On 29 July 2025, I had the honour of standing in Accra, Ghana to deliver the Youth Outcome Statement on behalf of young people across the continent at the 13th African Union High-Level Dialogue on Democracy, Governance, and Human Rights.

And alongside them were the Queen Mothers of Ghana, wisdom keepers whose presence reminded us that tradition and truth-telling still anchor us in every generation.

More Than Institutions: The Emotional Work of Governance

I began by saying that this dialogue does not just ask what states must do, but who we must become as young people tasked with state building.

Too often, governance is framed only as technical reform: new institutions, policies, or constitutional amendments. But in my work both with the African Union Transitional Justice Policy Reference Group and through the Public Heart Institute I have seen how deeply memory, harm, and governance remain entangled.

A Psycho-Political Approach

My conviction is simple: political dysfunction often mirrors unresolved emotional harm. The state can traumatize just as much as it can heal. That is why state building is not only about fixing institutions — it is about redesigning how societies carry and process harm. Good governance requires emotional intelligence, care infrastructure, and courage, not just technical tools.

The African Union Transitional Justice Policy (AUTJP) provides space for this under its pillars of institutional reform and reparations. But unless we bring this alive in funding, implementation, and monitoring, those words risk remaining only on paper.

Here is what I offered in Accra as practical steps:

1. Recognize psychological harm as governance data. When trust in the state erodes, it is often because people’s grief has gone unacknowledged.
2. Fund local healing initiatives. Not just buildings and infrastructure, but community spaces—both physical and emotional—that restore dignity and renew the social fabric.
3. Embed youth in truth-telling. Not as symbolic voices, but as co-creators of reparations processes and future institutions.

This is how we earn trust. This is how democracy becomes relational. This is governance through moral clarity. It is youth insisting that what is remembered, and how it is remembered, shapes the state we are building. Our contribution to state building may not only be innovation or entrepreneurship — it may be something harder: truth-telling.

I remain especially grateful for President Mahama’s reaffirmation that democracy is, and must remain, relational. Democracy is not a set of institutions frozen in time. It is the daily work of repairing trust, and creating spaces for every generation to belong.

The presence of the Queen Mothers was a powerful reminder of this: that tradition and truth-telling are not at odds with democracy, they are its foundation.

Forward Momentum

For me, the Dialogue was a mirror of the work we must do everywhere: to integrate emotional repair into governance, to centre youth as co-creators of democratic futures, and to recognize that healing is political work. I am deeply grateful to the African Union, the Government of Ghana, and every young African who co-created this moment.

Here’s to showing up. Fully. Fearlessly. Unapologetically.