COURSE DESCRIPTION

In a fast-changing geopolitical landscape  where aid budgets are contracting, old alliances are fraying, new powers are courting Africa, and the rules of the global order are being openly rewritten, the question is no longer whether Africa’s development model needs rethinking, but who will do the thinking, and on whose terms.

Reimagining Development is a year-long fellowship for those unwilling to outsource that question. It is built for practitioners, policymakers, and thinkers who suspect that seventy years of “development” have produced more reports than results, and who are ready to interrogate the assumptions, vocabulary, and power structures the sector still takes for granted, from the language of “beneficiaries” and “capacity gaps,” to the metrics, models, and mandates imported wholesale from elsewhere.

Anchored in epistemic sovereignty, narrative sovereignty, and African philosophical traditions — Ubuntu, Ujamaa, Harambee, Teranga, Sankofa — the fellowship refuses the framing of Africa as a problem to be solved. It treats the continent as a source of ideas, institutions, and futures, and treats its participants as architects rather than recipients. Expect to question what you have been taught, defend what you believe, and rebuild your working frameworks from the ground up.

Across ten modules organised in three arcs — Foundations, Structures, and Futures,  participants confront the genealogy of “development” and its colonial inheritance; trace the political economy of extraction across commodity, financial, and digital value chains; reclaim African knowledge systems and ethical frameworks as design principles; and prototype new approaches to economy, leadership, innovation, climate, and Pan-African integration. The fellowship is explicitly aligned with the African Union’s Agenda 2063, but it treats Agenda 2063 as a starting point for rigour, not a slogan.

The delivery of this programme can take the form of short, targeted sessions over several days,  all the way through to a 12-month delivery period, depending on the strategic needs of an organisation.  This agile structure recognises that real reimagining cannot be done in just one short workshop. The Fellowship blends sustained intellectual inquiry, applied research, mentorship, peer challenge, and a substantive capstone, so that participants leave not only with a sharper critique of the status quo, but with concrete, locally grounded, defensible proposals to shift narratives, institutions, capital flows, and outcomes in the sectors they lead.

CURRICULUM ARCS & MODULES

Arc A  ·  Foundations — Critique, Values & Knowledge

  • Africa and the crisis of development narratives.
  • African worldviews, ethics, and value systems.
  • Knowledge, power, and epistemic justice.

Arc B  ·  Structures — Economy, Leadership & Innovation

  • The political economy of African development.
  • Leadership, statecraft, and institutional design.
  • Innovation, technology, and digital sovereignty.

Arc C  ·  Futures — Partnerships, Climate & Vision

  • Aid, investment, and the politics of partnership.
  • Climate, ecology, and the global commons.
  • Pan-African futures and continental integration.
  • Capstone — New Narratives: synthesis, applied project, and public articulation of a reimagined development paradigm.

WHAT PARTICIPANTS GAIN

  • A rigorous critical lens on dominant development paradigms and their limits.
  • Fluency in African philosophical, ethical, and governance traditions as design principles.
  • Practical tools for value-chain analysis, institutional design, and policy formulation.
  • A capstone project: a fully developed counter-narrative or policy intervention rooted in their sector and context.
  • Membership in a continental community of practitioners, scholars, and leaders reshaping Africa’s development agenda.

TARGET AUDIENCE

Development practitioners, policymakers, NGO and foundation leaders, researchers, social entrepreneurs, journalists, and senior professionals working in or shaping Africa’s development sector particularly those with the mandate and influence to translate ideas into institutional change.