Professor Jumoke Oduwole, a 2013 Tutu Fellow, and Ada Osakwe, a 2014 Tutu Fellow, are among 20 contributors to the UNDP in Africa’s The Futures Report: Making the AfCFTA Work for Women and Youth.

AfCFTA - or, the Agreement establishing the African Continental Free Trade Area  is a legal instrument – among the African Union Member States to create a single market. This report argues that the AfCFTA represents much more: “on the one hand, it is a significant milestone on the journey to African integration and development. On the other hand, it is a catalyst for new ways of doing business, producing, working and trading within Africa and with the rest of the world.”

2012 Tutu Fellow Swaady Martin has launched an independent publishing house and online store called Loving Kindness Boma. It provides resources to help cultivate a culture of love, kindness, compassion, understanding, mindfulness, introspection and self-love within the family. Loving Kindness Boma provides a selection of beautifully illustrated stories with diverse main characters created to foster conscious values, social-emotional wellbeing and mindfulness in children.

Swaady explains on the site that the choice of the name borrows from the African tradition of a Boma being a place for storytelling and a coming together of people.

A 2009 Tutu Fellow, Dr Julie Makani, has been awarded the Dr Lee Jong-wook Memorial Prize for Public Health. The award, which was made in November 2020, is awarded annually to a person, institution, a governmental or nongovernmental organization that has made an outstanding contribution to public health. It was presented at a special ceremony during the World Health Organisation Assembly.

Julie was awarded the prestigious prize at the WHO event due to her leading work at the Sickle Cell Disease Consortium in Tanzania, which provides an academic and scientific environment that serves as a platform for the professional development of clinicians and scientists working to combat sickle cell disease.

2007 Tutu Fellow Brilliant Mhlanga has written an intimate and moving tribute for the late former Ghanaian President and military officer, Jerry John Rawlings. JJ Rawlings - as he was commonly known - led the country from 1981 to 2001, a period that included a military junta until 1992. He went on to serve two terms as the democratically-elected president of Ghana, stepping down at the end of the constitutionally-limited time frame.

Brilliant describes Jerry Rawlings as a “true Pan African” and a “Giant of Africa”, giving us an intimate look into this man's personality, political views, and dreams for the African continent.

Forbes Africa Magazine has profiled 2013 Fellow Danladi Veheijen and Eric Idiahi who was selected for the Tutu Fellowship Class of 2020 in their cover story of the October/ November 2020 Special Edition on Private Equity in Africa.  Danladi and Eric are co-founders of Verod Capital Management Limited. They founded the company at the apex of the global financial crisis in 2008, and it was one of the first indigenous venture capitalist firms in Nigeria.

Verod is a $300 million Africa-focused private equity firm which invests in high growth, medium sized companies across several sectors, including consumer products, manufacturing, technology/media and real estate.

The African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) has announced the appointment of 2012 Tutu Fellow Lydie Hakizimana as its Chief Executive Officer. The AIMS International Governing Board (IGB) made the announcement on the 4th of November 2020, following a unanimous decision.

Founded in 2003, AIMS is a pan-African network of centres of excellence for post-graduate training in mathematical sciences, research and public engagement in STEM. With centres in South Africa, Senegal, Ghana, Cameroon and Rwanda, AIMS is leading Africa’s socio-economic transformation through innovative scientific training, cutting-edge research, and public engagement.

2019 Tutu Fellow Edwine Barasa PhD has been appointed visiting Professor of Health Economics at the University of Oxford. In this role, he will be responsible for Health Economics research, student supervision, and teaching at the Centre for Tropical Medicine and Global Health at the Nuffield Department of Medicine at Oxford.

Edwine is already a professor, and the Director of the Nairobi Programme of the KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Research Programme and also heads the Programme’s Health Economics Research Unit. He has a PhD in Health Economics (University of Cape Town), a Master’s degree in Health Economics (University of Cape Town), and a Bachelor’s degree in Pharmacy (University of Nairobi).

2014 Tutu Fellow Linda Kasonde has been at the forefront of a legal battle since 2019 to prevent a change to the constitution by the Zambian government. Zambia’s Constitution Amendment Bill (No. 10 of 2019) aimed at weakening the legislature, judiciary, and state institutions that provide necessary checks and balances. “Bill 10”, as it was known, also threatened to change the electoral system to make it easier for the incumbent to win the 2021 presidential election and to hold on to power through gerrymandering. In a victory for the people, the bill has been defeated in the legislature.

Chapter One Foundation - which she founded - and the Law Association of Zambia, sued the state on the basis that the proposed Constitutional Amendment Bill was unconstitutional when it was first proposed.

Financing Alliance for Health - the company 2019 Fellow Dr Angela Gichaga leads - has developed a seven part series of courses on financing in public health. Financing Alliance serves government Ministries of Health and Ministries of Finance, globally, in building resilient and sustainably-financed health systems. At a time when the global coronavirus pandemic is affecting people everywhere, financing stretched public health systems is a hot topic, so the timing of the programme is fortuitous.

The newly-developed Financing Community Health Programs for Scale and Sustainability course presents an in-depth exploration of the financing value chain needed to understand resource needs as well as to mobilize resources for community health.

2011 Tutu Fellow Charles Washoma has been appointed as Vice President of International Affiliated Institutes at the Chartered Insurance Institute (CII). The appointment was made on 26 October 2020.

The CII is the largest professional body operating in the insurance and financial services market and has membership of over 129,000. Governments, regulators and employers see the organisation as an important source of thought leadership, expertise and best practice.

2010 Fellow Edwin Macharia has been appointed as a member of the Nature Conservancy global Board of Directors. He was elected to his first three-year term, which started on October 15, 2020. The Nature Conservancy is a global environmental non-profit working to create a world where people and nature can thrive. The NGO impacts conservation positively in 79 countries and territories across six continents.

Edwin Macharia is Dalberg Advisors’ Global Managing Partner. In this role, he sets Dalberg’s direction and oversees activities across offices worldwide.  “As The Nature Conservancy continues our mission to tackle some of the world’s biggest environmental challenges with creative, bold, scientifically-based, and scalable solutions, we need creative, bold, and strategic thinkers like John, Michelle, and Edwin to help us accomplish our goals,” said Jennifer Morris, The Nature Conservancy’s CEO.

2006 Tutu Fellow Thulane Ngele PhD has been appointed as the General Manager People Relations at Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd, where his role has been described as delivering people relations solutions that are grounded on theoretical concepts, fuelled by data and led by insights.  Thulane was appointed on 1 October 2020. Eskom is the largest producer of electricity in Africa.

Prior to this appointment, he was Head of Employment Relations and Employment Equity & People Governance and Assurance at Absa Group Limited. On a part-time basis, he pursues his love for education through supervising and marking MBA dissertations at Milpark Business School. 

2019 Tutu Fellow Marcia Ashong, the founder and Executive Director of TheBoardroom Africa, has partnered with the Ghana Stock Exchange on a new report assessing progress on gender diversity across the region.  The report is titled Board Diversity Index, Ghana 2020 Edition. The index tracks the number of listed boards by country and identifies all board seats filled by women.  It also monitors the number of women in chair and other executive positions. 

Research to date covers publicly listed boards across 11 African countries, and now includes Ghana.

2019 Tutu Fellow Samson Itodo has been appointed by the Nigerian government as a member of the national steering committee for the new Nigerian development plan, Agenda 2050. Itodo is the Executive Director of Yiaga Africa, a community of change-makers focused on building sustainable democracies in Africa anchored on the principles of inclusion, justice, accountability and constitutionalism.

He convened the Not Too Young To Run movement that led the successful advocacy for the reduction of age limits for running for public office in the Nigerian constitution. The campaign was adopted by the United Nations, African Union and ECOWAS as a global campaign.

2007 Tutu Fellow Hassan Musa Usman has been appointed as an Independent Non-Executive Director of Access Bank Plc, following the approval of the Central Bank of Nigeria.

Access Bank is a Nigerian multinational commercial bank, owned by Access Bank Group. Hassan brings his experience as the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Aso Savings and Loans Plc to his board position, as well as other previous experience in this space.