Mastercard Foundation has been on the fore front of advancing opportunities for African youth, transforming Families and communities in selected countries across Africa. In 2018, the Foundation launched the Young Africa Works strategy in Kigali, Rwanda, and set an ambitious target of enabling 30 million young people, particularly young women, to secure dignified and meaningful work by 2030.
On this episode of APF Podcast Series, our guest was Reeta Roy, President and CEO of Mastercard Foundation and she shared insights on the Foundation’s strategy in empowering and up-skilling of youths in Seven African countries through the Young Africa Works program.
Besides the Young Africa Works program, she also highlighted other initiatives deployed which has enabled the Foundation’s success in its operating environment as well as hurdles and eventual impacts made by the various initiatives.
Reeta Roy
As President and CEO of the Mastercard Foundation, Reeta leads one of the largest private foundations in the world. At heart, she is an optimist who believes that everyone deserves an opportunity to learn and prosper.
That is Reeta's own story. Her mother mortgaged their sole asset—a small home in Malaysia—enabling Reeta to pursue her education in the United States and build a successful career. That career began in the United Nations before transitioning to the private sector, where it culminated in her role as Divisional Vice President of Global Citizenship and Policy at Abbott and Vice President of the Abbott Fund, its corporate foundation.
Today, Reeta is making her mother's investment in her education count by scaling opportunity for others. For over a decade, she has quietly and collaboratively steered the Mastercard Foundation to invest its considerable resources in one region – Africa–while also supporting young Indigenous Canadians. Under her leadership, the Foundation has charted a bold path: deploying over $6 billion to expand access to education, deepen financial inclusion, and respond to the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects. For example, the Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program has become one of the largest education and leadership development initiatives of its kind, having already enabled over 40,000 young people in Africa to pursue their secondary or higher education, and is on track to impact a total of 100,000 young people by 2030. More recently, the Foundation launched a $1.5 billion partnership with the Africa CDC to drive COVID-19 vaccination across Africa and address systemic inequities in public health. Collectively, the Foundation's programs and partnerships have improved the lives of 135 million people. What distinguishes the Foundation is not just the scale of its work but the way that it works—taking a values and trust-based approach to partnering with others by listening and co-creating solutions, with a laser-focus on impact.
For more information about our podcast series, please contact us at apf@africanpf.org with "APF Podcast Series" as the subject of your email.
