The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the African Union Commission (AUC) are jointly implementing the first African Young Women Leaders (AYWL) Fellowship Programme to develop the next generation of young African women leaders and experts to serve Africa and the world.

In November 2019, 20 young African Women Fellows from 20 countries started their one-year fellowship with the United Nations in 15 locations around the world. They will gain experience working with diverse teams in UNDP country, regional and headquarters offices in Africa, Asia, Europe, and CIS, to accelerate the achievement of the SDGs and Africa’s Agenda 2063.

The African Young Women Leaders Fellowship Programme will equip young African women with leadership skills and experience required to advance the SDGs and contribute effectively to national, regional and global development policies and programmes.

 Objective

The target is to place at least one African Young Woman Fellow from each African country per year in an assignment with UNDP or another UN organisation. During the first phase of the programme, the young women fellows will gain valuable work experience from assignments with UNDP country, regional or headquarters offices in Africa, Asia and Europe and CIS in areas related to among others partnerships and innovation for acceleration of the SDGs.

The Programme modality, general terms of reference and criteria for selection have been developed jointly by UNDP in partnership with AUC department of Human Resources Youth Division. It is administered jointly by RBA and OHR. The first phase of the Programme is funded by UNDP Africa and contributes to the Regional Programme objective to enhance technical capacities to implement the SDGs and Agenda 2063 while building gender responsiveness and resilience as well as the AUC’s One million by 2021 initiative to connect one million youth to opportunities.

Assignment

Each fellowship assignment developed by a requesting UNDP office will be of 12 months duration. During this period fellows will develop and learn through their work experience with UNDP office and through participation in a dedicated training programme, including a pre-deployment workshop in Addis, a leadership development programme in New York, and a mentoring programme.

Participants

Participants in the Programme are required to have nationality with an AU member state, be below 34 years of age, and hold a Master’s degree or equivalent. Participants should demonstrate understanding of and interest in poverty eradication, sustainable structural transformation, the SDGs and Africa’s Agenda 2063.

Status

The Programme was launched in July 2019 with a joint AUC-UNDP recruitment campaign through social media. The objective was to select two candidates from each AU country for a fellowship roster for candidates who met the minimum academic, experience and language qualifications as well as the technical qualifications and competencies demonstrated through essays and video interviews.