54 future public sector leaders to participate in 2022/2023 AIG programme

The Aig-Imoukhuede Foundation has announced the selection of 54 high-potential men and women working in the African public service to participate in the second cohort of the AIG Public Leaders Programme, offered in partnership with the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford.

The AIG Public Leaders Programme (AIG PLP) offers emerging African public sector leaders a unique opportunity to develop their leadership capacity and acquire the skills and knowledge necessary to drive change in their organisations.

Emily Aig-Imoukhuede

AIG PLP 2021 was a resounding success and the 49 participants who were drawn from various parts of the Nigerian public sector universally agreed that the learnings they gained made a positive impact on their managerial abilities.

Programme alumnus, Ngozi Jessinta Akinbodewa, who is an Assistant Director in the Operations department of the SERVICOM Office in the Presidency stated: “The experience was insightful and engaging. The programme taught me how to consciously add value to my workplace by identifying areas of weakness in our processes, converting them to strengths, and finding opportunities to utilise lessons learnt from the PLP.”

Another programme alumnus, Olufesobi Bright, stated that the programme far exceeded his expectations and elevated his performance levels.

He said: “I started the programme as Change Advisor at National Petroleum Investment Management Services (NAPIMS), but I have since been promoted to Head, Process Efficiency and Change Management. I believe that the programme provided me with a reorientation and the opportunity to build leadership confidence.”

A critical part of the programme is a capstone project, which requires participants to apply a key idea from their learnings to develop or advance an initiative, innovation, or intervention in their organisations.

Programme alumni have developed several projects that are having a positive impact on the performance of their organisations. Projects implemented include the digitalisation of the planning permits records of the Lagos State Ministry of Physical Planning and Urban Development, a mobile application for NTA Abeokuta, an online patient booking application for Folarin Coker Hospital, Lagos, reporting guidelines and a service charter for SERVICOM and a digital repository platform for the Financial Reporting Council amongst many others.

Executive Vice-Chair of the Aig-Imoukhuede Foundation, Ofovwe Aig-Imoukhuede, said: “One of our strategic objectives at the Foundation is to grow a new generation of public sector leaders who can drive and sustain reforms and we are delighted to see the impact the AIG PLP Alumni are having on their organisations. We are therefore pleased to have been able to select fifty-four outstanding public servants to participate in AIG PLP 2022 and to welcome our first international programme participant from South Africa.”

Dean of the Blavatnik School of Government, Professor Ngaire Woods, said: “We are delighted to see the programme run again as part of our long-standing partnership with the Aig-Imoukhuede Foundation. The Blavatnik School specially designs executive programmes for public leaders to ensure that participants learn from world-renowned scholars, and outstanding practitioners and from one another, taking into account the current context for public sector leadership in Africa and the challenges of an increasingly complex and dynamic world.”

The successful candidates, who were selected through a competitive process, will receive academic scholarships worth £11,500 from the foundation to enable them to participate in the programme.

The AIG PLP 2022 will commence in October. Applications for the AIG PLP 2023 will open in January 2023.