For millions in Zimbabwe born since liberation, the ZANU-PF government led by 93-year-old Robert Mugabe is the only government they have known. So the removal of President Mugabe from power by the military this month has been a watershed moment.  With long-time government insider Emmerson Mnangagwa now the new President, Zimbabwe is wondering if the country will continue the trajectory it has held under ZANU-PF, or if the country will chart a new positive course. 

The anti-corruption children's book, Gbagba, by 2010 Tutu Fellow Robtel Neajai Pailey has been adapted and turned into a stage play.  The play, which has an all-child cast, made its debut in September 2017 at Monrovia City Hall in Liberia. The children in the ensemble cast were trained for five months by premiere theatre company, Flomo Theatre.  Gbagba is a Bassa word which loosely translated, means 'trickery' or, 'corruption'.  In the book and its stage adaptation, children navigate the confusing ethical codes of the adults in their lives, in places as diverse as traffic jams, schools, churches and markets. The children express clearly and honestly the concrete ways in which gbagba hurts rather than heals society.

2017 Tutu Fellow Hema Vallabh has been recognised at this year's Fortune: Most Powerful Women in Business for 2017 and presented with the Fortune/Goldman Sachs Global Leader's Award. The event took place in Washington, DC on 10 October.  Fortune's Most Powerful Woman founder Pattie Sellers presented her with the award. 

This year, the excesses of gender inequality has rocked Fox News, Uber, and the Weinstein Company, in which powerful men have taken advantage of women or created workplaces hostile to gender equality.  So for Forbes to feature 2014 Tutu Fellow Samuel Mensah - along with three other men in South Africa - a country hardly known for gender equality in business, says something of their credibilty.  Mensah is the co-founder of the leading African fashion brand, Kisua.

Two Tutu Fellows are collaborating on a pioneering and ambitious agribusiness training programme.  They hatched the idea last year, when 2015 Fellow Martin Mbaya and 2013 Fellow Nuradin Osman got chatting at the 10-year celebration of the Tutu Leadership Fellowship at Nirox Foundation Park.  The new AGCO agribusiness qualification will develop skills, leadership and strategic expertise in youth to support the African agricultural sector at a time when farmers are being asked to do more with less.

There was a time when Africa was the destination of investment from external investors for a variety of reasons. The sluggish global economy and a variety of other factors make that kind of investment landscape one that can no longer be counted on, and it has had a negative impact on a number of African country's economies. But 2010 Tutu Fellow Lerato Mataboge writes that the reduced external investment in Africa may provide the pain that African countries need to reimagine the way in which they do business with each other. 

There is no such thing, of course, as a 'grey rhino'.  2009 Tutu Fellow James Mwangi writes that he came across the the term in a piece on business in China and that he found it instructive.  In the piece, a grey rhino was analogous to highly probable, high-impact threats that people should see coming, but don't.  Writing about the threat of 'grey rhinos' in Africa for African Business, he looks at some of the factors that should be obvious to governments across the continent and which they have failed to address. 

Mo Ibrahim addressed the 2017 Tutu Fellows in the UK during their second workshop, covering some of the more vexing questions facing African leaders today.  The Mo Ibrahim Foundation, which he leads, was established in 2006 to improve governance and leadership in Africa. Ibrahim spoke on leadership challenges in Africa and on opportunities and challenges facing the private sector.

2017 Tutu Fellow Natalie Jabangwe was a panelist in a high-level panel discussion on Innovation and technology at the United Nations General Assembly on 18 September.  The discussion formed part of the UN's attention to a range of Sustainable Development Goals that it hopes to see implemented by 2030. The goals include inroads into poverty, hunger, health, education, gender equality, clean energy, responsible consumption and others. Innovation and technology are seen as mechanisms by which the goals can be reached.

Back in June of this year, we shared news of how two Fellows were selected to participate in the final one thousand at UNLEASH 2017.  One of them, Jon Kornik, led the team that won the water solutions' challenge.  UNLEASH sets up global innovation labs and gathers some of the top minds of a generation in a kind of open source solution based approach to subject themes such as water, food, sustainable consumption and others. 

Three Tutu Fellows were speakers at the Gulu Youth Conference in Northern Uganda, in which their voices were heard on social transformation in Africa.  The Fellows were Deo Arinaitwe Rugyendo (Class of 2012), Daniel Kidega (Class of 2007), and Nobel Peace Nominee Victor Ochen (Class of 2011).  The Gulu Youth Conference was organised as a way to begin a process of transformation in Northern Uganda. 

The University of KwaZulu Natal in South Africa has conferred a Doctorate in Business Administration on 2008 Tutu Fellow Siza Majola. Her thesis was titled: Developing a stakeholder management model based on an African traditionally governed community: Bafokeng case study.  Majola's PhD caps an MBA from Sheffield Business School in the UK, a B.Sc Honours in Geographic Information Systems from the University of Stellenbosch, and a B.Sc in Geology from the University of Fort Hare.

The Tutu Leadership Programme has two workshops, one in South Africa, and the second in the UK.  Between the speaker sessions, group projects, soul searching and other required work is time for bonding, networking, and fun.  The gallery below gives a sense of the camaraderie among the Class of 2017.

Candidates from the 2017 Tutu Leadership Fellowship Programme cohort were interviewed at Mont Fleur, outside Cape Town, about the first workshop in the programme. Rori Tshabalala says that an element of the programme is the self-reflection required to determine why we choose the paths we do.

Candidates from the 2017 Tutu Leadership Fellowship Programme cohort were interviewed at Mont Fleur, outside Cape Town, about the first workshop in the programme. Abayomi Awobokun mentioned that an area in which leaders often fail is in thinking sufficiently rigorously about the outcomes that a path of leadership might produce.