Africa UP Close

The Africa Program, established at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in 1999, is focused on engaging and informing the policy community in Washington on Africa and issues of mutual interest to that continent and the United States. Its core mission of promoting high-level dialogue among policymakers, diplomats, non-governmental organizations, experts, field practitioners, and academic specialists on both African issues and U.S. policy toward Africa leverages the Woodrow Wilson Center’s visibility, stature and convening authority. This is accomplished through a variety of programs and projects, including seminars, symposia, conferences, publications, research projects, public and media outreach, and on-the-ground training workshops in select post-conflict countries in Africa. While the Africa Program covers all of Africa, individual states, regional economic commissions, and the Africa Union, certain compelling issues demand center stage in our activities. Please visit the Africa Program website for more information.

Since 2005, the Project on Leadership and Building State Capacity, established at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars by then Director Howard Wolpe, seeks to fill this gap by promoting holistic and sustainable approaches to international conflict resolution, prevention and post-conflict recovery. It achieves this objective in two ways: first, through the organization and implementation of in-country training programsdesigned to strengthen the trust, communication, and negotiation skills among key leaders in countries emerging from violent conflict; and, second, by stimulating discussion and analysis of ways to achieve more effective and collaborative strategies for peace building and strengthening state capacity through organizing “public and private conferences and meetings” and promoting ways in which the “voices” of those impacted in peace-building endeavors can be heard in the policy community.

The Leadership Project’s core activities are made possible through the generous support of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Ford Foundation, the United Nations Foundation, and the United States Agency for International Development. In addition, significant support for Africa-related leadership training initiatives has come from the United Nations Peace Building Fund and USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives. Please visit the Leadership Project website for more information.