With the improvements from the Covid-19 lockdown, the French-African Foundation has relaunched and expanded its Young Leaders programme for 2021, after the suspension of the 2020 recruitment campaign due to the COVID-19 crisis, and applications are now open. Established in February 2019, the French-African Foundation aims to identify, bring together and promote the most promising talents on the French and African economic, political, academic, social and cultural scenes, and to support the leadership and management potential of this new generation, in particular through its flagship Young Leaders programme.

This programme offers its laureates the opportunity to participate in two seminars, in France and in Africa, to develop their leadership skills, exchange with senior leaders from the public and private sectors, and together propose a reflection on key themes.

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The partners of the initiative are Agence Française de Développement, Groupe Duval, Meridiam, Société Générale, Deloitte, Essec, Concerto, Qima, Baobab Group (formerly Microcred) and Egon Zehnder, and the aim is to contribute to the emergence of a Franco-African “new generation”, to take up the economic, social and political challenges of the time.

Each year, it brings together a class of Young Leaders selected from among the most promising potentials and called upon to play an important role in relations between France and Africa. At the end of the selection process, 100 African and French Young Leaders, aged between 28 and 40, will be selected. Applications are open now until March 21, and the composition of the class of 2021 will be announced in May.

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“We are delighted to launch this new edition of the Young Leaders programme, which is intended to be more ambitious. It has not escaped anyone’s notice that we are living in a difficult context that drives everyone to reinvent themselves in order to find sustainable solutions and respond to the current challenges. This is the ambition of the Young Leaders 2021 programme: to provide a platform for 100 promising decision-makers to shape the contours of tomorrow’s world,” said Alexandre Coster, co-president of the French-African Foundation.

Kelechi Deca

Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry