Tumusiime Mutebile Annual Public Lecture, 2025 – Delivered by F F Tusu Tusubira

Ladies and Gentlemen

Thank you, Mr Vice-Chancellor, for honouring me with the invitation to deliver this year’s Tumusiime-Mutebile Annual Public Lecture.

These lectures are an opportunity for us to collectively reflect on the positive values he espoused, both to entrench them into ourselves, and more importantly to get the younger generations to internalise them so that, through that medium, we can extend his positive impact on individuals and economies well beyond his earthly life.

Two caveats before I get into the subject matter. The first caveat is that I have used academic latitude to modify the title of my address to “Shaping Africa’s Future: The Imperative and Power of Intergenerational Leadership”, because while Intergenerational Leadership is a strategic management approach, national Innovativeness and economic resilience are outcomes of multiple strategies – and I will link them to Intergenerational Leadership in that context. The second caveat is that the name “Africa” as used here is a broad generalisation because our continent is far from homogeneous. It is not intended to claim full applicability to each country in Africa.

Getting back to the subject matter:

As his undergraduate contemporary at Makerere University, I saw Emmanuel the student leader, an activist for good, protesting the expulsion of Asians, which meant that in those troubled times, he had to flee Uganda. As a Ugandan, I saw Prof Tumusiime-Mutebile the professional, as the Governor of the Bank of Uganda, leading an incredibly successful monetary policy. And as a Rotarian, I saw Rtn Emmanuel the philanthropist, a Major Donor, contributing funds through Rotary, and through Rotaract – which is the younger generation in Rotary, to support community interventions and young people. Our theme today links into those three perspectives as well as his lifelong vision of building resilient economies.

I will start with some reflections as a background to my thesis.

During 1969 or thereabouts, the American psychiatrist and gerontologist Dr. Robert Neil Butler, coined the word “ageism” in the context of discrimination against the elderly. The meaning has since evolved to include discrimination against any age-group. As we all know, power relationships tend to define who discriminates, and who is discriminated against. Currently, the direction of the world is controlled largely through the wealth of nations, and in many cases, this reduces to the wealth of individuals. Since most of the world’s wealth is held by the 54 – 75yr age group, it is this same age group that determines the direction of organisations and nations.

What are some of the outcomes linked to this power positioning?

Over time, the older generations have entrenched systemic discrimination against younger generations, which has contributed in large measure to the resentment and tension that we have seen exploding into youth-led protests and sometimes violence around the world – triggered by different causes but fed from the same boiling pot of resentment. A pervasive example of systemic discrimination are the entrenched near-arbitrary experience requirements for any assignment, a major barrier to opportunity for the younger generations.

And yet the world is evolving so rapidly that today’s knowledge and experience are often tomorrow’s curiosity stories. And indeed, experience often means someone who has perfected the art of never making a wrong decision by never making any decision.

Within Africa, (and this is based on data from the UN Population Division, World Bank Demographics, African Development Bank reports), the continental median age is just under 20 years, and about 65% of the population falls between 15 and 35 years. And yet the other side of this coin is that among all continents, Africa has the highest average age for both national leaders and parliamentarians. And based on data from African Development Bank Reports, McKinsey Leadership Studies, PwC African Governance Surveys, and Ernst & Young Leadership Research, board members are typically in the age range 50 – 62 years, and C-suite executives 45 – 55 years.

As African countries, we trumpet the great opportunity our youthful population presents, and yet what we do, by omission and commission, keeps them out of positions and spaces that would have enabled our countries to reap the benefits we shout about. We love using the tired statement that “The Youth are the Leaders of tomorrow,” which in reality is an indefinite exclusion from leadership and decision making.

And how do we deal with global warming? Leaders – public, private, and community – are fully aware of the severe consequences of global warming, and yet we defer action year on year. We should not be surprised that it is the younger generations all round the world who are most concerned about the environment: they are the ones to live with the worst consequences of global warming when our generation is long gone.

The self-inflicted danger in this discrimination against younger generations is that both history and contemporary experience tell us that the solutions we seek are to be found among them. An overwhelming majority of breakthroughs in scientific, technological, geographical, sociological, and other areas were made mostly by people in their twenties and thirties.

Nelson Mandela was 24 when he co-founded the influential Youth League of the African National Congress. Queen Amina of Zaria, warrior queen of the Hausa Kingdom who expanded her territory through negotiation and battle, became Queen at 41. Mansa Musa of Mali ascended the throne in his early thirties and developed a very intricate and advanced political economy that saw the Mali empire as one of the wealthiest at the time. Mo Ibrahim started CelTel at 43 years. In the technology space, Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Bill Gates – all these started their businesses with major breakthroughs while in their late teens or twenties. And, yes, Paul Harris founded Rotary when he was 37.

Everything we see in history and current times about those we now term the “Youth” shouts idealism, big dreams, innovativeness, agility, risk taking, and resilience. These are the very attributes our organisations, our countries and Africa need if they are to become leaders or, as a minimum, equal players in the global economy. And yet, we are not fielding our best players.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

These reflections highlight the reality of the double jeopardy we have created for ourselves: we are losing out on reaping development benefit from a major slice of our human resource; and we are at the same time creating intergenerational tensions that can explode in any direction. Our current perspective of youth defeats our opportunity of maximising national benefit from them. My thesis therefore is that the achievement of sustainable livelihoods in our countries/ and continent/ will not be possible unless we eliminate the current discrimination against the younger generations and involve them equitably in leadership and decision making.

There is an African proverb which translates as “The elder can dance to the drumming of a young person.” Instead of we the older generations insisting that we are the ones experienced enough to drum well, we need to be willing to accept and dance to the drumming of the younger generations, their new rhythms. Our rhythms are driven by memories and nostalgia: theirs are driven by necessity and survival in a rapidly evolving world.

We need to accept and actualise the reality that our younger generations are our greatest resource – not by us telling them, “You are the leaders of tomorrow,” but rather by ceding space, and involving them meaningfully in decision making across every sector we operate in. We need to see our younger generations in terms of the attributes they have – idealism, big dreams, innovativeness, agility, risk taking, and resilience– all critical to survival in the rapidly evolving context we now live. This is not just about equity and inclusion: it is a survival and growth imperative for Africa. This is what makes the understanding the why, what, when, and how of intergenerational leadership, and applying it in our organisations, businesses, and countries critical.

Intergenerational Leadership

Intergenerational leadership as a management strategy has been explored, discussed, and implemented in various forms in many spaces, both public and private especially over the last 30 years, necessitated by the growing complexity of an increasingly multi-generational work force.

The underlying cause of this complexity is that each generation is shaped by the then prevailing socio-economic circumstances of their environment, and this creates different behaviours and different outlooks among different age groups. The biological survival instinct demands that we adapt for survival as the environment changes, and each age group accordingly adapts to their environment. Age groups born during times of war will behave differently from those born during times of peace. Those exposed to new technologies and ease of global access and cross-cultural connections will behave differently from those who were not so exposed.

Parents, do not get upset when your children fail to see things your way: they view the world from a different perspective, and they are even more frustrated that you cannot see things their way because, at least in their early years, they look up to you as the superior all-knowing adult.

I trust most of us here have read the parable of the Blind men of Hindustani and the Elephant, whose nature they all wanted to understand, and yet could not budge from their personal touch and feel experiences as the defining factors.

The elephant is like a tree trunk, one opined; a wall, said another; a rope; a snake; a spear; a big leaf. They argued and quarrelled. The moral being that had they accepted that each had felt a different part of the same elephant, they could have sat down and compared notes to come out with a more accurate composite of what the elephant looks like.

This, colleagues, is the intergenerational challenge. Each generation sees the same country, the same organisation, the same business, the same decision from a different perspective. Each generation touches a different part of the elephant. Each perspective brings value to the totality. Success comes from integrating these perspectives into one composite.

Intergenerational leadership is about taking the formal steps to harness this incredible resource that is still largely ignored and wasted in most African countries. And yet this goes beyond wastage, because the approaches we currently use in organisations, in businesses, and in government lead to a limited appreciation of the whole. This is dangerous because the result will be failure; and it additionally fuels centres of resentment consisting of those excluded from decision making and leadership.

The younger generations see the older generations as selfish failures. Such resentment inevitably grows into covert and sometimes overt opposition and/or sabotage in businesses and organisations. Increasingly, they erupt into national violence.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is a reality that regardless of the time in history, it is always the younger generations who are better attuned to the prevailing conditions. They have grown up in and know that jungle. They can help the older generations to navigate it. In the audience here, you will find digital foreigners, digital visitors and tourists, digital immigrants, and digital natives. Only the digital natives, and to some extent immigrants, all of them in their twenties or teens, fully understand the terrain and the jungle. Generation Alpha, the age range up to 14 years currently, are second generation digital natives. These are the grandchildren of the early digital immigrants. And remember that Generational Beta is already loading…

The Japanese Zen philosopher, Shunryu Suzuki said that “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s, there are few.”

Being an expert comes from knowledge. Being innovative comes from ingenuity. Real innovators are not hampered by current knowledge because that limits possibilities. In the innovator’s mind, everything is possible! Maybe this is part of the reason why universities and other research institutions, the very centres of knowledge, hold less than 10% of all patents globally. Knowledge once said man cannot fly – but in Greek mythology, Daedalus said, why not, and flew out of prison with his son Icarus. Icarus died in the process, but we now see their image in the extremely popular sport of hang gliding.

If we want innovation to happen, let us not imprison potential inventors in barriers of knowledge. Let us rather fire their ingenuity and permit them to seek their own paths. When I was a member of the Board of TENET, the research and education network of South Africa, our most highly paid member of staff was the Chief Technical Officer. He did not have a single qualification, but he understood computers and networks and firewalls and how to make them his friends.

Colleagues, if YOU are a business owner too filled with self-importance to listen to the much younger generations and accept their input and advice as equals, it would be a good idea to close your business and cut your looming losses.

If in your organisation YOU do not listen to people in their twenties and early thirties when planning navigational paths to success in the current technology-enabled environment – understanding your markets, optimising logistics chains, finding new cheese stations, you are headed to bankruptcy. (I allude to cheese stations because I am sure most, if not all of you have read Spencer Johnson’s little book, “Who Moved my Cheese.” If you have not read it, please put it at the top of your reading list).

If YOU have not devolved decision making and empowered everyone, regardless of age, with full information to make the best decisions consistent with organisational goals without pushing decisions upstairs, you are the greatest threat to the business or organisation you head.

This is not to say the older generations, and that includes me, are useless. I will quote another African saying which translates as “The eye of the elder sees best in the darker places.”

The older generations may not have attuned their survival skills to the current environment, but they have a highly developed sense of danger as well as high levels of emotional and social intelligence. These are also attributes essential to any organisation. Very importantly, the older generations have easier reach into the markets and age circles where most of the global wealth fairly or unfairly resides.

In other words, each generation brings value to a table where all views, however outlandish, are accepted as part of the reality of the elephant. Each generation has a familiar space where they become the guides for other generations, creating mutual mentorship and learning, and developing high-trust environments in which organisational performance is supercharged.

The key take-aways from intergenerational leadership include:

• Shared decision making, involving (fair representation) of all generations
• Mutual respect, recognising that each generation has different outlooks, experiences, and strengths they bring to the table, enabling a more accurate conception of the elephant
• Supporting each other’s learning through mutual mentorship. Because mentoring normally assumes a flow from the older or traditionally more senior person, the term reverse mentoring, where the flow is the other way round, is often used. Each person we meet, regardless of age, is a learning opportunity.
• Creating an environment where all generations are valued, respected and feel a sense of belonging.

Actualising Intergenerational Leadership

Actualising Intergenerational Leadership can be tough because it is especially faced by the opposition of entrenched culture. I have faced this challenge several times, and I will share three personal experiences.

As a person who delves a lot into the best approaches to learning, I was satisfied that while my role as a lecturer was important, university students, as adults, were better off with self-led and peer-to peer learning.

I broke up each semester curriculum into logical sections and assigned them to sub-groups in the class to go and research on and then present to the class. This was a leap of trust the first time. They did such an excellent job, leaving me to address only a few gaps, that I made it my standard learning approach. Of course I was reported for not lecturing, and I was formally investigated. The finding was that I was not lecturing, but the more important finding, from the students, was that they enjoyed the courses I led more and were learning better. I was absolved. Culture had the grace to retreat.

The second time was when I was asked to lead the digitalisation of Makerere University as founding Director of the Directorate for ICT Support. Prof Ssebuwufu, then Vice-Chancellor, consented to the hiring of a team of managers all in their twenties. He made a leap of trust because we needed tech-savvy people, and this was the age bracket during the early two thousand. Since these were designated heads of department, I occasionally sent them to Senate to represent me. I soon received a call from the University about not sending “these young boys and girls” to Senate. This was a culture win because while they could not be technically excluded, the rejection and marginalisation was a demotivator.

The third example is when I became Chairman of the National Information Technology Authority Board, where I discovered that the top management Team, with the exception on the Executive Director and the manager Legal as Secretary to the Board, did not sit in attendance at Board meetings – and yet, from my perspective, these were the people, however young, who needed to understand policy and strategic direction and at the same time provide input and guidance to the Board on operational implications of our decisions and also advise on strategic alternatives. I must admit to being autocratic sometimes, and I know some unkind friends may say it is all the time, but this is often the only way of changing an entrenched culture – so I insisted. By the time we started our second term as a Board, everyone appreciated the benefits of having the top management team in attendance. Culture yielded, though I am not sure for how long.

Beyond cultural challenges, there is the need to dismantle systems and rules that discriminate against the younger generations – much in the same way the fight for gender equity started and still goes on.

We need to get rid of age-related biases and stereotypes. We need to adapt to work-cultures that recognise generational differences.

In summary, Intergenerational leadership recognises, on one hand, the moral obligation of generational equity and inclusion through ensuring that each generation is fairly represented and involved in decisions; and alongside that, the survival and growth imperative that needs leadership from the younger generations.

Innovation and Economic Resilience

The final question we need to explore is: How does this relate to innovation and national economic resilience?

Economic resilience in the context of developing countries requires several foundational factors, that include:

• A strong emphasis on human capital development and a robust innovation ecosystem, aligned with both current and emerging social and technological needs.
• Macro-economic stability, an area where Prof. Tumusiime-Mutebile excelled, supported by a diversified economic base and strong financial systems that are receptive to new opportunities.
• An infrastructure ecosystem that evolves ahead of social, production, and logistical needs.
• Compliance with environmental, social, and governance best practices.
• Effective social protection systems.

My focus here is on those factors that prepare younger generations for their essential roles today, and to enhance their capacity in those areas where they must be the leaders and mentors of the older generations.

For those who lived in Uganda anywhere between 1970 and early 1986, the experience of diving for cover at the sound of gunfire became a reflex survival reaction, marking a profound behaviour shift from our early years of independence. We did not need training.

Similarly, in working closely with younger generations, one cannot help but note their restlessness and tendency to hedge their bets regarding financial survival and well-being. It is increasingly rare to find anyone among the younger generations relying on a single income source; and even those ostensibly employed full-time often engage in one or more side hustles. They participate in investment clubs, real estate, small-scale production, microbusinesses, import/export activities, and online enterprises.

The younger generations have been conditioned to thrive in an environment shaped by continuous economic disruption, making diversification, adaptability, innovativeness, risk-taking, and agility second nature to them. Moreover, they care deeply about the environment as it represents their heritage. This mindset is precisely what we need to transfuse into all the diverse aspects of our economy if we are to progress to economic resilience and sustainable livelihoods.

For that approach to work, we must however first confront the reality that, despite substantial efforts and investments, we are failing to address access to quality and relevant education as well as skills development for the overwhelming majority of our youngest generations.

While additional investment could be mobilised, the bigger challenge to address, not surprisingly, is culture— we need a shift from “learning to pass exams” to “learning to create and innovate.” The mentality of “learning to pass examinations” is deeply entrenched among policymakers, teachers, and especially among we the parents. Until we achieve this cultural transition, our younger generations will be compelled to channel their creativity towards mischief, to the detriment of our countries.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Intergenerational Leadership is not just a fad, but a survival imperative for businesses, organisations, and countries. It is the best way of adapting our businesses, our organisations, and our countries to the rapid emergence of new technology opportunities and associated threats alongside the social-economic revolutions they trigger.

I have not addressed the details of the “how” which is extensively documented and is left out for us all to explore.

I believe businesses, organisations, and countries are at Darwinian cross-roads. From Charles Darwin’s seminal book, The Origins of the Species: “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change.”

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The choice is stark: Adapt, …. or perish

Thank you!

References

While most of this lecture is based on personal reflections and experience about discrimination against the youth and its outcome, it also draws on multiple sources as mentioned within the main text, especially where data is cited. Another key reference not directly cited is the publication “How Intergenerational Leadership Unlocks Innovation and Sustainability in Businesses”, May 2025, by the United Nations Youth Council, The Club of Rome, and St. Gallen Symposium (For full credits including lead authors and contributors, see: https://www.un.org/youthaffairs/sites/default/files/2025-07/UN%20Youth_CoR_SGS_2025_Intergenerational%20Leadership.pdf).

Use was also made of Chatai.com in identifying and highlighting issues from various documents that were also provided (by the app) as key sources used so that information could be verified where needed.