Mandela Washington Fellowship, IREX Community Solutions, and other opportunities

2015 Mandela Washington Fellowship Application

The Mandela Washington Fellowship is conducted as a merit-based open competition. After the deadline, all eligible applications will be reviewed by a selection panel. Chosen semifinalists will be interviewed by the U.S. embassies or consulates in their home countries. If selected for an interview, applicants must provide a copy of their passport (if available) or other government-issued photo identification to verify eligibility.

Applicants will not be discriminated against on the basis of race, color, gender, religion, socio-economic status, disability, sexual orientation or gender identity. The Mandela Washington Fellowship is open to young African leaders who meet the following criteria:

• Are between the ages of 25 and 35 at the time of application submission, although exceptional applicants younger than 25 will be considered.
• Are not U.S. citizens or permanent residents of the U.S.
• Are eligible to receive a United States J-1 visa.
• Are proficient in reading, writing, and speaking English.
• Are citizens and residents of one of the following countries: Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cabo Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Republic of the Congo, Cote d’Ivoire, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, South Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

DEADLINE: 15 November 2014

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Research Intern, West Africa Civil Society Institute, Ghana

Established by the Open Society Initiative for West Africa in 2005, the West Africa Civil Society Institute (WACSI) is a regional non-governmental organisation dedicated to enhancing the capacities of civil society organisations in West Africa toward greater sustainability and operational and development effectiveness.

In response to an identified need for structured practical capacity enhancement for young West Africans, WACSI introduced a Next Generation Internship Programme (NGIP) in January 2008 aimed at developing the next generation of African scholars and practitioners. The programme primarily targets young West Africans, either fresh graduates or early career professionals, seeking work experience in WACSI’s core areas of work. Interns are expected to commit to WACSI for six months during which time they will be fully involved in all WACSI activities and enhance their knowledge and capacities for leadership, knowledge and programme management, and critical development issues for West Africa, among other areas.

As part of the NGIP, WACSI is seeking an intern to join its Research and Documentation Unit from November 2014 through April 2015. The intern will be primarily attached to the research unit but may be required to assist other units as needed.

DEADLINE: 10 October 2014

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Health Innovations Manager, One Acre Fund, East Africa

We are seeking an exceptional professional with both field and management experience for our Health Innovations Manager position. One Acre Fund is a rapidly growing organization that has set up one of Africa’s most promising new rural distribution networks through agriculture. We offer agricultural training, product delivery, and financing at more than 1,000 “market points,” and we are now interested in exploring the addition of health goods to our work.

We have started pushing health services through our network in the past several years; most notably, we provided chlorine for home water treatment to more than 500,000 children. However, we are looking for an extraordinary leader to thoughtfully leverage and expand our engagement in health. We are increasingly interested in searching for other “low-hanging fruit” – simple products and trainings that we can distribute with minimal effort, for maximum humanitarian impact. Family planning is of particular interest to us, with the recognition that no matter how large our agricultural gains, our farmers are facing a grim situation if population growth continues at its current rapid pace.

The Health Innovations Manager will serve in a career track position that demands creativity, leadership, strategic thinking and action-oriented delivery. As a young organization, we are ready to hand over large responsibility for specific, well-defined work modules, with similar structure to an operations consulting role.

DEADLINE: Open

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Innovations Transfer Associate, One Acre Fund, East Africa

Most of the world’s poor are farmers, representing the largest and most uniform group of poor people in the world.  One Acre Fund is a growing NGO in Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, and Tanzania that is innovating a new way of helping farm families to achieve their full potential.  Instead of giving handouts, One Acre Fund invests in farmers to generate a permanent gain in farm income.  We provide farmers with a “market bundle” that includes education, finance, seed and fertilizer, and market access.  Our program is proven impactful – every year, we weigh thousands of harvests and measure 50-100% average gain in farm income per acre.  We have laser-like focus on generating better lives for the people we serve.

The Innovations Transfer Associate will have two main responsibilities: 1) Identifying projects, processes, and initiatives that are working well in one place and transferring them to another. 2) Coordinating cross-country roll out of new projects, processes or initiatives.  This could include things like: rolling out a new inventory management system, piloting or executing new agricultural innovations, and systematizing and expanding best practices within departments.

DEADLINE: Open

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East Africa Policy Director, One Acre Fund, Nairobi

One Acre Fund stays in regular contact and collaborates with the Ministries of Agriculture in the countries where we work. There is significant programmatic benefit from maintaining regular contact with ministry officials. We also believe that there exist powerful opportunities to partner with the Ministries to both shape policy, and also implement effective policy, coordinated together with our significant field presence.

We are seeking a policy director to be based in East Africa, to help manage our increasing African government–facing organization. This person would collaborate together with our overall Policy and Outreach director, based in New York. There are several major duties:

Staff hiring/growth, management, and professional development:

• We currently have two national–level government relations analysts, and six local–level government relations analysts. This staff meets quarterly with well over 100 government officials, to keep them engaged in our work and to hear their feedback.
• In the next three years, we expect to at least double our staffing. The director will lead the search and selection process, to build a staff underneath them.
• We wish to re–invest in the day–to–day mentorship and career development of all of our government relations staff. The director will lead efforts to continually develop our staff.
• Management: we also hope to put additional structure and organization around our efforts, as our government work grows more complex over more countries.

DEADLINE: Open