The Draper Hills Summer Fellowship on Democracy and Development Program which was launched in 2005, is hosted annually at Stanford University’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. Mrs. Glowen Kyei-Mensah, the Managing Director of Participatory Development Associates (PDA), was among the over-25 mid-career practitioners in law, politics, government, private enterprise, civil society, and international development from transitioning countries selected from around the world to attend this year’s fellowship program.
The program, which lasted for three weeks during the summer, allowed fellows to participate in academic seminars that exposed them to the theory and practice of democracy, development, and the rule of law. Delivered by leading Stanford faculty from the Stanford Law School, the Graduate School of Business, and the departments of economics and political science, seminars were held to allow emerging leaders to explore new institutional models and frameworks to enhance their ability to promote democratic change in their home countries. This training program provided a unique forum for emerging leaders to connect, exchange experiences, and receive academic training to enrich their knowledge and advance their work.
Glowen Kyei-Mensah has more than 12 years’ experience working with development organisations in Africa. This includes technical expertise as well as experience in programme management, planning, policy advocacy, designing, implementation, monitoring and evaluation. She has worked extensively with civil society and Government on issues of citizen voice and participation.
She has taken a lead in policy engagements at the local, ministerial and parliamentary levels. Her experience includes the use of rights based approaches and participatory methodologies, research, policy advocacy, sustainable livelihoods, participatory monitoring and evaluation, training and facilitation, and organisation development. She holds an MBA from the Edinburgh Business School and is a doctoral candidate of the Heriot-Watt University in Scotland, UK.
Glowen has returned to PDA all fired up to put into practice and share her learnings from the programme. During her time at Stanford, she had the opportunity to network with a diverse group people and organizations which exposed her to ideas and practices that will prove useful to PDA’s work in Ghana. The lectures and training sessions were very practical and gave participants a broader view of democratic and development issues across the world.