Former US President encourages African changemakers to apply for Obama Foundation Leaders Program

The six-month journey for young African innovators and pioneers who are part of the annual Obama Foundation’s Africa Leader program is “marked by meaningful conversations, powerful connections, and genuine growth”, enriched by individual coaching to support leadership development, says Bonnie Shariff, a Malagasy human rights advocate and lawyer by training who was in the 2025-2026 cohort. 

With the application period for the 2027-2028 Obama Foundation Leaders Program opening yesterday, former US President Barack Obama has taken to social media to encourage young leaders from Africa and elsewhere making a positive impact in their communities to apply. “If you're a changemaker between the ages of 24 to 45 in Africa, the Asia-Pacific, Europe, or the United States looking to grow your leadership skills and scale your impact, apply for our Obama Foundation Leaders Program.”

The 2026–2027 Obama Foundation Leaders Africa cohort was recently announced, with 35 young changemakers selected, representing more than 25 nations across the continent and spanning public, civil society, and private sectors. 

Between now and May 2027, this year’s participants will undertake a values-based leadership program designed to build community, and drive local and global impact. Core components include weekly virtual group learning, monthly peer-learning community sessions, individualised coaching, and cultural programming.

“For six months, every week, we learn to know our strengths and values better, to build together beyond our differences, and to tackle the causes of the problems we are working on, rather than their symptoms,” shared experienced technology and private equity lawyer Sonia Mavouna, who was “delighted” to have been selected for the Obama Foundation 's Leaders Africa 2026-2027 cohort. 

Representing Comoros, Sonia is a member of the Paris Bar who has worked in and across Francophone Africa, and established African Legal Factory in 2021, a business that works to make legal support more accessible to African innovators. 

According to the Foundation’s website, she “focuses on breaking down barriers in legal systems and training startups in legal essentials, reaching a network of 2,500 entrepreneurs across seven countries”, while working to close gaps between grassroots founders, investors, and policymakers to strengthen ecosystems across Francophone Africa and “demonstrates how to build more equitable startup ecosystems in spaces that have been traditionally exclusionary environments”. 

“I see this program as an accelerator of the path I have chosen,” shared Sonia. “The proverb of our class: ‘A single thread does not weave a cloth.’ In a company, there is a thread that we rarely see, but that holds everything else: the law. It is this thread that I am striving, through Mavouna Avocats and African Legal Factory, to make more accessible to those who undertake and invest, in Europe and in Africa.”

The current Obama Foundation Africa Leaders group also includes Phebe Ilesanmi, a law graduate of Bowen University in Nigeria who was a paralegal at leading African firm Aluko & Oyebode, before going on to complete an LLM in International Commercial Law at Robert Gordon University in Scotland. Phebe is now the co-founder and Chief Compliance Officer at Trashcoin, a company dedicated to transforming Africa’s plastic waste crisis into economic opportunities for underserved communities through traceable, technology-driven recycling systems.

“A decade ago, Africa was often seen as a dumping ground for waste,” she said earlier this year, after being part of the ITC SheTrades Innovation Pitch during the WTO’s Ministerial Conference. “Today, TrashCoin is actively changing that narrative, processing plastic waste into high-quality recyclable materials and exporting them to global markets, driving the inflow of foreign exchange into African economies.”

Other African lawyers who have been selected for the Obama Foundation’s leadership training in recent years include: Eleanor Thompson, the founder of Citizens' Barray, a movement-building platform in Sierra Leone that empowers citizens to address social justice issue; and Aïssatou Seck, a Senior Counsel at the World Bank, based in Côte d’Ivoire, who is also involved in several organisations and activities designed to foster economic empowerment in Africa. 

Applications for the 2027–2028 Obama Foundation Leaders Africa cohort are open until 4 December 2026, but the Foundation strongly encourages applicants to submit their forms by the priority deadline on 23 November 23, 2026, as applications sent in that date are only evaluated on a rolling basis if space remains available.