Future Leaders Programme

Future Leaders Programme (FLP) workshops bring together a small number of people who are expected to be in senior leadership positions in the coming years for a 5-day workshop involving lectures, discussion sessions, and debates.

Created by the Institute of Development Leadership Dialogue (DLD), each FLP workshop has a key theme and/or regional focus and is led by presenters with a wealth of senior experience in government, academia, the private sector, civil society, and international organisations.

The FLP4 and FLP5 will be held respectively in Vietnam on the theme of ‘Governance, Production Strategies, and Climate Change - with reference to the Mekong Delta (Vietnam)’ in Ho Chi Minh City from the 10-12 July 2024 & in Johannesburg, South Africa on 2-6 September 2024 on the theme: ‘Green Industrialisation in Africa’ in collaboration with Industrial Policy for policymakers training programme (IPPM).

The 3-day intensive workshop will introduce concepts of adaptive governance in the context of climate change adaptation and mitigation in the Mekong River Delta (MRD) region of Vietnam.

The three-day intensive workshop will introduce concepts of adaptive governance in the context of climate change adaptation and mitigation in the Mekong River Delta (MRD) region of Vietnam. The FLP will invite key actors with a deep knowledge of the region, including local and national government officials, business leaders, scholars and civil society organizations, to learn and debate the principles of adaptive or experimental governance, drawing on a wide range of international cases, and then apply these principles to agricultural change, water governance, and climate mitigation/adaption in the MRD, under conditions of extreme uncertainty. 

This FLP is designed as a policy dialogue, in which participants discuss various approaches to the problem of climate change and apply them to the specific challenges and opportunities in the MRD, including water management, the development of high value-added agriculture and the transition to low methane rice. Participants bring their knowledge and expertise to bear on these issues, generating proposals for application in their localities. 

At the FLP, the adaptive governance approach will be introduced by Charles F. Sabel, Professor of law and social Science at Columbia University Law School and previously Ford International Professor of Social Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Professor Sabel is a global authority on experimentalist or incrementalist governance. He has applied these ideas to decision-making under uncertainty in various settings, most recently to the governance of climate change mitigation in his book Fixing the Climate: Strategies for an Uncertain World (Princeton University Press, 2022, with David Victor). 

Other session leaders will include Professor Christopher Cramer and Dr Jonathan Di John, faculty at SOAS, University of London and co-founders of DLD with Professor Ha-Joon Chang. Dr Jaap Evers of the Delft Institute for Water Education will lead sessions on the governance of water management. FSPPM faculty, including Dr Vu Thanh Tu Anh and Dr Jonathan Pincus, will contribute to sessions on governance and climate change in the MRD.

Applications for FLP 4

We welcome applications from senior government officials working in economic ministries, departments, or other public institutions, or supranational policy institutions. We also encourage applications from the corporate sector, international organizations, and civil society. In particular, we encourage applications from those working on issues such as agriculture and agribusiness,  water governance, regional planning, and climate change/environmental policies.

Applicants should submit a CV and a cover letter to dld@soas.ac.uk explaining their work and how they would benefit from and contribute to the workshop. Applicants are normally expected to have at least five years’ experience in agricultural development, water management, local governance and/or climate change adaptation and mitigation in the MRD.

The deadline for application is 10 June 2024, 11:59pm (GMT).

The fee for the course is £2200 and participants are expected to pay for their travel, accommodation, and subsistence. However, a limited number of scholarships are available, awarded in consideration of the applicant’s personal circumstances. 

Full scholarships will cover the fee and the cost (travel, accommodation, subsistence) while partial scholarships will cover the fee. 

The programme will take place alongside the annual African Programme on Rethinking Development Economics (APORDE). The theme for the programme is Green Industrialisation in Africa.

The programme is a partnership between DLD, APORDE, the DSI/NRF South African Research Chair in Industrial Development (SARChI-ID) and Trade & Industrial Policy Strategies (TIPS). It is aimed at senior government officials from across Africa and will be held in Gauteng (Muldersdrift), South Africa, from the 2-6 September 2024.

There is no charge to attend the training; however, due to limited places, applicants will be accepted through a competitive application process. South African participants, or their institutions, will be required to cover their own transport and accommodation costs. Participants from other countries will have their travel and accommodation costs covered by the programme.

The 5-day intensive training course is focused on Industrial Policy and consists of lectures and seminars by leading international and African economists. It is of particular relevance given:

• The slow pace of industrial development on the African continent and the threat of premature deindustrialisation.
• The increasing threat posed by climate change and the impact of and opportunities arising from a shift to a low carbon economy.
• The increasing relevance and need for green industries.
• Challenges in financing green industrial policy.
• Discussions about the most appropriate strategies to advance structural transformation and regional integration under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).

This FLP/IPPM will cover topics in development economics and industrial policy, with a focus on green industrialisation in Africa. Several lectures will be held jointly with the APORDE programme. The training will include sessions on:

• Greening industrialisation in Africa: a practitioner's view
• The Impact of Climate Change on Industrial Development
• Agriculture, the Industrialisation of Freshness and Industrial Policy
• Financing Green Structural Transformation in Africa

Applications for FLP 5

Applicants should be senior government officials in African countries working in economic ministries, departments, or other public institutions, or supranational policy institutions in Africa. In particular, we encourage applications from officials working on issues such as industrial policy, green industries, trade, development banking or climate change/environmental policies. Participants need to be proficient in English.

• Application form 

The application call will close on 31 May 2024 at 1:00 PM (SAST)

Candidates will be notified by email of the outcome of their applications by 28 June 2024. For queries, please contact: Rozale@tips.org.za.