Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders is Ready for Take Off

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Airlift Africa, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, Obama Africa, Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders, White House Africa, World Learning, Young African Leaders Initiative

The Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders was only announced by Obama a few weeks ago, while he was in South Africa.  However, the Washington machinery (public and private) is already gearing up for the initiative.

Organizations wishing to profit from the government’s largesse have until the end of August to submit their applications to secure a cooperative agreement with the State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs to the tune of roughly over 6 million.  World Learning is one organization that will be bidding, as they are already soliciting for a Project Director to name in their proposal.

The award is expected to last from the end of November 2013 to the end of June 2015.  By the time it is complete, 500 young African leaders will have received six weeks of training at a US higher education institution on one of three topics: business, civic leadership, and public management.  Approximately 100 of these young leaders will also have the opportunity to gain hands on learning experience from a 2 month internship.

All in all, the Fellowship seems like a very exciting development, even if it may not match the magnitude of the ‘Africa airlifts‘ in the 1960s that brought Barack Obama’s father to America.

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The State Department Values African and Diaspora Youth

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Africa Society, African youth, Bernadette Paolo, Cyrille Oguin, David Gilmour, Young African Leaders Initiative

I was pretty critical of the Africa Society for honoring Chinua Achebe in an event at the Nigerian Embassy sponsored by Chevron.  However, the Africa Society hosted a great networking event tonight to introduce its anticipated Youth Advisory Committee.  I’m under 30, so it’s good to feel appreciated and I think that’s particularly important in the African context, where elders are often excessively venerated or cling too posiitons that should be forwarded on to the next generation.

Two representatives from the State Department were on hand to discuss Obama’s Young African Leaders Initiative (while I laud it, I do think that it gets an excessive amount of attention from the administration) and Cyrille Oguin, the Ambassador of Benin gave some brief remarks as well.  He mentioned that Benin has a youth Service Corps that was inspired by the US Peace Corps (although I imagine that the AmeriCorps would be a better example).

While their flyer doesn’t indicate this, Bernadette Paolo, the Society’s Director did intimate that the Society is looking mainly for those in the Diaspora to join the Committee.  I was intrigued to see that the crowd was primarily composed of individuals born in or very recently removed from the Continent.  While that’s certainly good, it does concern me about the level of interest America has in Africa.

David Gilmour from State repeated an increasingly used line about developing Africa to promote America’s economy.  Read a piece on AGOA where I touch on this and expect another post on this theme (via US participation in the World Economic Forum in South Africa) in the coming days.

In the meanwhile, let me know if you agree with the idea that ‘what is good for America is good for Africa.’