Senior Advisor Fellowship
The Senior Advisor Fellowship is a multi-year mentored program that aims to strengthen Senior Advisors’ capacity to support the First Lady and manage the Office. It takes place in conjunction with the Global First Ladies Academy or the U.N. General Assembly, with follow-up meetings throughout the year. The program is delivered in partnership with leading experts from academia, government, the private and nonprofit sectors, and international and regional agencies.
Impact: Building a Pipeline of Future Leaders
The Senior Advisor Fellowship was launched in 2010 per the First Ladies’ request. Since then, we have trained over 150 fellows and delivered 100+ workshops with leading experts at UNICEF, Vassar College, RAND, Credit Suisse, the World Bank, Dalberg, Women Deliver, and other organizations. GFLA monitors fellows’ progress through in-country meetings and one-on-one consultations.
2022 Fellowship
The 2022 Senior Advisor Fellowship, held on the sidelines of the 77th Session of the United Nations General Assembly, was hosted in partnership with the Organization of African First Ladies for Development, the END Fund, and Shearman & Sterling LLP. For two days, over 40 Senior Advisors from 23 African countries gathered for an interactive leadership training on how to run an effective First Lady’s Office. Key modules included strategic thinking and planning, monitoring and evaluation, storytelling, multi-sector partnerships, including a case study on neglected tropical diseases, climate change, and working with youth.
Mitigating the Impact of Covid-19
In March 2020, GFLA joined forces with the END Fund to provide First Ladies’ Offices additional expertise, partnerships, and tools to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 in Africa during a four-month rapid response program. Through this program, GFLA and the END Fund, in partnership with global health and gender equality experts, provided technical assistance and capacity-building opportunities through Senior Advisor meetings and raised awareness of First Ladies’ efforts.
The Senior Advisors meetings focused on effective communication and coordination, strategy shifting, and gender-responsive programming. African countries took rapid and critical actions to mitigate the pandemic’s social and economic impact on communities with First Ladies playing an important role. As Mothers of their Nations, First Ladies provided compassionate and moral leadership, instilling trust and stability among their populations. The nature of their leadership and broad networks makes them invaluable to any crisis response and public awareness campaign about preventive measures.