2021 Africa Initiative for Governance (AIG) Public Leaders Programme

Africa Initiative for Governance - Our founder and principals are leading figures from business, government and academic life. Together, we share a strong vision for the future of African governance and the potential of our continent and its people. Although our goals are ambitious, we believe that with the knowledge and expertise of our Board of Directors and our Advisors, we will ultimately achieve our objectives. Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede is the Founder and Chairman of the Africa Initiative for Governance.

Applications are invited from suitably qualified candidates for:

Job Position: Africa Initiative for Governance (AIG) Public Leaders Programme

Description

• In collaboration with the University of Oxford's Blavatnik School of Government, this unique programme offers senior public servants an immersive executive education experience aimed at strengthening the skills they need to build cultures of excellence, effectiveness and integrity throughout the institutions they lead.
• Programme graduates are able to enhance their countries’ development through improved governance and public policy creation.

Programme Details

• Public sector executives ascending the ranks of government departments, agencies, ministries or multilateral organisations must maintain exemplary performance in their current role while developing the new skills and perspectives they will need to take on a top leadership role.
• The AIG Public Leaders Programme is designed to ensure these senior public leaders, and those who are moving into the senior leadership of the public-sector over the next three to seven years, master a range of new skills as quickly as possible.
• The programme aims to broaden their skills as public leaders and provide them with the conceptual frameworks and practical tools they need to meet the challenges of a complex and rapidly changing world.
• The PLP offers insights from the world’s leading scholars and practitioners, and peer learning from participants’ counterparts. The learning experience is intense and demanding, engaging participants through a mixture of classroom discussion, simulations, practical exercises and group work.

Context and Communication:

• Recognising the speed and depth of change in today’s world, these sessions offer participants a stronger set of communication skills and a fresh understanding of the role of storytelling as a fundamental part of leadership.

Decision-Making:

• While senior decision makers pride themselves on using the best information and advice available, there is plenty of evidence that our decisions are too often coloured by our psychological biases.
• Participants will explore framing bias, confirmation bias, overconfidence bias, and sunk-cost bias, as well as examples of groupthink.
• They will consider the consequences for decision-making and test some simple techniques to overcome these biases in individual and group decisions.

Digital Technology:

• Exploring the myriad challenges in today’s ever-changing technological developments, these sessions look at how to manage technology.
• Participants will examine, among others, questions of cybersecurity, and threats newly enhanced by artificial intelligence, and learn to do so without losing sight of public interest.

Integrity:

• These sessions will explore how public leaders can build and promote integrity within their own organisations and what it means for an organisation to be trustworthy.
• Participants will examine how difficult it can be to recognise integrity, the factors that cloud our ethical decisions and the long-term damage to one’s leadership that can flow from a single misjudgement.

Organisational Effectiveness:

• Participants will explore what it means to lead an effective organisation. We will consider who sets an organisation’s goals and values, and what counts as high performance.
• We will also look at the trends and cycles in organisational reform, and what evidence there is to support strategies of radical reform or incremental improvement.
• Participants will examine the tools that different administrations use to improve performance, including target-setting, data generation and outsourcing.

Admissions Criteria

• Only the best public sector executives from across Africa will be selected to participate in this programme.
• Candidates will be chosen based on their public sector experience and achievements, proven leadership qualities, intellectual abilities and personal motivations and ambitions.

To be eligible for consideration candidates must:

• Be African citizens, working in the public sector within Africa
• Have a minimum of seven years of active service in the public sector
• Be at a Directorate level
• Provide evidence of game-changing leadership qualities and abilities
• Be endorsed by the Head of Ministry / Department / Agency where the candidate works

Please note that the final decision on the selection of participants rests with the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford

Additional Information

• Programme fee: This programme is offered at no cost to eligible public sector employees who are successful in the application process.
• Session Dates: August to November, 2021
• Location: Online and Abuja, Nigeria.

Award of Scholarships

• We are pleased to offer 50 academic scholarships worth GBP11,500 each to all Nigerian public servants who are successful in the application process.