By Gabriel Olawale
The co-founder and director of research and development at HACEY Health Initiative, Paul Ojajuni has expressed profound joy towards the Abshire-Inamori Leadership Academy (AILA) fellowship he has been selected to join together with 23 other individuals.
In reaction to this positive development, Mr. Paul Ojajuni said, “I am excited to join other development experts and policy makers from around the world as an Abshire-Inamori Leadership Academy (AILA) fellow. This is a great opportunity for me to share my knowledge and experience, improve my strategic leadership skills as well as build strong relationships with other fellows.”
The AILA fellowship program which usually holds at the prestigious Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington DC, USA brings together 24 fellows from across the globe each year. Using their diversity as a leverage, intellectual, ethical, cultural and policy questions are always addressed, which is central to effective leadership in the world today. Each fellow is given the opportunity to increase the significance of their professional skills and leadership potentials in a multicultural, cooperative and cross-sector environment.
Ojajuni currently leads the implementation of “Project Agbebi,” which is a maternal health project aimed at reducing pregnancy-related deaths in rural communities of the South Western part of Nigeria. Preceding this, he had designed and led several development interventions funded by major international development organizations towards improving the health and productivity of underserved populations in Nigeria and Africa.
Ojajuni, who holds a M.P.H. (International) from the University of Leeds, UK is a certified programme manager and also an Obama Foundation Leader (Africa).
The AILA international fellows meet up and engage in an intensive and interactive week of seminars and experiential learning, with the aim of gaining deeper understanding of the complex global dynamics and the moral restrictions they are faced with as leaders.
CSIS selects from its network of world-class scholars and practitioners to create a wide-ranging, dynamic, and pragmatic approach to leadership, ethics, and global issues.
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The highly esteemed programme brings together different individuals from around the world to train them in order to have adequate knowledge and understanding of global issues and how to be effective leaders in today’s world. In order to achieve the objective of this program, the fellows will be exercising their professional skills and leadership qualities.
CSIS has accommodated over 210 AILA International Fellows from 49 countries since 2003. It has created and still creating a network of proactive and supportive alumni who continue to interact with one another on leadership strategies and contemporary issues.
Some of the professionsls selected together with Mr. Paul Ojajuni for the 2020 Abshire-Inamori Leadership Academy include: Dr. Elie Abouaoun, a director at the U.S. Institute for Peace (USIP), Tunisia and Dr. David Callaway, a professor of medicine at Atrium Health in Charlotte, North Carolina and member of the senior executive team for veterans and military affairs.
The other selected fellows are: John Carlson, a government affairs and strategy professional in Japan; Jonathan Carter, a policy professional with a focus in national security; Polly Cegielski, a senior principal analyst in Tampa; Emily Follett, a counsellor for trade at the Australian Embassy in Washington, D.C. and Lauren Hershey who serves as a stabilization advisor with the Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations at the Department of State.
The list also comprise individuals such as: Koshi Igari, the senior Japan campaign manager at Bell; Dr. Ticora V. Jones, the director for the Center for Development Research in USAID; Atul Narayan, a senior investor at Bridgewater Associates and Karla Streegan Cruz who is a public policy strategist.
