Last month CSC Commissioner Professor Kevin Ibeh attended a launch event for Commonwealth Startup Fellows in Ghana where he met the new Fellows and held dialogues with partner organisations in the country.
Launching the CSF programme
Following a weekend of travel drama – power cut-related flight disruptions at Heathrow – I joined partners from Imperial College London at the inaugural Commonwealth Startup Fellowship (CSF) bootcamp which kicked off in Accra, Ghana on Monday 24 March 2025.
This new CSC programme, delivered in partnership with Imperial, is an important innovation aimed at catalysing initiatives to redress widespread job shortages faced by young people across low and middle income Commonwealth countries. Given the projections for future population growth in many of these countries, this programme and others like it are urgently needed to tackle the employment crisis which is set to become more acute in the years ahead.
The two-week bootcamp initiated a six-month fellowship programme to support and propel the development and scaling of 20 new startup ventures from across the Commonwealth.
At the programme’s launch, I was delighted to welcome the new Fellows and congratulate them on coming through a highly competitive and rigorous selection process. Underlining the importance of the CSF programme, I urged the Fellows to leverage their impressive record of innovation and entrepreneurship to create more decent jobs in their respective countries. I also thanked the CSC, FCDO, and Imperial College for their significant contributions to making the new programme a reality.
Connecting with partners in Ghana
During the visit, I had the opportunity to meet with Commonwealth Alumni, including officers from the newly established executive committee of the Ghana Alumni Association in Accra to hear more about their activities since returning home.
I also attended a reception at the British High Commissioner’s residence for the UK-Ghana Chamber of Commerce, where I met Deputy British High Commissioner Keith McMahon. Later in the trip, I had the opportunity to speak to the Deputy High Commissioner again about the CSC’s commitment to high quality collaboration and the launch of the CSF programme. During the meeting, we discussed ways that the CSC and the High Commission could collaborate to further promote Commonwealth Scholarships in Ghana.
In addition, I met with valued partners at the Ghana Scholarship Secretariat and Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE), which nominate candidates for the CSC’s Master’s Scholarships. These visits presented me with an opportunity to deepen the CSC’s longstanding partnerships and discuss the work that nominating agencies do on behalf of the CSC.
Nominating agencies form an integral part of the process for selecting Commonwealth Scholars for the CSC’s Master’s and PhD Scholarships. Each year, agencies are invited to nominate applicants for consideration of an award. Once the CSC receives these nominations, a selection panel derived from members of the Commission considers all eligible applications and make selections.
NGO nominating agencies such as FAWE fulfil an important area of work for the CSC by helping to widen access to Commonwealth Scholarships among historically disadvantaged groups.
Professor Kevin Ibeh is a CSC Commissioner. He is also Professor of Marketing and International Business, and until recently Pro Vice-Chancellor (International), at Birkbeck, University of London.
