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The ASPEN Fellowship Program

Charity brings to life again those who are spiritually dead.

Thomas Aquinas

The Aspen Global Leadership Network is a worldwide community of more than 3,000 high-integrity, entrepreneurial leaders from business, government and the nonprofit sector in more than 50 countries. Because of their demonstrated accomplishments and abilities, they have been selected to be part of one of 14 geographic or sector-specific Fellowships around the world. The ALI-EA Fellowship Programme through a unique mixture of seminars, equips leaders to confront and step up to addressing the peculiar challenges that Africa faces as a continent in their personal journey from “success to significance”. Pulling together diverse leaders from various sectors within the West Africa region through a very stringent selection and interview process, the seminars are designed to broaden the perspectives of the participants, and through the fellowship experience, turn out value-based, community-spirited leaders who can move their continent towards achieving a more progressive, equitable and just society. For each class, ALIWA selects 20-22 individuals who have achieved success and influence in their careers or endeavors in the private or public sector, and typically who are between the ages of 35 – 50.
Together, for a period of 24 months, they go through a moderated, text rich programme of seminars in a safe environment and in meaningful dialogue with their peers. The seminars direct the participants to consider the “big questions” examining two intertwined primary arcs. The first arc deals with the development of governance of human society and its institutions over the last 2000 year, the aim of which is to ensure that participants understand how we have come to be and therefore what futures we can help shape. The second arc propels Fellows to examine their personal development over time, with a view to getting a better appreciation of their values and motivations, and how these influence their responsibility to act. Over the period of the training, these two arcs create individuals who are empowered to think and act in ways that elevate the importance of the common good. The programme is designed to capture the energy, resolve and talent of an emerging generation of African leaders, and to spur them ‘from thought to action’ by encouraging and requiring the fellows to implement sustainable individual community projects of their own.