vice President of Africa Programs at Heifer International.
Ifedi said that commercial banks and investors avoid the sector, leaving grants to fill the gap. But grant dependence can undermine ventures in the eyes of private financiers.
“Grants should leverage commercial capital so the ecosystem can thrive,” Ifedi said.
The new 10-year plan aims to mobilize USD 100 billion in investment, raise farm output by 45 percent, cut post-harvest losses in half, triple intra-African agrifood trade by 2035, and place youth inclusion at the core of Africa’s food future under the AU’s Agenda 2063.
In Dakar, over 30 agriculture ministers gathered under the chairmanship of former Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn Boshem, pledging to move beyond policy drafting toward delivering tangible results for agribusiness investment.
Their top priority, they said, was to shrink Africa’s food import bill by strengthening regional value chains.
Dr. Janet Edeme, head of the Rural Economy Division at the African Union Commission, told IPS that the Forum provides mechanisms to operationalize CAADP 3.0, aiming to empower at least 30 percent of youth in the agri-food sector while closing a USD 65–70 billion annual financing gap for agricultural small and medium-sized enterprises (agri-SMEs).
She said AFSF offers a rare opportunity for youthful agripreneurs to showcase bankable projects, access mentorship, and meet investors who would otherwise be out of reach.
“There are dedicated spaces—deal rooms, youth innovation competitions, investment roundtables—where these innovators can connect with governments, development finance institutions, and private investors,” said Edeme.
Organizers pointed to new spaces for youth to meet investors, but agripreneurs like Wambui said those opportunities felt distant.
She had never heard of the AU’s new flagship plan.
“I’m only hearing about that from you. If it’s meant to guide Africa’s food future, why aren’t there clear materials or programs I can see and use?” Wambui said. “Otherwise, we leave without knowing what strategies exist to support our work.”
By day two of the six-day forum, she had found her way into the deal room, the flagship space to connect entrepreneurs with investors, but instead of streamlined matchmaking, she found confusion.
“We are looking for the investors, and they’re looking for us—yet we don’t meet. Deals still depend on connections. That’s why I came to Dakar.”
Wambui, who co-founded Harcourt Agri-Eco Farm with two other partners, said the business has grown enough to cover wages, taxes, and debt repayments. Banks now extend her loans.
But that access to financing remains an exception in a system stacked against most, said Dr. Eklou Attiogbevi-Somado, the African Development Bank’s Regional Manager for Agriculture and Agro-Industry in West Africa.
He said that AfDB data shows commercial banks in Africa channel just 3–4 percent of their lending into agriculture.
Dr. David Amudavi, CEO of Biovision Africa Trust, said this capital drought is a huge concern in a sector that drives most livelihoods on the continent.
Amudavi, whose non-profit organization promotes ecological agriculture, said that the squeeze leaves farmers, and especially young agripreneurs, struggling to access credit for starting or scaling their agribusinesses, even though nearly 60 percent of Africa’s unemployed are under 25.
“Without finance, many youth-led ventures stay stuck at micro-scale or collapse,” Amudavi said.
Not far from the Youth Dome, at the deal room, Tanzanian agripreneur Nelson Joseph Kisanga, the co-founder of Get Aroma Spices, is also navigating the same maze.
Seven years ago, he left a banking career to try poultry farming, losing almost everything in his first three years.
Kisanga regrouped, merged his venture with that of his wife, Deborah, also a young agripreneur, and built Get Aroma Spices, now working with more than 50,000 farmers across southern Tanzania.
“Agriculture back home is seen as not for young people,” he said. “Even now, scaling means loans at high interest rates. There’s no other way.”
The family-run company exports turmeric, ginger, cardamom, and avocado oil while operating a youth- and women-led agro-processing hub through a public-private partnership.
His presence at the AFSF forum has already borne fruit.
“My intention coming here was to break into the West African market, and I’m happy to say I have clinched a supply deal in Ghana. All that’s left is for the lawyers to finalize the contract.” Kisanga said, before moving to the Youth Dome, a separate pavilion for young participants.
Inside, some groups chatted, others played basketball and table tennis, while others listened as young agri-food innovators pitched their ideas to a panel of investors.
Despite the fanfare, the forum ended without revealing how much capital reached youth-led ventures.
The most visible funding for youth at the summit came via the GoGettaz Agripreneur Prize, a pan-African initiative under the Generation Africa movement. The prize awarded USD 50,000 each to Egypt’s Naglaa Mohammad, who turns agricultural waste into natural products, and Uganda’s Samuel Muyita, who uses nanotechnology to reduce post-harvest fruit and vegetable losses.
An additional USD 60,000 impact award brought total prizes to roughly USD 160,000.
Other announcements included a USD 6.7 million trade programme from the United Kingdom (UK), the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), and the African Union (AU).
Senegal also launched a USD 22.5 million pilot for Community Agricultural Cooperatives, with financing linked to the African Food Systems Resilience Fund.
Yet there was no breakdown showing how much, if any, flowed to youth-led ventures.
The opacity mirrors past patterns.
Public summaries from the 2023 deal room reported only USD 3.5 million in closed investments, with no traceable flows to youth-led enterprises.
With AFSF positioned as Africa’s premier delivery platform, observers measured the announcements against CAADP 3.0’s USD 100 billion mobilization target, saying the gap is stark.
“We have seen this pattern before: big pledges at the summit, but little clarity or follow-up on how much actually reaches youth and smallholder farmers—the backbone of African food production,” said Famara Diédhiou, a Senegal-based food systems program manager with a regional civil society network.
“Without such accountability and inclusion of all stakeholders, these forums risk becoming mere showcases rather than platforms that deliver,” he said.
For now, even with the youth-first theme, AFSF still leaves young founders stuck in the same cycle of chasing visibility, hustling for contacts, and stitching together their own contracts.
As Wambui found, Kisanga, who has attended three previous Forums, said that in AFSF access is everything: you need to know in advance who to meet and be in the right room at the right moment.
“All visibility is currency,” said Kisanga. “That’s how you survive.”
The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) is a coalition of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in over 100 countries promoting adherence to, and implementation of, the United Nations nuclear weapons ban treaty. Credit: ICAN
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 15 2025 (IPS) – When the high-level meeting of over 150 world political leaders takes place September 22-30, thousands of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and their accredited UN representatives will either be banned from the UN premises or permitted into the building on a strictly restricted basis– as it happens every year.
This year will not be an exception to the rule.
In a message to staffers, journalists and NGOs last week—spelling out the rigid ground rules during the summit– the UN said members of civil society organizations (CSOs) and NGOs who are invited to attend high-level meetings or other events will be required to be in possession of a valid NGO pass– and a special event ticket (indicating a specific meeting, date and time) at all times to access the premises.
“A United Nations non-governmental organization (NGO) pass alone does not grant access during the week of 22–30 September 2025”, the message warned
These restrictions have continued despite the significant role played by NGOs both at the UN and worldwide.
A former UN Secretary-General, the late Kofi Annan (1997-2006), once characterized NGOs as ”the world’s third superpower.”
And a former Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro (2007-2012) told delegates at a UN meeting, the United Nations relies on its partnership with the NGO community “in virtually everything the world body does”.
“Whether it is peace-building in sub-Saharan Africa or human rights in Latin America, disaster assistance in the Caribbean or de-mining efforts in the Middle East, the United Nations depends upon the advocacy skills, creative resources and grass-roots reach of civil society organizations in all our work,” she said, paying a compliment to NGOs.
The NGOs playing a significant role in humanitarian assistance include Oxfam, CARE International, Doctors Without Borders, International Committee of the Red Cross, the Red Crescent, Save the Children, Action Against Hunger, among others,
During an event marking the 75th anniversary of the UN Charter in 2020, the current Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, said civil society groups were a vital voice at the San Francisco Conference (where the UN was inaugurated 80 years ago).
“You have been with us across the decades, in refugee camps, in conference rooms, and in mobilizing communities in streets and town squares across the world.”
“You are with us today as we face the COVID-19 pandemic. You are our allies in upholding human rights and battling racism. You are indispensable partners in forging peace, pushing for climate action, advancing gender equality, delivering life-saving humanitarian aid and controlling the spread of deadly weapons”.
“And the world’s framework for shared progress, the Sustainable Development Goals, is unthinkable without you”, he declared.
But none of these platitudes have changed a longstanding UN policy of restricting NGO access to the UN during high-level meetings.
The annual ritual where civil society members are treated as political and social outcasts has always triggered strong protests. The United Nations justifies the restriction primarily for “security reasons”.
Mandeep S. Tiwana, Secretary General, CIVICUS, a global alliance of civil society organizations, told IPS: “It’s really disappointing to see how year on year, civil society representatives who help the UN achieve its mandate, share its values and provide vital entry points to peoples’ needs and aspirations, are systemically excluded from the UN’s premises during UNGA week despite possessing valid annual security passes that are thoroughly vetted.”
Such blanket prohibitions on civil society representatives’ entry to the UN when momentous decisions and contentious debates are taking place are a missed opportunity to engage decision makers, he said.
“Such asymmetries in participation are the reason why many of us have been pushing for the appointment of a civil society envoy at the UN to enable better and more systemic involvement of civil society at the UN, ensure consistent engagement modalities across the UN system and drive the UN’s outreach to people around the world”.
“Despite, the UN Charter beginning with the words, ‘We the Peoples’, our call has fallen on deaf ears. It is well within the UN Secretary General’s power to appoint a civil society envoy that could be a legacy achievement, if realized,“ declared Tiwana.
Mads Christensen, Executive Director, Greenpeace International, told IPS: “We continue to believe in the UN and multilateralism as essential to achieving a green and peaceful future. Those in frontline communities and small island states most impacted by climate change must have their voices heard, as must young people whose very future is being decided. “
“We the peoples”, the opening words of the UN Charter, must not be reduced to “stakeholders consulted.” Civil society needs to be “in the room where it happens,” said Christensen.
Sanam B. Anderlini, Founder of the International Civil Society Action Network (ICAN), told IPS: “I find the exclusion or NGOs from UNGA ironic and tragic.”
Globally, she pointed out, “ We have raised the alarm bells about conflict, human rights abuses, the desecration of international law. Our sector is also the strongest of supporters for the UN system itself.”
“We believe in the power and potential of multilateralism, and the need for a robust UN that adheres to the principles of peace and human security. Yet the system does not stand with us. “
Today more than ever, she argued, civil society globally is under pressure, politically, financially, systematically. “Yet we still persist with doing ‘what we can’ to address societal needs – as first responders to humanitarian crises, mitigating violence”.
As the powerful abrogate their responsibilities, the least powerful are taking on that responsibility to protect.
The UN should be embracing and enabling this sector’s participation at UNGA. Just as civil society is a champion of the UN, the UN should be a champion of civil society. Yet it seems that ‘We the People of the United Nations’ are not only being marginalized but over-securitized. How many security checks, how many grounds passes does each person need?, she asked.
“How tragic that those of us advocating for peace and justice are outside of the halls of power, while those waging wars, enabling genocide and trampling international laws are inside”.
“But we will be there. If our voices are absent within the UN, that absence itself will speak louder than any words”, she declared.
Andreas Bummel, Executive Director, Democracy Without Borders, told IPS: “The UN should resist efforts by authoritarian states to delegitimize and shut out affiliated civil society groups.” As the organization is under dramatic pressure to implement cost-cutting reforms, seen in the UN80 initiative, he said, it really needs to seek stronger engagement with civil society, citizens, and the public at large, not less.
Not admitting NGO representatives during the UNGA general debate is another lost opportunity to make a mark, declared Bummel.
