Denis & Lenora Foretia Foundation

21/08/2026

Africa @ World Bank/IMF Annual Meetings: Expanding Horizons to Asia on October 14, 2026!

After two impactful editions in Washington D.C., the Africa @ World Bank/IMF Annual Meetings is set to explore existing avenues for Africa-Asia cooperation in Bangkok, Thailand, on October 14, 2026. For the very first time, this platform for Africa-centered policy dialogue will convene in an upper-middle-income economy, fostering collaboration between African and Asian policymakers, business leaders, researchers, and development institutions.

This event embodies the spirit of global partnership and shared economic transformation. It offers a unique opportunity to explore innovative solutions that bridge continents and drive inclusive growth, sustainable development, and resilient economies across Africa and Asia.

Express your interest at: https://africa.nkafu.org/

19/08/2026

Serge Angyiba is a public health scientist who chose, early in his career, to work on one of the most stubbornly persistent problems in Cameroonian health: why people who have access to vaccines do not always use them. His doctoral research in epidemiology focuses on vaccine hesitancy, a question that sits between scientific evidence, community trust, and communication. It requires him to understand not just the biology of disease prevention but the social logic behind the health decisions communities make.

That dual orientation, between rigorous science and community engagement, runs through everything he has built alongside his research. The Bisons' Scholars Institute of Research, which Serge founded and directs, has mentored more than 150 young scientists, offering research support and capacity development of the kind that is scarce outside major academic centres. He also consults on ISO 15189 laboratory accreditation, supporting health facilities as they build the systems that make reliable diagnostics possible. These are unglamorous but essential parts of health infrastructure, and Serge has invested in them deliberately.

He joins the 2026 Emerging Leaders cohort from the Littoral Region, one of twenty participants whose work reflects a particular understanding of what public service looks like: not as a single act, but as a sustained and overlapping set of commitments to the same underlying goal.

See more about Serge and the rest of the 2026 Emerging Leaders cohort at: https://leaders.foretiafoundation.org/2026-cohorts/

19/08/2026

The research at the centre of Walters Nshom Kumo's academic work tells you a great deal about where his attention is directed. His Master's dissertation at the University of Yaoundé I examined the entrepreneurial integration of internally displaced persons, a question that requires holding together sociology, economics, and the lived realities of people whose circumstances have been entirely disrupted. It is a demanding analytical lens, and it is the same one he brings to his work outside the university.

As Community Manager at Impact Axis, Walters has designed and run leadership fellowships and civic engagement programmes that have reached over a hundred young people in Yaoundé. He has also worked with DeWise Foundation on entrepreneurship training, with Youth by Youth on peace education, with Open Dreams on mentorship, and with the UNDP Accelerator Lab on field research. The range of those affiliations is not accidental. Walters operates on the premise that civic participation does not happen by default: it requires infrastructure, mentorship, and repeated investment in the people who will carry it forward.

He brings that conviction to the 2026 Emerging Leaders cohort. He listens to old-school music and will sit through a sport he knows nothing about simply because he finds it worthwhile to stay curious. Both habits seem consistent with someone who has built a career around learning from environments that were not originally designed with him in mind.

Learn more about the 2026 Emerging Leaders cohort: https://leaders.foretiafoundation.org/2026-cohorts/

18/08/2026

Seven years ago, Lucie Pleuk A Ngon Keziah co-founded the Association of Enterprising Women with Disabilities of Vina (AFHEV) in the Adamawa region of Cameroon. The decision came from a clear-eyed reading of what she saw around her: women with disabilities who were economically excluded, legally underserved, and systematically absent from the spaces where decisions about their lives were being made. Lucie had trained as a jurist, and she understood that legal knowledge, without deliberate effort to put it in service of those who needed it most, remained inert.

Over the years that followed, AFHEV became a concrete response to that problem, building economic opportunities for women with disabilities and ensuring they had access to legal support and advocacy. Lucie continued to practice law alongside this work, combining her role at a law firm with her community engagement in a way that each strand reinforced the other. The legal training sharpened her advocacy; the advocacy gave her legal work a sense of purpose that extended beyond individual cases.

She is now preparing to stand in the 2027 municipal elections, a decision that reflects how she thinks about change: it must eventually move from the grassroots into formal institutions if it is to hold. The skills she wants to refine at the Emerging Leaders Program are directly connected to that ambition. When she is not working through policy texts or preparing her political groundwork, Lucie is on a dance floor. Salsa, rumba, and kizomba are, in her words, her most reliable way of clearing her head.

Discover the 2026 Emerging Leaders cohort: https://leaders.foretiafoundation.org/2026-cohorts/

18/08/2026

Aliou Saidou was trained as a political scientist, but the work that has defined his public life began not in a classroom but online. As misinformation spread rapidly across Cameroonian social media platforms, Aliou recognised that the civic costs were real and measurable: young people were forming opinions, making decisions, and disengaging from democratic processes based on distorted or fabricated information. For someone drawn to governance and civic engagement, this was not an abstract problem.

As President of the African Youth Network for Development (RAJED), Aliou builds the kind of civic infrastructure he believes can respond to this: workshops and training programmes that bring young people into local decision-making processes, initiatives that strengthen governance literacy, and sustained advocacy against misinformation in digital spaces. The network's focus on the Far North is deliberate. It is a region with serious governance challenges and a young population largely underserved by civic education. RAJED is his answer to that gap.

Aliou is also a UNESCO Peace Ambassador and a member of United Nations civil society networks, affiliations that reflect the range of his engagement without pulling his attention away from the local. He describes himself as someone who prefers to observe a problem carefully before acting on it, a quality that comes through in the methodical way he has built RAJED's programmes over time. He joins the 2026 cohort as one of two representatives from the Far North, bringing a perspective shaped by years of front-line civic work in one of Cameroon's most complex regions.

Discover the 2026 Emerging Leaders cohort: https://leaders.foretiafoundation.org/2026-cohorts/

14/08/2026

We are pleased to introduce the 2026 cohort of the Emerging Leaders Program, a group of 20 exceptional young Cameroonians who have demonstrated a strong commitment to their communities and an interest in contributing to Cameroon’s development.

Selected through a highly competitive national process, the cohort represents all ten regions of Cameroon, with equal gender parity, and brings together diverse experiences, perspectives, and ambitions.

From September 7-9, 2026, they will come together in Yaoundé for a three-day residential program structured around leadership development, public policy, and governance. Through sessions with experienced leaders and practitioners, peer exchange, and engagement on the questions shaping Cameroon’s future, they will sharpen their thinking, strengthen their leadership skills, and build relationships with peers from across the country.

Discover the full cohort: https://leaders.foretiafoundation.org/2026-cohorts/

12/08/2026

11/08/2026

𝟮𝟵 𝗱𝗮𝘆𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟲 𝗖𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗹 𝗔𝗳𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗮 𝗧𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗸 𝗧𝗮𝗻𝗸 𝗙𝗼𝗿𝘂𝗺.

Research identifies governance challenges across the region. Analysis points toward solutions. But structured mechanisms connecting knowledge to decision-making remain fragile, and where they are absent, evidence accumulates while the problems persist.

The 2026 Central Africa Think Tank Forum will bring together policymakers, researchers, civil society leaders, development partners, and the private sector in Yaoundé to examine what it takes to close that gap.

📍 Hilton Hotel, Yaoundé
📅 10–11 September 2026
🎯 Theme: From Evidence to Action: Strengthening Policy Uptake in Central Africa

Register at cattf.nkafu.org

07/08/2026

THE WAIT IS ALMOST OVER!

The next generation of changemakers is about to be unveiled.

The 2026 Emerging Leaders Program is here, bringing together bold, passionate, and purpose-driven young leaders ready to shape Africa's future.

Join us on August 13, 2026, at 3:00 PM (WAT) for the Official Presentation of the 2026 cohort.

Stay tuned.

07/08/2026

Policy decisions taken without tend to produce costly outcomes: misallocated budgets, ineffective programs, and reforms that fail to address root causes.

The Central Africa Think Tank Forum exists to close the distance between and the -making table, bringing together , government officials, and practitioners to examine what the evidence actually says about Central Africa's most pressing policy challenges.

Register here: https://cattf.nkafu.org/