As Africa grapples with shrinking international development funding and rising pressure to create jobs for its rapidly growing youth population, the Mastercard Foundation is making one of the continent’s biggest long-term investments in higher education, committing US$500 million over the next decade to transform African universities.
In an interview with allAfrica, Melody Chironda, Dr. John Nkengasong, Executive Director for Higher Education, Collaboratives and Strategic Initiatives at the Mastercard Foundation, said the Foundation views universities as critical engines for developing the talent, innovation, and leadership needed to drive Africa’s economic transformation. He argued that strategic investment in higher education has helped countries around the world build knowledge-based economies. He said African institutions have the potential to play the same role by preparing young people for dignified work while advancing research, entrepreneurship, and inclusive development.
$500 million over a decade is a significant bet on higher education specifically, at a moment when many donors are pulling back from Africa. Why did the Foundation choose universities as the lever, rather than, say, direct scholarships or workforce programs?
Human capital investment, through higher education, is at the centre of every story of national economic transformation around the world. Through strategic investments in higher education for human capital development, many countries around the world have successfully transformed from resource-scarce nations into advanced, knowledge-based economies with sustained GDP growth. With strategic investments in higher education, Africa can generate the necessary talent that can propel the continent towards economic growth and sustained livelihoods for its young people.
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The Mastercard Foundation is committed to a world where every young person has the opportunity to learn and prosper. Our Young Africa Works strategy aims to enable 30 million young people to access dignified and fulfilling work by 2030. Through the Africa Higher Education for Transformation (AHEFT) Prize, the Foundation is strengthening Africa’s higher education system as a catalyst for talent development, expanded opportunities for young people, and inclusive socio-economic growth. Building on two decades of experience supporting African institutions to reimagine higher education, the AHEFT Prize converts proven success into sustained momentum through a decade-long commitment to advancing homegrown excellence and driving system-wide transformation across the continent.
The Prize talks about ‘systemic, institution-wide transformation’ rather than individual achievement. How do you actually measure that a university has transformed, as opposed to simply having a strong department or a few good graduates?
The AHEFT Prize is not intended to rank institutions, departments, or graduates. Instead, it aims to establish a benchmark for transformational impact in African higher education. All applications were assessed against a common set of criteria, including transformational impact, alignment with Africa’s development priorities, community engagement, inclusion and access, student experience, and collaboration. Through their applications, African institutions are defining what transformation looks like by sharing their own stories of innovation, impact, and measurable change.
The Prize focused on institution-wide transformation rather than isolated excellence. It assessed whether change is embedded across the university’s core functions, including teaching and learning, research, entrepreneurship, and transitions to employment and whether that change delivers measurable outcomes for students, communities, and society.
The inaugural winners exemplified this wide-ranging transformation in different ways. From creating effective pathways from learning to earning, to advancing applied research and innovation, strengthening health systems, influencing national development priorities, and expanding regional and continental impact. Together, they demonstrate that transformational universities do more than excel in a single department; they become engines of opportunity, innovation, and socio-economic progress.
What insights did this inaugural cycle provide, and how will those lessons inform the Prize as it expands to universities across the continent?
The inaugural cycle reinforced the critical role of African higher education institutions as drivers of human capital development and socio-economic progress, showcasing diverse models of transformational impact across the continent. It also validated the importance of assessing universities holistically and in context, examining how leadership, systems, partnerships, teaching, research, and student outcomes work together to create lasting change. These insights will help strengthen future cycles of the Prize as we identify, recognize, and elevate a broader range of institutions delivering institution-wide transformation and measurable impact for young people and society.
Every winning institution has a genuinely different story, from refugee employment in Uganda to health workforce training in Rwanda. Is there a common thread the jury was really looking for, or is ‘transformation’ being defined differently in each context?
Every application was assessed against the same standardized criteria: transformational impact, relevance to Africa’s development priorities, community engagement and service, inclusion and access, student experience, and collaboration and partnerships. We see this diversity as a strength.
The winning institutions demonstrated the breadth of transformational impact being driven by African higher education institutions. Across diverse contexts, they are strengthening pathways from education to employment and entrepreneurship, advancing applied research and innovation to address societal challenges, transforming health systems through workforce development and clinical excellence, and embedding industry-relevant, experiential learning. Beyond their campuses, these institutions are influencing policy, contributing to national and regional development, fostering strategic partnerships, and building resilient, sustainable models that position higher education as a catalyst for human capital development, innovation, and inclusive socio-economic growth across Africa.
How does the Foundation think about supporting these institutions to keep the momentum going after the initial $3 million grant?
Beyond the financial award, the AHEFT Prize will provide programmatic support to help winning institutions scale their transformation initiatives. We will also bring winners together to share learning, foster collaboration, and amplify their work to create ripple effects across institutions and ecosystems. The inaugural Higher Education for Transformation Convening, scheduled for September 22 in Accra, marks the beginning of this journey.
Leveraging the Foundation’s network of more than 200 African higher education institutions, the goal is to create a platform through which institutions can access the support, partnerships, and connections needed to sustain and scale their transformative work.
You’ve committed to at least 150 institutions over ten years, but Africa has thousands of higher education institutions. How do you think about the trade-off between depth of impact at a few flagship universities versus breadth across the continent’s weaker systems?
The Prize is designed to achieve both depth and scale. First, it strengthens high-performing institutions so their impact in teaching and learning, research, entrepreneurship, and transitions to employment can reach more young people. Second, it seeks to catalyze broader system-wide change by demonstrating what transformative higher education can look like and encouraging governments, funders, and institutions to invest in and adopt similar approaches. This is an ambitious goal that the Foundation cannot achieve alone. We recognize that we are one of many stakeholders working toward the same objective.
Beyond the Prize itself, the Foundation advances systemic transformation through Higher Education Collaboratives- multi-stakeholder partnerships across sectors with significant potential for job creation and social impact, including health, agriculture, climate resilience, digital transformation, and education. For example, the Africa Higher Education Health Collaborative brings together universities across the continent to strengthen health workforce development and health entrepreneurship, extending impact far beyond individual institutions.
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Africa’s graduate unemployment and brain drain numbers remain stark. Where does this Prize actually move the needle on young people finding dignified work at home, versus simply making strong universities stronger?
Supporting universities and improving employment outcomes for young people are linked and aligned to our Young Africa Works strategy, which aims to enable 30 million young people to access dignified and fulfilling work by 2030. Through the AHEFT Prize, the Foundation is strengthening Africa’s higher education system as critical human capital and talent infrastructure, enabling institutions to deliver quality, inclusive, and industry-relevant education that prepares young people for dignified and meaningful work. This is why transitions to employment is one of the Prize’s four core thematic areas, alongside teaching and learning, research, and entrepreneurship.
The AHEFT Prize launches as some traditional donors are stepping back from the continent. Do you see the AHEFT Prize as the Foundation stepping into a gap left by others, and does that change how much responsibility philanthropic capital should carry for Africa’s education systems?
For more than 20 years, the Mastercard Foundation has partnered with African institutions and witnessed their ability to redefine what higher education can deliver. Rather than responding to changes in the funding landscape, the AHEFT Prize builds on this experience, transforming proven success into momentum through a long-term commitment to recognize, elevate, and scale African-led excellence. By strengthening universities and the broader higher education ecosystem, the Prize aims to advance talent development, innovation, and leadership, enabling institutions across the continent to become powerful engines of opportunity and socio-economic transformation for millions of young people.
