This week’s most important headlines out of and about Africa
In this week’s news, 54 countries are represented at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio and President Obama speaks to the Young African Leaders Initiative.
Fifty-Four African Nations Attending Rio Olympics
Of the 54 African countries competing in this years’ Olympics, only one team contends under the Olympic flag.
This is the first year that a team of refugees from South Sudan, Syria, Congo and Ethiopia will be represented. This is an opportunity to send a worldwide message of hope and persistence where a group of 10 athletes will be competing in three sports.
[/media-credit] The South African representatives enter the 2016 Rio Olympics opening ceremony.
South Sudan will be competing under its own flag since the country’s independence in 2011. The opening ceremonies displayed a beautiful sea of green, yellow, red, black, and blue for the African continent.
President Obama speaks to the Young African Leaders Initiative
The Young African Leaders Summit in Washington, D.C. commenced in a special town-hall meeting with President Barack Obama.
Obama stressed the importance of a rising generation of new leaders. He encouraged the participants to actively engage in the program and in their home countries. The Young African Leaders Initiative(YALI) is the umbrella program for the Mandela Washington Fellowship. We briefly mentioned the Fellowship on this website a few weeks back .
“Africa is a place of unprecedented prosperity and opportunities,” Obama said. “I’ve worked to transform America’s relationship with Africa by working to boost exports with Africa, promote good governance and human rights, advance security and help feed families.
[/media-credit] Barack Obama speaks at the Summit of the Washington Fellowship for the Young African Leaders Initiative.
The six weeks of academic study and leadership training across 40 U.S. higher education institutions, offered an amazing opportunity for the leaders. They were able to development professional skills in civic leadership, public management, business and entrepreneurship. This is just one of over 15 exchange programs for young African leaders sponsored by the U.S. State Department.
