A deep conversation with social entrepreneur and indigenous leader Konkankoh By: Silke von Brockhausen • Podcast: The RE:Generation Collective – The Next UN: Visions for a Regenerative Future
Who is Konkankoh?
Konkankoh is an indigenous elder from the kingdom of Bafut-Cameroonian, social entrepreneur, facilitator of South–North partnerships, and Regenerative Education leader. He founded Better World Cameroon, the Bafut Ecovillage, and the Spirit of Ndanifor Trust, training hundreds—especially women and youth—in African Permaculture the African Way dealing with food sovereignty, and community-led leadership. His Spirit of Ndanifor (Ubuntu) weaves relational interdependence with global frameworks like the SDGs, advancing a simple ethic: trade, not aid; reciprocity, not extraction with culture and nature at the center.
What is “regeneration” in his words?
Konkankoh distinguishes between what science generates (electricity, and artificial materials like plastic/pesticides) and what nature generates—life. If we speak of re-generation it means something has degenerated. Regeneration, then, is the restoration of a broken system to its natural healthy state—not only our soils, water, and biodiversity has been separated and broken down, but also human relationships, culture, and spirit. In considering healing, it necessarily includes repair of the human soul in order to stop us repeating the outer damage we see in our environment.
Bottom line: Regeneration is creating the conditions for life to thrive—inside us, among us, and around us.
Why this matters now
We are living through a polycrisis. Nature will regenerate—with or without our cooperation. Our choice is whether to align with natural living systems or be corrected by them. The deeper cause of breakdown systems, Konkankoh says, is separation—North vs. South, rich vs. poor, human vs. nature, policy vs. people. We have “sectioned artificial economies out of the natural cycle of life.” Regeneration means reuniting with what we have split.
A loving, sharp critique of the UN
As a young journalist, Konkankoh studied the UN and, from an African vantage point, once nicknamed it the “United Nonsense.” His point wasn’t cynical; it was diagnostic:
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Colonial residues still shape norms, borders, and resource governance.
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Conflict economies are fed by weapons that are manufactured elsewhere; Africans lack arms industries but live with the wars.
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Top-down systems (education, economics, religion) displaced resilient indigenous systems rather than dialoguing with them.
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Funding flows often bypass those doing real work, rewarding intermediaries while community innovators remain unfunded.
But still, Konkankoh insists, the UN holds the tools to heal—if we recover purpose, language, and relationships aligned with life.
If Konkankoh was UN Secretary-General
He would go to the root causes—the indigenous way to resolve problems:
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Reopen the original story where it all started. Convene a contemporary “Berlin Conference” in spirit (not to divide Africa, but to reckon with the colonial template that still organizes global relations).
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Revisit unresolved files that scar the UN’s moral authority: What happened to the UN trust territories? (Konkankoh cites the case of Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld) and refers to some of his policies like invoking the Right to Protect, to restore a culture of truth, courage, and service-a case in point the Southern Cameroon crisis still under the carpet.
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Replace contradictions—“peace through war,” “equality through extraction”—with human values that make peace, reciprocity, and regeneration non-negotiable.
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Shift the money logic. Make money serve life: direct funds to those doing the work; design for dignity, not dependence.
What the UN can learn from Africa’s indigenous wisdom
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Ubuntu / Ndani For: “I am because we are.” Policy that forgets relationship will fail. Design two-way bridges (not one-way “capacity building in regeneration”).
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Ecovillages as living labs: Communities like Bafut Ecovillage demonstrate food sovereignty, water stewardship, women’s leadership, and youth enterprise as integrated holistic practice—not siloed projects.
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Trade, not aid: Build trust-based partnerships and fair value chains that keep cultural and ecological wealth in community hands.
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Everyone belongs: Traditional communities seek out the excluded (disabled, widows, orphans, migrants) and seat them at the center of Care and Regeneration. That is what healthy systems looks like.
Concrete advice: How to make the UN more regenerative
1) Rebuild the listening architecture
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Run internal and external assemblies that include Elders, women, youth, faith keepers, and local anchors.
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Host in local languages, with facilitators trusted by the community.
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Begin every mission with relationship-mapping: who do people already trust?
2) Compassionate Funding
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Create direct, trust-based grants to local solidarity groups with light reporting and community-owned audits.
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Fund stewards, not just projects: women’s agricultural cooperatives, youth permaculture guilds, cultural custodians.
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Pilot participatory budgeting with transparent local treasuries.
3) Shift from aid to fair exchange
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Develop South–South trade pathways (e.g., agroecology, regenerative textiles, herbal medicines & community energy).
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Support value-added processing near the source; stop exporting raw materials and importing poverty.
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Negotiate long-term offtake agreements that stabilize incomes and ecosystems.
4) Decolonize knowledge and language
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Elevate indigenous science alongside Western science; co-produce guidance rather than “consult.”
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Teach staff nervous-system literacy and cultural humility; make presence, not just PowerPoints, the professional standard.
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Replace extractive indicators with relational metrics: trust, belonging, land tenure security, food sovereignty, water quality, biodiversity presence.
5) Reform procurement & HR for belonging
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Reward local hiring, language ability, and care work (the invisible glue of programmes).
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Value elders and culture-bearers as paid advisors, not “volunteers.”
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Build bottom safeguards against elite capture so funds and decisions don’t migrate upward.
6) In conflict & post-disaster settings
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In the first 72 hours, host for safety: circles of listening, grief acknowledgement, and mapping of trusted anchors (grandmothers, teachers, traditional leaders).
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Pair every humanitarian intervention with ecosystem repair (water retention, soil cover, pollinator corridors) to shorten recovery and restore dignity.
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Avoid extractive quick wins that erode culture; design for agency and continuity of care.
7) Align tech and finance to serve life
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Treat data, IP, land, and seeds as commons with clear community rights.
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Use technology to connect and protect, not to extract (community-led monitoring, transparent ledgers for local funds).
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Adopt steward-owned or community-owned models for UN-supported enterprises.
Culture change: the inside work
Konkankoh returns again and again to inner coherence. If staff are exhausted, fearful, or competing for status, they will unconsciously reproduce extraction. Regeneration begins with how we show up:
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Start meetings with arrivals (breathe, feet on the floor, name what’s alive).
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Practice two-way learning and humble speech.
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Remember: “Real work is love made visible.” If we remove joy and purpose from our work, the systems we build will carry that emptiness.
A daily practice (in his spirit)
He closed by inviting a simple, nature-based ritual each day—step outside, touch the earth, offer gratitude, and ask: “What is mine to contribute to life today?” Small, steady acts of reconnection are how larger systems begin to heal.
What this means for UN colleagues
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Begin where you are. Map trust in your context; invite the quiet anchors; put one budget line under community control.
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Change what you count. Pair outputs with relational and ecological metrics.
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Redirect a slice of funding to direct, trust-based grants.
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Host differently. One circle per week. One assembly per quarter. One participatory budget this year.
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Tell the truth about history. Make space institutionally to face root causes—then design the future from a place of repair.
If the UN is to move from firefighting to future-making, it will be because we choose relationship over separation, reciprocity over extraction, and life over mere activity. Konkankoh’s invitation is clear: put love back into the work—and let money and technology serve that love.
Listen to the full episode here:
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3PmRtgMNggvZXnygIUs9KH
Youtube:
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/work-is-love-made-visible-regenerating-the-un/id1841851629?i=1000729457432
Connect with Konkankoh: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuakonkankoh/
Learn more about his work: https://konkankoh.com/