Dr Marcel Mbamalu: The sole African to represent the continent in the 2023 Jefferson Fellowships

Image supplied. Nigerian publisher and editor, Dr Marcel Mbamalu, has been nominated to participate in the 2023 Jefferson Fellowships

The publisher and editor-in-chief of Prime Business Africa his selection speaks to the rising profile of Prime Business Africa. Dr Mbamalu was also part of the 15-man global team that covered the US 2020 presidential elections, which produced Joe Biden as President.

Mbamalu will join 10 other Fellows selected from news organisations from the USA, Taiwan, and Bangladesh, with two fellows each as well as Fellows from the Philippines, Hong Kong, Pakistan, and Fiji, (one Fellow each).

The Fellowship will run for three weeks from 8 to 28 October, in Hawai, Hong Kong and Japan, starting in Honolulu with expert-led sessions on inequality in the US and the Asia Pacific region.

The Fellowship theme is Inequality in the US and Asia: Drivers, consequences, and policy responses..

The three-week dialogue, reporting, and hybridised travel programme will contextualise and compare widening disparities of income, wealth, and opportunity within the US and Asia.

Understand the distributional consequences

The programme will enable journalists to better understand the distributional consequences of technological change, globalisation, and market reforms, which arguably favour skilled over unskilled labor, capital over labor, and urban and coastal areas over rural areas.

The journalists will also deliberate on the relationship between inequality and access to education, healthcare, financing and credit, housing, and infrastructure.

The discussion will be done in the context of the main drivers of inequality such as gender-related disparities in opportunities as well as racial, ethnic, and nativist discrimination.

The three-week parley will also explore the effects of the politicisation of inequality on the disparities in public trust and the ways in which affected countries are responding.

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Share perspectives from their own countries

The inequality situation in the US will form a test case for the Fellows as inequality has risen to a 50 year high despite low rates of poverty and unemployment.

The important factors in this irony will come into play, for example, the US states worst and least affected by inequality and the impacts of policies, institutions, and demographics in the disparity.

Journalists will additionally share perspectives from their own countries on the drivers, consequences, and policy responses related to inequality through topic papers and presentations.

Site visits in Honolulu will also provide opportunities to observe how growing inequity is affecting one of US’ most racially and ethnically diverse states and how policymakers and grassroots organisations are responding.

The asia region

The Asia region attracts interest in the programme as inequality has also worsened despite remarkable economic growth as typified by Hong Kong seen as “one of the world’s richest and most inequitable cities.

On the positive side of inequality, Japan will be a destination for the Fellows, who will study the country’s example as the “most equitable developed countries due to income and inheritance tax policies.

A substantial grant from The Freeman Foundation

The Jefferson Fellowships are powered by a substantial grant from The Freeman Foundation, which is also boosted by contributions from news organisations, foundations, US Embassies, and the East-West Center.