15 emerging leaders from eight African countries will join 33 other 2021 Ford Global Fellows to form part of the Ford Foundation response to Covid-19 and inequality across the world.
According to Ford Foundation, Covid-19 vaccine inequity, job precarity, climate change, rising authoritarianism, racial and gender inequity has laid bare the crisis of inequality around the world.
‘In response, the Ford Foundation is scaling up its flagship global fellowship programme to support leaders from communities who face injustice head on, and help them cultivate their ideas and energy in solving long-standing inequalities exposed or exacerbated by the pandemic’, Ford Foundation said in a statement.
Launched in 2020, the Ford Global Fellows identifies, connects, and supports the next generation of social justice leaders around the globe who are advancing innovative solutions to end inequality.
It is understood that the 48 new fellows joining this year will work together with the 24 named in 2020 to build a network of 72 active fellows working to tackle global drivers of inequality.
‘The Ford Global Fellows focuses on experiential learning to help leaders learn from each other’s work across context, geography, and issue areas in order to advance their own work’, the statement added.
‘Fellows will nurture each other by weaving together a community of practice over ten years and create opportunities for learning, collaborating, and creating knowledge and practices’.
The 15 emerging African leaders include Angela Benedicto and Ian Damian Tarimo from Tanzania; Tawanda Mugari from Zimbabwe, Joseph Kaifala from Sierra Leone; and Imededdine Ouertani form Tunisia.
Others are Farida Bemba Nabourema from Togo, Bukky Shonibare and Ekaete Judith Umoh from Nigeria; Duduetsang Makuse, Jabhisane Pinky Langa, Keamogetswe Seipato, Murendeni Mafumo, Nkosikhona Swaartbooi all from South Africa; and Michael Richard Katagaya and Noah Mirembe Gabigogo from Uganda.
‘We are scaling the Ford Global Fellows faster because this crisis moment requires bolder commitments to creating a more just and equitable future’, Director of the Ford Global Fellowship, Adria Goodson, said.
‘People who are most proximate to injustice are stepping up and surfacing solutions to local challenges driven by global structures of inequality.
‘More than ever, these emerging leaders across the globe need each other to strengthen and accelerate their ideas. We aim to support fellows as they build lasting networks and institutions that carry the work forward.
‘The $50 million fellowship programme is building a robust network of 240 emerging leaders over ten years and catalysing a powerful set of relationships and resources that create a multiplier effect in the work to combat inequality at the systems level, and globally’.
Source: Ford Foundation
Photo source: UN
