Andrew Quinn is the director of the New Voices Fellowship, a new program which aims to train and support a new cadre of experts from developing countries to champion solutions for global development work. It is a part of the Aspen Global Health and Development program.
Development is a global story, with sweeping implications both for the world’s poorest people and for wealthier societies coming to grips with an increasingly networked and interdependent planet.
But too often the stories of development are one-sided, dominated by experts, funders, and advocates in the developed world rather than those on the front-lines who are actively working to change their own communities.
The Aspen New Voices Fellowship, a new program launched by Aspen Global Health and Development, aims to change this equation by bringing the essential perspectives of committed leaders from Africa and other emerging nations into the global economic debate.
The inaugural class of New Voices Fellows is made up of 12 accomplished African men and women from 10 different countries across the continent. They are entrepreneurs, doctors, community leaders, academics, and educators with on-the-ground experience on a range of issues: medicine, HIV/AIDS, gender equality, public health, civil unrest, climate change, and poverty.
Over the course of the year, the New Voices Fellows will write, speak, blog and tweet about how they see global development unfolding, and what should come next. Follow their progress on www.aspennewvoices.org, and on Twitter at @aspennewvoices.
Meet four of the 2013 New Voices Fellows, and hear their stories of development:
