Deadline: September 18, 2025
Applications are open for the WomenLift Health Southern Africa Leadership Journey 2026. The fully funded, 12-month WomenLift Health Southern Africa Leadership Journey is designed to provide talented women leaders in health with the safe space to explore their authentic leadership through vulnerability and reflection, an inclusive and diverse network which fosters a strong sense of belonging, tools and strategies for enhancing their voice, presence, and influence – all the while being supported by a powerful group of peers, mentors, and coaches. The program imparts contextualized tools and frameworks to address the individual, organizational, and societal challenges that women leaders in global health face today.
Participants engage in two in-person experiential learning residencies (Immersion and Lift-Off), in addition to virtual learning touchpoints, virtual group mentoring, virtual one-on-one coaching sessions, and importantly, a self-directed Health Leadership Project – all the while being supported by their Leadership Journey community and experts in the health sector.
Global Fellows – those who successfully complete the Leadership Journey – will be part of a lifelong network of allies at local, regional, and global levels who continue to support each other and new cohort members and advocate for women’s leadership.
Cost
- The program is free for selected participants. All program costs, including travel and lodging, are covered.
Eligibility
You are eligible for consideration if you meet all of the following criteria:
- Identify as a woman
- Mid-Career Leader: has 10-25 years of work experience and/or identifies as someone in mid-career in their institutions
- Are a citizen who resides and works within the following 10 countries: Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, eSwatini, Zambia, and Zimbabwe
- Work in a role that focuses on public health policy, practice, and/or research (your work and partnerships serve populations at the national level in your country of residence or Southern Africa regional level and may include practicing public health in hospitals and health centers, producing research and innovation, creating or implementing policy, and managing teams/departments or projects/grants.)
- Demonstrate fluency and confidence in both written and verbal English communication
They require participants to be living in the CAT (+/-1 hour) time zones for at least 75% of the program as they believe time zone compatibility is essential to your ability to participate at the touchpoints and to engage with your peers within and outside of the sessions. WomenLift Health is committed to selecting diverse cohort members, representing different sectors (public, private, academia, NGO, philanthropy), disciplines, and cultural backgrounds, etc.
Application
- Open Application Period: Application period closes on 18 September, 2026 by 11:59pm CAT
- Notification Period: They will notify applicants of their acceptance status in January 2026.
- Acceptance & Pre-Orientation Period: The 30 accepted candidates will be asked to confirm their participation by February 2026, after which they will begin pre-Journey onboarding.
- Leadership Journey Launch: Orientation commences the week of 4 March, 2026.
For more information, visit WomenLift Health Southern Africa Leadership Journey.
