Mr. Franklin Cudjoe, Founding President and CEO of IMANI has completed his 5-year fellowship as a Young Global Leader, a programme of the influential World Economic Forum.
IMANI Press | IMANI Africa
A letter dated 11 February 2016 and signed by John Dutton, Head of The Forum of Young Global Leaders, said ” On behalf of the World Economic Forum and the Forum of Young Global Leaders, I’d like to congratulate you on the successful completion of the Young Global Leaders Programme. We truly appreciate your contribution to the YGL Community and the World Economic Forum and hope that you will continue your leadership journey with us as part of the YGL Alumni Community.”
In 2010, Mr. Cudjoe was selected from a pool of over 5000 candidate leaders around the world, to join one of the most prestigious communities – the Young Global Leaders – of the World Economic Forum.
During his fellowship, Mr. Cudjoe was no doubt minded to highlight those critical areas of economic and political policy that find resonance across the artificial borders of Africa. He used the opportunity to press his colleague young leaders from across Africa, and indeed the world, to take these matters to the very top of the priority lists of African governments and their allies in the intergovernmental and non-governmental communities.
We note with pleasure that the Young Global Leaders community of the World Economic Forum is one of the foremost and indeed most appropriate platforms to raise and champion these critical issues. Members of that community have included established global leaders from the North, such as Tony Blair and the founders of the Google Empire, as well as emerging global leaders from the South such as Ghana’s own Patrick Awuah (Ashesi University), Ken Ofori-Atta (DataBank). Mr. Elikem Kuenyehia of Oxford and Beaumont, the legal firm, his brother Mr. Kimathi Kuenyehia Sr of Kimathi & Partners, the legal firm and Mr. Bright Simons, President of mpedigree.net
Under Mr. Cudjoe’s leadership , IMANI has rededicated its objective to the course of “open but rigorous research and analysis in the public interest”. Despite limited resources, which is the bane of many public-minded organisations in Africa, IMANI continues to contribute its efforts to national and continental development by working with its partners in civil society, the media, the legislature, and other interest groups in Ghana, Africa, and the world, in ensuring that only the best-reasoned and most rigorous evidence is admitted in the policymaking process. We are fervent in our belief that such evidence-grounded policymaking works best with active public involvement, and our goal is to bridge the artificial gulf between the lay public, on the one hand, and the government and technocratic class, on the other.
When Mr. Cudjoe was named a Young Global Leader, IMANI’s Board Chairman wrote “Under Mr. Cudjoe’s managerial leadership, and with the support of the IMANI Management Team, the Board of Trustees and the Fellows note that IMANI has risen up the ranks of think tanks in Africa to the 5th position in terms of intellectual influence (according to the reputable Foreign Policy magazine). I can confidently reaffirm the Board’s confidence in Mr. Cudjoe’s leadership, while reasserting our commitment to supporting IMANI’s objective of reaching even higher in its quest to offer continental intellectual leadership in the economic development and policy advocacy sphere.
IMANI is driven by the passion to see in Africa a continent free of poverty and tyranny, a continent open to new ideas and new influences, and a continent prospering rather than shackled by the globalisation of trade and the liberalisation of the creative powers of the individual African and her thriving community. IMANI shall prevail. Ghana shall prevail. Africa shall prevail.”
Today, IMANI is ranked 2nd most influential think tank in Sub-Saharan Africa and among 100 most influential think tanks globally .
