Leadership Quote by Stephen Lewis

Hope, here, is not a soft sentiment but a political instrument - and Stephen Lewis wields it like one. “It gives one hope” sounds almost modest, the kind of line a diplomat can deliver without sounding like he’s issuing a manifesto. Then he drops the pivot: “this great strength of Africa.” The phrase is engineered to reverse the usual script. For decades, international rhetoric has treated Africa as a perpetual emergency: famine footage, conflict maps, charity appeals. Lewis reframes the continent as an agent, not a case file.

The intent is partly strategic. A politician and longtime UN advocate, Lewis has spent years speaking in rooms where “Africa” often becomes shorthand for failure or dependency. By insisting on strength, he’s challenging donor fatigue and moral numbness - nudging audiences to see partnership and resilience rather than tragedy that requires perpetual rescue. It’s an argument for sustained engagement, but on different terms.

The subtext is also corrective: you (the listener) may be expecting despair, but despair is lazy. “Great strength” is a rebuke to the patronizing worldview that assumes progress can only arrive from outside. It credits local leadership, civil society, women’s movements, and communities that absorb shocks while still pushing forward - especially in public health and human rights battles Lewis has publicly associated with.

Even the vagueness matters. He doesn’t specify a country, a program, a statistic. That broadness invites the audience to fill in examples and, crucially, to update their mental image of Africa from crisis to capacity.