Apply Now: Green RISE West Africa Fellowship for Women
If you are an entrepreneur in West Africa working on climate solutions and creating opportunities for young people and women, there is a powerful fellowship program you absolutely need to know about right now. The Green RISE West Africa Fellowship 2026, delivered by Acumen Academy in partnership with the Mastercard Foundation, is now accepting applications, and the deadline is coming up fast.
This is not just another leadership program. It is a carefully designed, six-month hybrid experience built specifically for people who are running green businesses and are serious about taking their impact, their enterprise, and themselves to the next level. Whether you are working in renewable energy, sustainable agriculture, green job creation, or any other climate-aligned sector, this fellowship was built with you in mind.
In this article, we will walk you through everything you need to know about the Green RISE West Africa Fellowship 2026, including what it is, who can apply, what the program looks like, what you will gain, and how to submit your application before the deadline.
What Is the Green RISE West Africa Fellowship 2026?
The name GREEN RISE stands for Resilient Impact through Sustainable Entrepreneurship. That acronym tells you almost everything about the spirit of this program. It is about building green enterprises that can withstand pressure, grow sustainably, and create real impact for communities that have been left behind by traditional economic systems.
The fellowship is delivered by Acumen Canada, together with Acumen Fund, Inc. and its affiliates, commonly known as Acumen. The program runs in partnership with the Mastercard Foundation, one of the largest private foundations in the world, with a mission centered on enabling young people in Africa to access dignified and fulfilling work.
The Green RISE West Africa Fellowship is specifically designed for entrepreneurs operating in five West African countries: Nigeria, Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and The Gambia. These entrepreneurs must be driving climate solutions and working to solve problems of poverty by creating green job opportunities for young rural women and youth.
The program runs for six months in a hybrid format, meaning fellows remain in their current jobs and businesses while participating in a structured combination of virtual sessions, in-person immersives, and self-paced learning. The time commitment is approximately ten hours per month, making it manageable alongside your existing professional responsibilities.
About the Organizers: Acumen and Mastercard Foundation
To understand the value of this fellowship, it helps to know who is behind it. Acumen is a globally respected nonprofit impact investment firm that has spent over two decades investing in social entrepreneurs across Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Acumen Academy, its leadership development arm, identifies and prepares mission-driven entrepreneurs with both the hard skills needed to build scalable solutions to poverty and the deeper skills of moral leadership required to reimagine a better world.
Acumen’s alumni community, known as The Foundry, has impacted more than 70 million lives across 71 countries. When you complete the Green RISE West Africa Fellowship, you join this community, which means the benefits of this program extend far beyond the six-month experience itself.
The Mastercard Foundation is the co-investor in this program. The Foundation focuses on creating pathways to dignified and fulfilling work for young people in Africa. Its partnership with Acumen on the Green RISE Africa program is a direct investment in building the green economy across the continent through strong, purpose-driven leadership.
Who Is This Fellowship For?
The Green RISE West Africa Fellowship is for entrepreneurs who fit a very specific profile. Acumen describes the ideal fellow as someone who is ready to take both themselves and their impact to the next level. But let us break that down into concrete terms so you can see whether this program is the right fit for you.
First, you need to be based and operating in one of the five eligible West African countries: Nigeria, Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone, or The Gambia. This is a non-negotiable geographic requirement.
Second, you need to be leading a green enterprise. Your business or organization should provide a green-focused product or service. This could include renewable energy, sustainable agriculture, eco-friendly manufacturing, environmental services, climate-resilient food systems, or any other business that contributes to a more sustainable and inclusive green economy.
Third, your enterprise should be creating work opportunities for young rural women and youth, specifically those below the age of 35. Work opportunities can include full-time employment, part-time or seasonal work, or income-generating opportunities for micro-entrepreneurs or nano-entrepreneurs within your value chain.
Fourth, your enterprise needs to show real traction. You should have a minimum of five full-time employees and demonstrable growth or impact over the last twelve months. You also need at least five years of professional experience and a clear record of commitment to solving issues of poverty.
Beyond the practical criteria, Acumen is looking for people who believe, deeply and genuinely, that the opposite of poverty is not wealth but dignity. If your enterprise is built on that belief, if you treat people in your value chain as capable, worthy, and deserving of respect, then you are exactly who this fellowship is looking for.
What Will You Learn and Experience?
The curriculum of the Green RISE West Africa Fellowship is unlike most business training programs. It is not a standard MBA module or a generic entrepreneurship course. It is a leadership development experience built around what Acumen calls moral imagination, which is the mindset, the values, and the behaviors that lead to long-term, transformational change in organizations and communities.
Here are the core learning areas that fellows will move through during the six-month program.
Moral Leadership and Self-Awareness
Fellows work on developing a deeper understanding of themselves as leaders. This includes strengthening self-awareness, learning how to lead teams with integrity, and developing the capacity to navigate competing values and priorities without losing sight of the mission. This is not soft content. It is the foundation that makes every other leadership skill more effective and more durable.
Adaptive Leadership
Green businesses operating in West Africa face complex, fast-moving environments. The fellowship teaches adaptive leadership, which is the ability to understand your stakeholders, map their needs, and navigate uncertainty in ways that catalyze positive change. This skill is especially relevant for climate entrepreneurs who are often working at the intersection of government policy, community needs, and market realities.
Storytelling for Impact
One of the most underrated skills for any entrepreneur is the ability to tell a compelling story. The fellowship dedicates specific attention to storytelling, helping fellows learn how to communicate their vision in ways that inspire others to take action. Whether you are trying to attract climate finance, form partnerships, or motivate your team, the ability to tell your story well is critical. The program helps you build that capacity with real tools and practice.
Inclusive Impact Strategies
This is where the fellowship gets deeply practical. Fellows learn how to grow the number of dignified and sustainable green-sector job opportunities across their value chains, with a specific focus on women and youth in underserved and marginalized communities. You will learn to design business models that create inclusive green jobs and deliver long-term social and environmental impact at the same time.
Polarity Management
Running a business that is trying to do good in the world often means navigating tensions between competing priorities. Growth versus impact. Short-term revenue versus long-term sustainability. Individual profit versus community benefit. Polarity management gives fellows the tools to hold these tensions productively and help their teams do the same.
Good Society Readings and Dialogue
Fellows also engage with texts that explore the historical and present-day challenges and opportunities around climate justice and economic inclusion in African contexts. These readings are meant to deepen the commitment to moral leadership and ground the fellowship experience in the realities of the continent.
What Does the Program Structure Look Like?
The six-month hybrid structure is designed to be rigorous but manageable. Fellows stay in their current roles and commit approximately ten hours per month to the program. Here is how the program is organized from start to finish.
The program begins with a three-day virtual orientation where fellows meet each other, get introduced to the curriculum, and begin building the peer relationships that will carry them through the entire experience. This is followed by a two-day virtual workshop that goes deeper into the program themes and tools.
Fellows then participate in two five-day, full-time in-person immersives. These are the most intensive parts of the fellowship, designed as deep-dive experiences where fellows step away from their day-to-day responsibilities to focus entirely on learning, reflection, and connection with their cohort. For the West Africa track, one of the in-person immersives will be held in Nigeria. There are also eight hours of assignments associated with each immersive, including self-paced learning and group calls.
Throughout the six months, fellows also attend three Learning Labs, each four hours long with accompanying assignments. These labs go deep into specific topics and allow fellows to apply what they are learning directly to their own enterprises. Monthly virtual cohort sessions bring the group together for peer learning and connection, with attendance required at specific dates and times. Fellows also receive one-on-one support calls with the program team throughout the fellowship, ensuring that every participant has personalized guidance and accountability.
What Do You Get as a Fellow?
The Green RISE West Africa Fellowship provides a genuinely comprehensive set of benefits, and it is worth laying them all out clearly so you understand the full scope of what you are signing up for.
First and most importantly, the program is fully funded. That means there is no cost to participate. Acumen and the Mastercard Foundation cover the cost of the leadership program, the virtual sessions, and the in-person immersives, including logistics for those events.
Beyond the program itself, fellows gain access to Acumen’s global alumni community, The Foundry. With more than 2,000 members across 71 countries, this is one of the most powerful networks of social entrepreneurs and impact leaders in the world. For the first six months after graduation, fellows are expected to contribute approximately ten hours per month to this community of practice, learning from peers, sharing practical experience, and continuing to strengthen their solutions.
Fellows may also gain access to opportunities that can help catalyze youth-in-work initiatives, including the potential for project funding to deepen impact through Angels Green RISE Africa. This is not guaranteed for every fellow, but it is a real possibility that the program creates for participants who are driving strong results.
Fellows who complete the program and demonstrate growth potential may also be considered for the Green RISE Africa Accelerator, a separate ten-month program designed for early-stage green enterprises ready to scale. The Accelerator combines virtual and in-person cohort learning with one-on-one business development programming and funding for impact projects focused on inclusive job creation.
Why This Fellowship Matters Right Now
West Africa is sitting at a critical moment in its economic and environmental story. The climate crisis is not a future problem in this region. It is a present reality that is already affecting farming communities, coastal populations, urban water systems, and the livelihoods of millions of young people and women who are among the most vulnerable.
At the same time, there is an enormous and growing opportunity in the green economy. Renewable energy, sustainable food systems, eco-friendly manufacturing, and climate-resilient infrastructure are not just good for the environment. They are job-creating sectors that can absorb millions of young Africans into dignified, stable work if the right leaders are in place to build those enterprises well.
The Green RISE West Africa Fellowship is making a direct bet on those leaders. By investing in entrepreneurs who are already building green businesses and creating green jobs, Acumen and the Mastercard Foundation are helping to build the ecosystem of talent and enterprise that West Africa needs to navigate the green transition in a way that is inclusive and equitable.
If you are one of those entrepreneurs, this fellowship is an investment in you, and everything you are building.
Application Deadline and Key Dates
Applications for the Green RISE West Africa Fellowship 2026 are currently open. The application deadline is May 11, 2026. The program itself is expected to begin in July 2026. Given that the deadline is just weeks away, if you are thinking about applying, now is the time to move.
Acumen recommends attending an information session before applying. These sessions give prospective applicants a chance to learn more about the program, ask questions about the application process, and get a clearer sense of whether the fellowship is the right fit for them.
How to Apply for the Green RISE West Africa Fellowship 2026
The application process is designed to identify high-potential, mission-driven leaders. Acumen is looking for entrepreneurs who can demonstrate real enterprise impact, a clear commitment to social and environmental goals, and the kind of leadership readiness that will allow them to make the most of the fellowship experience.
When you apply, be prepared to speak clearly about your enterprise, the green-sector work you are doing, the job opportunities you are creating for women and youth, and your vision for how your business can grow. Be honest and specific. Acumen is not looking for polished rhetoric. They are looking for authentic leaders who are genuinely committed to the work.
To submit your application, visit the official Acumen Academy fellowship page using the link below. Make sure to select the West Africa track when applying, since there is also a separate East Africa track running in parallel.
Apply Now for the Green RISE West Africa Fellowship 2026 on the Official Acumen Academy Website
Final Thoughts
The Green RISE West Africa Fellowship 2026 is one of the most significant opportunities available right now for entrepreneurs in Nigeria, Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and The Gambia who are building businesses in the green economy. It is fully funded, deeply practical, and backed by two of the most credible institutions working on climate and poverty in Africa today.
If you are running a green enterprise and creating jobs for women and youth in West Africa, this fellowship is built for you. Do not let the May 11, 2026 deadline pass without putting in your application.
Take the step. The work you are doing matters, and the right support can help you do it at a much larger scale.
Click Here to Apply for the Green RISE West Africa Fellowship 2026 Before the Deadline
