Collaborating across continents.
Written by Aspen UK Director, Olly Chapman.
I’m delighted to share the launch of the Aspen Africa–UK Catalyst Fellowship Impact Report, marking the conclusion of the programme’s inaugural cohort.
Across international development and foreign policy, many of the assumptions that shaped the last two decades are under strain. In January 2025, the United States announced a 90-day pause on foreign development assistance for review, and by March 2025 the US Secretary of State said that around 82% of USAID programmes would be ended. With the US having been the world’s largest aid donor, accounting for around 20% of development aid in recent years, meaning cuts on this scale reverberate far beyond one country’s budget decisions. At the same time, the UK has also confirmed that its aid spending will fall to 0.3% of Gross National Income from 2027.
This is also a significant moment in the evolution of the UK’s relationship with African countries. In 2025, following a consultation involving more than 600 organisations and individuals, the UK Government set out a “new approach to Africa”, explicitly framed around “partnership, not paternalism” and rooted in mutual respect. The consultation found a strong desire from African stakeholders for relationships built on listening, equality, long-term thinking, and practical cooperation – particularly on growth, trade, investment, climate, security, migration, and reform of the international system. Conversations about Africa–UK relations have too often been narrowed into aid dependency on one side or short-term commercial interest on the other.
Against that backdrop, we set up the Aspen Africa-UK Catalyst Fellowship. When aid architectures are shrinking and when geopolitical cooperation is fraying, progress depends even more on leaders who can build durable relationships across sectors, institutions, and borders.
The Fellowship was created in the belief that, at a time of political volatility and institutional strain, there is deep value in bringing leaders together not simply to exchange expertise, but to reflect more seriously on power and partnership. As a joint initiative between Aspen Institute UK and Aspen Initiative Africa, it brought together 20 mid-career leaders from across diplomacy, trade, development, and civil society, through two in-person seminars, virtual sessions, and collaborative projects.
With time spent in Cambridge, London, Nairobi, and Nanyuki, Fellows explored values-based leadership and the historical and contemporary forces shaping Africa–UK relations. Using the Aspen seminar method, Fellows engaged with live questions around trade, diplomacy, justice, institutional reform, and development. And they also built a peer community grounded in trust underpinned by intellectual rigour.
What gives me real confidence is that this Fellowship was not conceived as a one-off. From the outset, it was designed as the foundation for something more durable – a growing network of leaders able to shape decisions in their own organisations and sectors while remaining connected across continents. The inaugural cohort has shown just how much potential there is in that model.
I’m incredibly proud of what this first cohort has achieved, and deeply grateful to everyone who helped make it possible – our colleagues at Aspen Initiative Africa, our moderators – Ruth Girardet and Laila Macharia, our supporters at the Aspen Institute, and above all, the Fellows themselves.
I hope you’ll read the report, linked below, and see – as we do – the extraordinary promise of this Fellowship.
Read the report here.
