What is a Global Citizen? Perspectives from Kavita Ramdas

Yesterday's SWLC conference was kicked off by a thoughtful and inspiring opening address delivered by Kavita Ramdas, the President and CEO of the Global Fund for Women. Ramdas was recently appointed an Advisor on Global Development to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and under her aegis the Global Fund has tripled their assets, allowing them to award $8.5 million annually to organizations worldwide.

Ramdas posed the question to the audience of female and male students, professionals and other leaders: What does being a global citizen mean in today's world? She points out that the world feels like it's in the midst of a shift, on the cusp of a change. How then do we enable this shift and become part of this change? And does it take individual or collective leadership?

Here she quotes Eleanor Roosevelt's remarks to the U.N. on human rights:

"Where after all do universal human rights begin? In small places, closes to home - so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any map of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person: The neighborhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world."

In a nation where individual leadership is highly prized, Ramdas goes on to argue, we must recognize the value of collective leadership as well, because the process of solidarity is critical when you're undertaking great risks and tackling great problems. She points out that President Obama in many ways manifests the power of both individual leadership (his persona, ideals, beliefs, actions) as well as collective leadership (the voters who mobilized to bring him to office). We are definitely seeing how critical it is for Obama to have this kind of solidarity post-election.

Ramdas then argues the why of global citizenry--why should we care? It's suddenly staring us in the face in a way that's inescapable: our individual behaviors and actions do affect others. We are in a globalized world; the boundaries that used to define us as nations are beginning to break down. She cites as one example one of the adverse affects of the NAFTA agreement which flooded the Mexican market with American corn (Mexico, incidentally, has over 300 varieties of indigenous corn already) thereby displacing male corn farmers and creating shantytowns of women and children. Of course, there's also the poster child of the adverse affects of personal and collective behaviors: global warming.

To use a lighter, pop-culture analogy, think of the world as a Seinfeld episode where seemingly unrelated individuals and situations merge and collide. It's a small world, after all.

Global citizens, therefore, are those people who truly seek to learn and understand the world and gain a greater perspective beyond the ideals and cultural norms they were brought up to believe. It's not about not taking a side or a stance on an issue, but rather being able to listen to other points of view. She offers several ways in which we can become more aware global citizens (thoughts in parentheses are my own additions):

• Learn your geography
  
• Listen to others (not only listening but also having empathy as well. Morgan Spurlock takes this idea a step further in his 30 Days reality show)
  
• Read opinions put forth in the foreign press or blogs (I would recommend Global Voices)
  
• Travel the world differently (and get to know and understand the place you're visiting beyond the tourist traps)
  
• Seek out the unfamiliar
• Learn another language, because it can give you insights into a culture that you might not get through translation. (Why, for instance, does the Chinese word for "crisis" mean "dangerous opportunity"?)
  
• Consume responsibly (check out GoodGuide and World of Good for a start)
  

Time limitations aside, I wish that Ramdas had elaborated on the why be a global citizen point in greater detail. Certainly, when speaking to a room full of "I want to change the world" people, she won't be getting any arguments as to why we must become more engaged in the problems that effect our world. I know plenty of people who simply don't care about issues that happen beyond the U.S. borders or even, I hate to say, their own front yards. How do you begin to engage these people, if at all?

Being a traveler myself, I often find that national navel-gazing is particularly rampant in America... even in a post-9/11 world. We are so fortunate as Americans to be citizens of a great superpower, to have so many opportunities available to us and to live with such abundance that we at times adopt a perspective of we-know-what's-best, or that we don't really need to care much about what's going on half-way around the world.

But, I have met so many people over the past couple of months who are interested in pursuing "more meaningful" work and utilizing their talents for the social good. It'll be these leaders and internal change-agents who will help to spread the word by example.