Welcome to Kudzai Makomva who joined our Shaping the Future of Africa Fellowship in October 2021. Kudzai is an economist with over fifteen years of experience in strategy and organizational leadership in the development sector, where she has applied skills in economics and quantitative analysis to social impact initiatives in order to bring a rigorous focus on metrics and results. As a Shaping the Future Fellow, she is reflecting on the conceptualization and development of a Future of Africa Index and its role in anticipatory governance and Africa’s development. The Future Africa Index is a regional performance index that assesses progress towards harnessing the demographic dividend; its adoption and rollout across the continent has the potential to leverage competitive pressure on countries and policymakers. The Index combines a number of carefully selected indicators that assess talent competitiveness, development of competencies to develop the knowledge and digital economies, economic and industry complexity, as well as inclusive growth and environmental sustainability. 

Kudzai served as Chief Operating Officer for an African impact investment fund aiming to accelerate attainment of human capital in southern Africa through investments in rural finance, education and health. Prior to this, Kudzai also served as the first Director of the Southern Africa Development Corporation (SADC) Malaria Elimination 8 Initiative, a pioneering model of regional collaboration to eliminate malaria in Africa, and with the Clinton Health Access Initiative in overseeing regional programs.  

Kudzai is currently Managing Partner at Market Access Africa, a boutique strategy and advisory agency focused on health access and policy in Africa, and sits on the Board of Rebuild Africa. She holds a Masters Degree in Public Policy and Administration and a BA (Economics, Health Policy) from Harvard University, where she remains engaged in teaching adaptive leadership in Harvard’s executive education programmes.