Join us for a historic fireside chat with Her Excellency Graça Machel. Liberation fighter, former Education Minister of Mozambique, global humanitarian, and the only woman in modern history to serve as First Lady of two nations (Mozambique and South Africa).
Three days before the first G20 Summit ever held on African soil, this conversation lands right on time. As world leaders gather in Johannesburg, we put the uncomfortable questions on the table: partnership, investment, and what real solidarity between Canada and Africa actually looks like.
WHO IS GRAÇA MACHEL?
At 80, Graça Machel has spent six decades building institutions and challenging power. As Mozambique's first Education Minister (1975-1989), she pushed enrollment from 40% to over 90% and cut illiteracy from 93% to 72%, and she did it with limited resources and a lot of will.
Through the Graça Machel Trust, she has backed more than 5,200 women entrepreneurs across seven countries, helped create over 30,000 jobs, and opened up $5 million in funding pipelines. She is Deputy Chair of The Elders, Chancellor of African Leadership University, and she has the standing to say the things most people won't.
WHAT WE GET INTO:
- Why Canada's Africa Strategy launched with zero new funding, and what has to change
- Can extractive industries ever be real development partners?
- How Africa's $4 trillion in mobilizable capital could change the continent
- The AfCFTA opportunity: 1.3 billion people, a $6.7 trillion market by 2030
- What gender-lens investing gets wrong, and what it should look like
- The move from aid dependency to investment-driven prosperity
- What Canada's Prime Minister should actually say at the G20 in three days
WHY THIS MATTERS NOW:
This one carries real stakes. With the G20 in Johannesburg, Canada holding the G7 presidency, and Africa at a decisive moment, the conversation holds comfortable assumptions to account. Machel earned the right to be, in her words, "frank and unrestrained." We're making room for the truth Canadian decision-makers need to hear, from someone who has built institutions, governed nations, and delivered results you can measure across decades.
HOSTED BY: The Afropolitan Podcast in collaboration with The Asili Initiative
DATE: November 19, 2025
LOCATION: University of Toronto
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FOLLOW GRAÇA MACHEL TRUST:
LinkedIn: @Graça Machel Trust
Facebook: @TheGraçaMachelTrust
Instagram: @g_macheltrust
Twitter: @G_MachelTrust

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LinkedIn: @theasiliinitiative
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Facebook: @theasiliinitiative

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A luta continua. The struggle continues.

0:00 Millions of girls still without a chance
1:23 What's fueling her fire for Africa's future
2:23 A girl from rural Mozambique
4:24 The women working hard with no opportunity
6:18 "We are not allowed to fail"
8:21 The G20 in Johannesburg and what's at stake
11:04 From statements to real implementation
12:35 Investment that transforms raw materials inside Africa
15:47 "Believe that Africans are capable"
17:01 Equality, solidarity, sustainability (you are because I am)
18:20 Why this isn't charity: the world needs Africa
21:27 Women Creating Wealth: from income to abundance
24:44 Why 5,000 trained women won't change the structure
27:05 "It has to become the norm, not a privilege"
28:51 AfCFTA and removing the barriers to trade
30:30 Infrastructure: "Don't scream billions. It's necessary."
33:42 Her challenge to the diaspora: come sit with us
36:37 "When are you coming?" The invitation to Africa
38:39 Is it too late for Canada to compete?
39:01 AfriShela: capital in the hands of women
42:13 The check size that actually moves the needle
44:16 The "missing middle" and women over-mentored but underfunded
48:32 The end of aid as usual
52:55 "When women hold wealth, nations hold wealth"
53:28 Moving from extraction to co-creation
1:00:02 The informal economy is the economy
1:06:22 The diaspora's real job: end "us and them"
1:09:20 What partnership means: sharing decision-making
1:12:33 "I bring history, knowledge, wisdom, and aspirations of my own"
1:13:27 A warning: don't recreate "them and us"
1:16:07 Global Affairs Canada on trust and blended finance
1:20:20 A February promise to come to Johannesburg
1:22:22 Listen to women, youth, and farmers, not just governments
1:24:30 Building the collective African narrative
1:26:25 Listen, then share so we can implement