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.
- Written by: Norman Smit
- Category: News
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A not-for-profit organization focused on empowering African girls through education, training, and mentoring in the STEM fields founded by 2014 Tutu Fellow Lade Araba has been recognised by Google for the work it has been doing. Google announced that the Visiola Foundation would receive a 2016 Google RISE Award for its efforts to increase access to computer science education for youth.
The Google RISE Awards supports informal education organizations around the world that promote computer science for K-12/pre-university age youth.
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- Written by: Jackie Chimhanzi PhD
- Category: News
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Between November 18 and 20, 2016, about 55 Tutu Fellows descended upon the serene and idyllic Nirox Foundation Sculpture Park in the Cradle of Humankind, South Africa, to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Tutu Fellowship under the theme, Leadership, Consciousness & Change-Making. The celebration also served as a reunion, bringing together Fellows from across the years and across the continent. This post will try to recapture the magic of that weekend by sharing some of the memorable moments from the event.
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- Written by: Bright Simons
- Category: News
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In the latter half of the 1980s, a debate ensued between two camps of economists roughly grouped around the views of Edward Prescott, on the one hand, and Lawrence Summers, on the other.
Prescott argued that by and large, the booms and busts of the economic cycle were due to “technological shocks”; and Summers dismissed the notion as speculation not supported by evidence.
Over the years, the ‘technological shock’ model of economic shifts (TS) has surfaced over and over again in many forms, rising to the occasion whenever the debate over cycles rears its head.
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- Written by: Catherine Constantinides
- Category: News
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When we talk about climate justice, the first thing that comes to mind is the plight of small island states, which contribute little to global warming but suffer its worst impacts. Or perhaps we think of climate-vulnerable countries like Pakistan, where millions are at risk of displacement due to severe floods. But with the latest installment of the UN climate talks underway in Marrakesh, don’t forget about the people of Western Sahara right next door.
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- Written by: Peter Wilson
- Category: News
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The Tutu Fellowship Programme requires each participant to write an essay on leadership in Africa. Each year, some of the best are selected for publishing by the African Leadership Institute. The quality of submissions is very high as demonstrated by this challenging and thought provoking piece by 2016 Fellow Neema Ndunguru, about the challenges of being a leader in Africa and making a difference to its people. She examines how Africans must guard their freedoms to both think as well as to act to ensure the mistakes of the past are not repeated again and again.
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- Written by: Robtel Neajai Pailey
- Category: News
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As the two most unlikeable presidential candidates in U.S. history go head-to-head in this week's elections, it is clear that a Clinton or Trump presidency will result in few changes, if any, for the continent of Africa.
Although there is mounting uncertainty about the result of November 8, one thing remains clear to me. Trump's tax evasion tendencies and Clinton's philanthro-capitalist shadiness prove that the U.S. lacks the moral authority more than it ever has to lecture Africa on the tenets of "good" governance, transparency, and accountability.
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- Written by: Linda Kasonde
- Category: News
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I was recently asked to give remarks at a Media Institute of Southern Africa event on the need to protect the social media space from political interference. I began to think about why the media, particularly social media, is so important and what its impact has been on the world. The media is called the Fourth Estate because it provides checks and balances on government. Traditionally those checks and balances are provided through spoken or written word. It was the writer Edward Bulwer-Lytton who coined the phrase “the pen is mightier than the sword” or, as Mark Twain put it, “never fight with people who buy ink by the barrel”.
The modern-day advent of the internet and the smart phone has made social media a phenomenon. We only have to think of how social media initiated the Arab Spring, mainstreamed the #BlackLivesMatter movement, or even much closer to home, ended #Lintonlies to see just how powerful it can be.
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- Written by: Norman Smit
- Category: News
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2013 Tutu Fellow Nuradin Osman has been promoted to Vice President and General Manager for Africa at AGCO, the third-largest global manufacturer and distributor of agricultural equipment. His promotion is part of a restructuring at the company to realign its regional structure with its on-the-ground presence in Africa as well as to further expand the company's operations on the continent.
Osman's steady rise in the ranks belies his difficult beginning. A Somali, Osman's family lost everything twice due to famine and civil war, prompting him to walk across his country and through Ethiopia and Kenya before arriving in Holland in 1992 aged 17. See video below.
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- Written by: Linda Kasonde
- Category: News
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With a woman’s ambition to lead comes the risk of being undermined, maligned, side-lined or even physically attacked, simply because women are still viewed as the weaker sex. This year, I was elected as the first female President of the Law Association of Zambia in the 53-year history of the organisation and its predecessor the Law Society of Zambia. Having been in office since May this year, I now concur with the late, great “philosopher” David Bowie who jokingly said, “Don’t be the first, be the second”. On a serious note, being a relatively young female leader in a patriarchal society is fraught with challenges; the first of which is actually getting into office.
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- Written by: Norman Smit
- Category: News
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2015 Tutu Fellow Kopano Matlwa is releasing her third novel, titled Period Pain. Matlwa, who is a medical doctor, is the author of Coconut, which sold 25,000 copies. The award-winning novel established her as one of South Africa's most vibrant young writers. It also garnered a European Union Literary Award in 2007. She followed it up with Spilt Milk, which won the Wole Soyinka Prize for literature in 2010.
Period Pain is about the heartache and confusion experienced by so many South Africans facing the difficulties of xenophobia, rape, corruption and crime set against the backdrop of the nation's ailing public health system.
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- Written by: Norman Smit
- Category: News
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2007 Tutu Fellow Edward Mabaya has been elected president of the African Association of Agricultural Economists at the association’s fifth triennial conference at the U.N. Conference Centre in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Mabaya is the associate director of the Cornell International Institute for Food, Agriculture and Development and a senior research associate at the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management. His research and outreach work focuses on agricultural development and food security in Africa.
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- Written by: Jackie Chimhanzi PhD
- Category: News
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AFLI’s inaugural leadership workshops were held in 2006. 2016 is, therefore, a significant year for AFLI! I have become the CEO of AFLI at a time when the Institute has commemorated its 10th anniversary and celebrates its 11th class of young African leaders – an opportune time to pause and reflect on what AFLI has achieved but, more importantly, what lies ahead and what AFLI can still achieve. It is also a time to thank our wonderful sponsors for making this happen over these 11 years – notably Investec, GSK, Rio Tinto, Centum, AGCO, and our Chairmen, Sean Lance and Strive Masiyiwa for their individual donations.
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- Written by: Norman Smit
- Category: News
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2012 Tutu Fellow Dr. Andrew Mude has won the 2016 Norman Borlaug Award for Field Research and Application. He and his team are also receiving a USAID award for scientific excellence. The recognition is for their work developing the innovative use of satellite technology and community outreach to develop livestock insurance for vulnerable herding communities in the Horn of Africa. The program uses satellite data to help protect livestock herding communities in the Horn from the devastating effects of drought.
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- Written by: Peter Wilson
- Category: News
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The Tutu Leadership Fellowship requires each participant to write an essay on leadership in Africa. The quality of submissions is very high as demonstrated by this challenging and thought provoking piece by 2016 Fellow Jon Kornik, where he posits that we are decades too late for leading by looking in the rear view mirror when faced with a dynamic and disrupted future. New values, new mindsets and approaches are needed in leaders for positive outcomes for the people of Africa.
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- Written by: Norman Smit
- Category: News
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A 2016 Tutu Fellow,Success Masra, recently was invited to the White House as part of a group of young leaders. It followed the launch of a compilation book on Nelson Mandela for which he was the lead author. The book, originally published in French, is titled Les Héritiers de Madiba (The Rainbow Heirs of Madiba). From there, Masra went on to Paris to defend his PhD on the role of development financial institutions in promoting renewable energy.
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- If we burn for justice, what will be left?
- Embracing Africa – beyond the binaries
- Rules and racism
- Small enterprise needs a big bet
- Renewable energy a solution for Nigeria
- Lessons for Nigeria from Zuck's visit
- New CEO for AFLI
- 2016 Tutu Leadership Fellowship ends with an amazing final workshop in Oxford
- Fellow's juice shop demolished
- 2016 Fellows offer 'Vote of Thanks'