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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.

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.

2010 Tutu Fellow Robtel Neajai Pailey PhD has been appointed as an Assistant Professor in International Social and Public Policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science, where she contributes to a range of undergraduate and postgraduate courses.

Robtel is an academic, published author, essayist, scholar-activist and children's book author.  

Two Tutu Fellows have been named to this year’s 100 Most Reputable Africans by Reputation Poll International. The two are 2008 Fellow, Elsie Kanza, and 2010 Fellow and AFLI CEO, Jackie Chimhanzi.  The annual Poll lists 100 Africans who are celebrated for their good governance, leadership, and a range of other criteria. 

The two Fellows are joined by a range of luminaries that include two African presidents and a number of policymakers. The selection criteria are integrity, visibility and impact.

2010 Tutu Fellow Bright Simons insightfully unpacks the pervasiveness of conspiracy theories during the pandemic and the danger they present.  Bright is a Ghanaian policy activist and social entrepreneur. In his piece in The Africa Report, he kicks off his piece by saying "Because all of us are so damned scared and anxious, conspiracy theories, alternative facts, folk science, and fringe beliefs that would ordinarily not get more than a tiny fraction of our saturated attention, now flood news bulletins and timelines."

He writes that while Africa is not any more susceptible to fringe beliefs than elsewhere, during a time of crisis it can seem as if they are on the verge of overwhelming mainstream and traditional media.

2010 Tutu Fellow Robtel Neajai Pailey is an academic, activist and author is perhaps best known for her children's book on corruption, Gbagba, but she has also published monographs like Development, (Dual) Citizenship and Its Discontents in Africa: The Political Economy of Belonging to Liberia.

In another literary piece published by Warscapes, an independent online literary magazine that provides a lens into current conflicts, Robtel reflects on a period of her life when she worked for former President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s administration as a young idealist. In this pensive, powerful and insightful piece, at once relatable and a zeitgeist for a formative period for Liberia, she offers a personal perspective of a seminal decade of Liberian history. The piece is titled This is Our Country.

2010 Tutu Fellow Edwin Macharia has been elected by Dalberg's equity partners to serve a three-year term beginning on 1 January 2020 as their Global Managing Partner.  He will be the fourth Global Managing Partner since Dalberg’s founding in 2001.  Dalberg Advisors is a leading global consulting firm and social impact group specializing in inclusive and sustainable business, policy, and investment strategy. Edwin succeeds Yana Kakar who was elected in 2013 and re-elected in 2016, serving the maximum of two terms.

Edwin has been with Dalberg for a little more than a decade, during which time he has served in a range of leadership roles.