The Mandela Washington Fellowship is a flagship program of the U.S. department of state to support young African leaders. The program includes Entrepreneurship, and Public Administration tracks, the Staley School hosts a Civic Leadership Institute.
The Fellows come from diverse backgrounds and are doing incredible work to impact lives and transform their communities. In this series, former Fellow and now Staley School graduate research assistant, Chibuzor Azubuike, reflects on 2022 Fellows that share common work in education – a critical area of focus for Sub-Saharan Africa.
Agriculture and nutrition change agents making an impact in Africa
Daily meals with nutrients in the right proportion are essential for promoting a healthy lifestyle, sustaining growth and development, and extending life expectancy, while their absence can be detrimental to life. According to the African Development Bank Group, in 2017, more than one-third of stunted children under the age of five lived in Africa. The prevalence of stunting in children under the age of five differs, with Sub-Saharan Africa showing a higher prevalence (33.9%) in comparison with North Africa. Statistics show that the number increased from 50.6 million in 2000 to 58.7 million in 2017. There is a wake-up call for a solution to this menace, hence Sustainable Development Goal 2 focuses on zero hunger by 2030.
Against this backdrop, it is therefore commendable that Addisu Fekadu, Ph.D., from Ethiopia, who is also a researcher and lecturer at Arba Minch University in Ethiopia, focuses on improving the traditional enset processing and fermentation method. He has been intensively applying his research outputs to improve the livelihoods of 20 million enset-growing farmers in Ethiopia. The enset plant has been considered as the tree against hunger and climate resilient food crop in Ethiopia and beyond.
He states that some of the challenges he has faced are, “…limited resources in Ethiopia, especially lack of funding for such innovative ideas, poor market link for such gluten-free and quality enset based food products, and lack of the right professions in the food industry.”
When asked how the Mandela Washington Fellowship influenced the way he approached his our work, he says, the Fellowship has helped him meet new people and to have new leadership experiences. Also, the followership introduced him to new adaptive leadership strategies for my work.
Helen Omasan Okotie, from Nigeria works as a program officer with Sahel consulting on the Advancing Local Dairy Development in Nigeria (ALDDN).
She works in northern Nigeria to help develop the local dairy sector through the linkage of farmers to dairy processors, and involvement of an all-inclusive nutrition landscape where individuals have access to hygienic and varied food sources through the home garden intervention. She also carries out capacity building for service providers, value chain actors and stakeholders on good dairy practices, nutrition and hygiene education. She ensures productivity improvement through cultivation of fodder crops, artificial insemination and the provision of animal health care services and advocacy.
She recounts some challenges she has faced such as, “…the level of insecurity increasing especially in northern Nigeria and farmers migration down south during dry season.”
She went on to state that the Fellowship has taught her to spend more time properly diagnosing an issue before finding a solution, as every time we make a choice, we change the world.
She explains further that her greatest takeaway is, “Don’t try to impose a solution on your beneficiaries rather try to make use of community coaching in order for them to proffer solutions to the issue; that way they will take ownership and projects implemented will be more sustainable.”
About the author
Chibuzor Mirian Azubuike is a Ph.D. candidate in leadership communication at Kansas State University. She is also a graduate teaching assistant at the Staley School of Leadership, where she teaches LEAD 350: Culture and Context of Leadership. She has experience in community development, facilitating leadership trainings and forced migration studies. Her interests include humanitarian interventions, civic leadership, youth development women and migration, and civic engagement.
