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On May 4th and May 5th, in partnership with the African Union Youth Envoy, Aya Chebbi, and her office, Project Pakati convened a workshop to discuss how to achieve greater youth inclusion in African governments.

This pan-African workshop served to consolidate knowledge from experts, policymakers and practitioners on youth inclusivity policy in governance on the continent. Across the two day workshop, we engaged with 16 such experts in depth and were able to assess, in a structured and rigorous way, the drivers and inhibitors of meaningful youth inclusion reform, the obstacles policymakers and politicians face in undertaking such reforms, and how best to implement progressive reforms for greater youth inclusion in governance on the continent.

2014 Tutu Fellow Sello Hatang mobilised the Nelson Mandela Foundation when it became apparent that South Africa would be facing a massive humanitarian crisis. Along with The Kolisi Foundation and the Imbumba Foundation, by the end of April his foundation had set up Each One Feed One with a start-up contribution of R500 000 from its own funds as an emergency relief vehicle, focusing on food security. It shortly thereafter began delivering food to starving people around the country. 

Sello was also joined by 2013 Tutu Fellow Catherine Constantinides, who is an ambassador to the Each One Feed One programme.

Unlocking Africa's Business Potential by 2015 Tutu Fellow Landry Signé has recently been released and has had good feedback and editorial reviews. Landry makes the case that Africa welcomes business investment and offers some of the world's highest returns and impacts.  The book examines business opportunities in the eight sectors with the highest potential returns on private investment in Africa.  These sectors include: consumer markets, agriculture and agri-processing, information and communication technology, manufacturing, oil and gas, tourism, banking, and infrastructure and construction.

He says Africa is one of the world's fastest growing regions and by 2030 will be home to nearly $1.7 billion people and an estimated $6.7 trillion in consumer and business spending.  Landry is a prolific writer and thinker, having authored or co-authored more than 27 manuscripts, books, articles and book chapters, with several books dealing with Africa's economy. 

Two Tutu Fellows - Omoni Oboli and Jude Abaga - are collaborating on a movie called Namaste Wahala. Jude, a 2017 Tutu Fellow is a producer on the movie, while Omoni, a 2018 Fellow, is an insider of the Nigerian movie scene.

Namaste Wahala is at the intersection of bollywood and nollywood, featuring a cast drawn from both the Indian subcontinent and Africa. ' It is directed by businesswoman-turned-filmmaker, Hamisha Daryani Ahuja

2014 Tutu Fellow Ada Osakwe was interviewed by Richard Quest on CNN regarding the impact of COVID-19 on businesses in Nigeria and how she has helped her employees. Ada is the Chief Executive of Agrolay Ventures, an investment firm dedicated to growing the agricultural and food sector in Africa and the owner of Nuli, which has multiple stores selling health-conscious foods. With the coronavirus ravaging economies across the globe, the media is looking at how small businesses are coping with the pandemic. 

Richard Quest, is a journalist and the CNN Business Editor at Large, and interviewed her on his programme Quest Means Business.

In March 2020, the African Leadership Institute announced the Associates who had been selected for the 2020 Class of the Tutu Fellowship programme.  As has been the case with previous cohorts, the people selected were exceptional emerging African leaders. AFLI received more than 300 nominees of outstanding quality from 36 African countries, from which the cohort was selected. Before the class could begin, COVID intervened and the programme was deferred until conditions allowed for an in-person convening.

Since that initial announcement of the cohort was made, not all of the candidates were still able to participate in the programme. The names below represent the final cohort who begin the first workshop in the programme in South Africa next week.

2019 Tutu Fellow Akim Daouda has been appointed as CEO of Gabon's Sovereign Investment Fund.  He takes over from Serge Mickoto as the leader of the Fonds Gabonais d’Investissements Stratégiques (FGIS). Akim was the fund's Chief Investment Officer and had been managing the fund's entire portfolio before stepping up as head of the organisation.  Serge Mickoto had headed the FGIS since its founding in 2012; Akim joined the fund in 2013 and was promoted three years later to Chief Investment Officer. 

The change in leadership came just days after FGIS' official acquisition of BNP Paribas’ assets in Banque Internationale pour le Commerce et l’Industrie du Gabon.

It's been six months since the Youth Organisations Directory was launched by AFLI as part of Project Pakati's goal to showcase the work being done by youth-led and youth-serving organisations across Africa. The directory assists African NGO's be recognised and found. Because it aggregates these NGO's on a single, searchable platform, it makes it straightforward for donors, funders and the audiences these organisations serve to find them.

Since it was launched, more than 330 organisations have taken the opportunity to register and create entries for their organisations in the directory. At this point, most African countries are represented. As the directory has grown and become better known, it has been shared by those already listed on it. While entry submission rates were initially slow, submission rates have increased. On a single day towards the end of this month, 23 NGO's submitted entries.

Two Fellows, Aderonke Onadeko of the Class of 2006 and 2007 Fellow Mezuo Nwuneli have partnered together to launch Nourishing Africa, a hub for entrepreneurs to accelerate their work, connect with funders, markets, talent, and celebrate their successes.

It connects agtech and digital innovators to ensure that Africa nourishes itself and becomes a net exporter of food by 2050.  On the site, they explain the simple math: by 2050, 2.4 billion people will live in Africa. If they spend $1 a day on food, this represents a $876 billion annual market. If they spend $10, its an $8.76 trillion annual market. A key goal is to empower Africans to sustainably grow and supply this massive market, reaping the benefits of local jobs.

2010 Tutu Fellow Edwin Macharia has written an article titled Leadership in the time of Covid-19 pandemic for Business Daily Africa. As a global managing partner of Dalberg Advisors, Edwin explains that leaders must be intentional in how they exercise influence and responsibility to the demands of this pandemic.

In his piece, Edwin says that history will judge the impact of leaders’ decisions during this virus and it will impact their legacies. For Edwin, empathy and compassion are vital anchors in times of crisis and having this perspective will lead to answers that are not always obvious.

2014 Fellow Zeinab Camara has run for office for her first time in the Guinean elections and won her seat in the National Assembly.  She stood for election in Boffa as a candidate for the governing party, Rassemblement du Peuple Guinéen or RPG, and won her seat with 62.4% of the vote. She ran against Abdoul Aziz Keita, the UDG candidate. 

The elections took place on March 22nd - along with a constitutional referendum - after being postponed four times from the original date in January 2019. As of March 26th, the country was waiting for judicial validation of the results. 

2017 Tutu Fellow Yap Boum II has written a post titled Coronavirus: Amid the global pandemic, lessons for Africa which was published by the Brookings Institution on 20 March 2020.  Yap, who is a microbiologist and epidemiologist and the regional representative for Epicenter Africa, the research arm of Doctors Without Borders, started the article by saying that the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is unprecedented in modern times, bringing enormous human, social, and economic disruption. It's been a busy time for Yap, with the Coronavirus pandemic following the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where he was on the frontline in a Phase III trial ebola vaccine to reduce the numbers of people infected by the disease.

In the article, Yap says that for Africa, where most countries have relatively weak health systems, the relatively slow arrival of COVID-19 bought Africa time to prepare.

2018 Tutu Fellow Nozipho Mbanjwa took part in the TEDxGreshamPlace session in Durban, South Africa in March 2020. She begins her talk by saying that she is a 'Conversation Strategist'. 

For those unfamiliar with the term, she is in demand for her ability to moderate global conversations - often difficult conversations - with insight, courage, depth and breadth. These have been for global and African institutions, leading listed and unlisted multinational corporations, business schools, and civil society organisations seeking to leverage conversations for change.

So the topic of her TED talk is entirely fitting.  Listen loudly with your whole heart, she says. 

2018 Tutu Fellow Lynette Ntuli posted a thread on Twitter on International Women's Day 2020 that speaks directly to the reasons why the day is still needed. The powerful account highlights why Gender Based Violence (GBV) has no bounds: no age, demeanor, class, access, education, public standing, or colour will protect women from it. She says that for most women, it’s not a matter of if, but when it will affect them directly. It’s waiting at the supermarket, in the boardroom, in Direct Messages.

The thread begins in January 2020, when Lynette joined the legions of women in South Africa whose right to safety and justice had to be upheld by a court of law. Why? She did not respond to WhatsApp messages on her phone from a stranger.

The Lancet has published an article by 2017 Tutu Fellow Yap Boum titled: Burden of disease in francophone Africa 1990–2017: the triple penalty? Yap co-authored the article with Yvonne Mburu. He looks into the triple penalty of disease burden faced by francophone African countries and unpacks why this is the case.

He outlines what this triple penalty is. The first is that francophone countries bear the highest burden of diseases in Africa; the second is that, despite carrying the highest burden of disease, francophone countries receive the lowest amounts of medical research funds globally. The third is linked to the inequalities arising from the dominance of the English language in global health.