News

The latest news from the African Leadership Institute and its Fellows. AFLI Fellows are leaders and change-makers, so this section has a lot of news. All text in all of the posts is fully searchable.

Details: Written by: Dirk Holshausen; Category: News; Published: 20 March 2018

This essay was originally written and submitted as part of my course requirements for the 2017 Tutu Leadership programme. It looks at three elements of leadership that are timeless and universal, but also especially relevant to Africa today if we are to see the successful transformation of our continent. The first element – servant leadership - explores what a leader must ‘be’ and the attitude and approach they should have. The second – shared vision – looks at what a leader should ‘do’ and highlights a common fundamental that is core to all great leaders, but somehow lacking in too many of our countries and companies. The final element – succession planning – looks beyond the leader, and helps us think about what comes next.

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Details: Written by: Norman Smit; Category: News; Published: 13 March 2018

An agriculture education program started by the global agricultural equipment manufacturer AGCO in partnership with Strathmore University in Kenya, have enrolled their first students. The program was initiated by two Fellows, AGCO's Nuradin Osman - a 2013 Fellow - and Martin Mbaya, a 2015 Fellow, who is a lecturer at the business school. The agriculture program seeks to create capacity and skills in the African agriculture sector at a time when people are being asked to do more with less.

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Details: Written by: Linda Kasonde; Category: News; Published: 06 March 2018

The theme of this year’s International Women’s Day is #PressforProgress. According to the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report, it will take the world two hundred years to reach gender parity. We are being urged not to sit back. I am the first female leader of the Bar Association in Zambia pre- and post- Zambia’s independence in 1964. At the last count, I was one of only two female leaders of a national Bar Association in Africa. This is a very sad state of affairs.

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Details: Written by: Norman Smit; Category: News; Published: 02 March 2018

The African Leadership Institute has hired Bridgette Mdangayi to lead the Ford Foundationgrant-funded leadership initiative. AFLI was awarded the $800 000 grant in 2017. The grant is to network young leaders from across Africa in order to obtain critical mass for young leaders and enable them to have an impact on the direction of the continent.

Bridgette came on board on 1 March 2018. She's an independent management consultant and experienced Project and Programme management professional with 10 years’ professional experience in both the NGO and Corporate Sectors.

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Details: Written by: Norman Smit; Category: News; Published: 27 February 2018

In her TEDx Talk that was recorded at TEDGlobal 2017, 2008 Tutu Fellow Bibi Bakare-Yusuf says stories carry great significance in a culture. Bakare founded the indie press Cassava Republic because of her conviction of the importance of reading to culture. Narratives in books give shape to the people they represent, and as a writer and publisher she believes it is important to be able to find voices like your own in your country’s literature. This quest to broaden Africa’s story archive is what motivated her to become a publisher. Since then, she has obtained considerable success, picking up several awards and her disruptive approach has seen her sell books in cafe's, hair salons, and supermarkets.

View her unedited talk below.

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Details: Written by: Mitoha Ondo’o Ayekaba; Category: News; Published: 14 February 2018

This essay, which was originally titled, The Need for a New Kind of Leadership in Africa for the Emergence of the “African Dream”: Lessons from Hispanic Africa, was originally written and submitted as part of the requirements for the 2017 Tutu Leadership Fellowship. It looks at how a new kind of leadership in Africa can positively impact sustainable development on the continent. A consideration is how leaders can use myth-making to establish commonality in order to harness collective agreement on progress.

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Details: Written by: Norman Smit; Category: News; Published: 08 February 2018

Recorded in 2012, Gbenga Sesan begins his TEDx talk about his time at Obafemi Awolowo University. He arrived at the gate to the university and told the cab driver to let him out. The road that goes into the campus is quite long. Despite the cabbie’s protests, Sesan got out of the cab. It was then that he learned that he still had quite a way to go to walk to get to the dorm. His first lesson as a new student was that old knowledge and a new environment could lead to embarrassment - especially with four bags! He learned more along the way that had little to do with his formal education.

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Details: Written by: Norman Smit; Category: News; Published: 08 February 2018

2012 Tutu Fellow Julie Gichuru discusses the development of African resources in her TEDx talk. She makes the case that Africa is blessed with rich natural resources and by harnessing them - rather than wasting them - Africa could be transformed. The Sahara could be developed into a solar power generator for the continent. Careful use of agricultural resources has transformed Malawi. She unpacks these ideas by pointing out a few areas in which potential exists for positive change.

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Details: Written by: Norman Smit; Category: News; Published: 08 February 2018

A third of the medicines available in parts of Africa are fake. People have as much as a 50% chance of getting the wrong drug. Patients can’t tell if they are getting the real thing and counterfeit drugs are manufactured in dangerous conditions. 2010 Tutu Fellow Bright Simons outlines in this TEDx talk in Hamburg and how the aim of his company is to use technology to determine the authenticity of medicines. Counterfeit medicines are a real issue in Africa, where near-perfect copies of pharmaceuticals and medical supplies can jeopardize the recovery of patients, or worse, lead to the deaths of people.

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Details: Written by: Norman Smit; Category: News; Published: 08 February 2018

2017 Tutu Fellow Mitoha Ondo’o Ayekaba has been named Vice Minister of Health and Social Welfare for the Republic of Equatorial Guinea. He leaves Marathon Oil, where he was leading a project to prevent malaria. News of the change of responsibilities was made by the Corporate Social Responsibility Manager for Marathon Oil, Carl Maas.

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Details: Written by: Mimi Kalinda; Category: News; Published: 17 January 2018

This essay was originally written by me as part of my required coursework for the 2017 Tutu Leadership Fellowship. It looks at the use of African 'culture' as an excuse for poor leadership.

He is supposed to be a leader in public office, in Africa. As soon as he was elected or nominated, he told his first wife that he was marrying an additional one and a third followed soon after that. His children were born in quick succession of each other and he boasts that he has fathered more children than the number of players who make up a soccer team. Seventeen, to be exact. On a typical day, he could easily wake up in one home, have lunch in another, and sleep at his third wife’s house. It is not necessarily true that his religion allows polygamy. He says it’s part of his “culture”.

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Details: Written by: Norman Smit; Category: News; Published: 17 January 2018

The Ford Foundation has awarded a grant to the African Leadership Institute to help young African leaders across the continent reach critical mass in influencing the direction the continent is headed. The $800,000 grant will be used to assist AFLI in networking young leaders across the continent as well as set up a community of practice so that solutions developed by young leaders can be shared and replicated. The grant was awarded and accepted by AFLI in the last quarter of 2017 for disbursement over a three-year period.

The grant was written and submitted by AFLI CEO Jackie Chimhanzi, and in it, she says Africa's development challenges can be attributed to one major factor - a lack of effective leadership.

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Details: Written by: Writer; Category: News; Published: 11 January 2018

The Ford Foundation has awarded a grant to the African Leadership Institute to help young African leaders across the continent reach critical mass in influencing the direction the continent is headed. The $800,000 grant will be used to assist AFLI in networking young leaders across the continent as well as set up a community of practice so that solutions developed by young leaders can be shared and replicated. The grant was awarded and accepted by AFLI in the last quarter of 2017 for disbursement over a three-year period.

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Details: Written by: Norman Smit; Category: News; Published: 23 December 2017

Making a simple change can help realize one’s full potential. At TED Talent Search Lagos 2017 in Nigeria, Victoria Ohaeri describes the importance of changing her name to positively affect others' perceptions. The 2016 Tutu Fellow tells her personal story about the effects of labeling, and how changing her name made all the difference.

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Details: Written by: Norman Smit; Category: News; Published: 21 December 2017

Young farmers participating in a project started by 2017 Tutu Fellow Samuel Kariuki have had their first harvest and been paid for the fruits of their labour. The new farmers in the agro-entrepreneurship Fort Hall Eye Project harvested two tons of beans. This green success is taking place in one of the most troubled counties in Kenya, where alcoholism has left almost no household unaffected.

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About AFLI

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The African Leadership Institute (AFLI) focuses on building the capacity and capability of visionary and strategic leadership across the continent. Developing exceptional leaders representing all spheres of society, the Institute’s flagship programme is the prestigious Archbishop Tutu Leadership Fellowship. Offering a multifaceted learning experience and run in partnership with Oxford University, it is awarded annually to 20-25 carefully chosen candidates, nominated from across Africa. Alumni of the African Leadership Institute form a dynamic network of Fellows passionately committed to the continent’s transformation, bridging the divide between nations and ensuring that Africa is set centre-stage in global affairs.