Leadership is shaped by power, voice and context. From 22 to 31 March 2026, the University of Cape Town (UCT), through the Healthy Futures South Africa (HFSA) programme [KR1], hosted the third Women in Global Health Leadership Fellowship (WGHLF) Leadership Week.

The week is an immersive training designed to help fellows interrogate fundamental questions shaping health systems and gender equity today: who leads, who decides and who benefits?

A fellowship designed to challenge — and to act

The WGHLF is a collaborative fellowship between UCT, Moi University (Kenya), and the University of Toronto (Canada), implemented under the Africa Health Collaborative (AHC) — a Mastercard Foundation initiative focused on strengthening primary healthcare systems while expanding pathways into meaningful work.

Designed for early- to mid-career women in health systems, the fellowship goes beyond knowledge exchange. Rather than focusing solely on theory, it requires fellows to engage practically in the health systems they work in. Each participant develops a leadership project grounded in a real challenge about gender equity from their own context, from improving patient experience in health facilities to strengthening how systems respond to complex social issues such as gender-based violence and human trafficking.

The Leadership Week serves as a critical moment in this journey — where ideas are tested, challenged and sharpened.

Global health is not neutral

A recurring thread throughout the week was the recognition that global health is not a neutral field. It is shaped by power.

Across sessions, fellows interrogated how knowledge is produced, whose voices are prioritised, and how decisions are made. The conversations surfaced a familiar but often unspoken pattern: that data and lived realities from the Global South are frequently extracted, interpreted elsewhere and returned as solutions — sometimes misaligned, often delayed.

The implication is clear: reimagining global health requires more than better solutions — it requires shifting who defines the problem in the first place.

Leadership in practice

A key highlight of the week was the Leadership Journey series, which centred on the realities of women leading within often gendered systems.

Professor Shose Kessi, dean of the Faculty of Humanities at UCT, offered a reflective perspective shaped by her leadership journey. She challenged fellows to confront how power, identity, and inequality shape leadership spaces. Her provocation was clear: leadership requires critical awareness, not neutrality.

Professor Mashiko Setshedi, head of the Department of Medicine at UCT, grounded the conversation in the realities of clinical and academic leadership — highlighting the complexity of navigating systems while maintaining a commitment to patient-centred care.

Honourable Mireille Wenger, Western Cape Provincial Minister of Health and Wellness, offered a government perspective, reflecting on how leadership is exercised through policy, budgeting, and accountability — and the importance of engaging these spaces to influence change.

Together, these sessions underscored that leadership for women in global health is not only about position but about navigating power, shaping systems and opening pathways for others.

(Pictured: left, Prof Mashiko Setshedi and Prof Maylene Shung-King; centre, Prof Shose Kessi; right, Hon. Mireille Wenger)

What makes WGHLF different

Many leadership programmes build knowledge. Few build practice, accountability and community in the same way.

At the centre of WGHLF is a structured mentorship model, pairing fellows with senior leaders across academia, government and health systems. Through dedicated mentorship training, these relationships are developed intentionally, focusing on trust, listening and critical thinking.

This is what shifts the fellowship from a short-term intervention to a sustained leadership pathway, and the impact of the WGHLF is already visible.

Alumni have gone on to lead initiatives that strengthen patient-centred care pathways and improve health system responsiveness to vulnerable populations, demonstrating that leadership development, when grounded in practice, can translate into tangible system change.

One notable example is Khanyisa Jacobs, a WGHLF alumna who established a men’s health clinic in Khayelitsha as part of her leadership project. The clinic was developed in response to a clear gap: men’s low uptake of primary healthcare services and late presentation for care. The initiative created a dedicated, accessible space for men to seek care — including HIV testing, tuberculosis screening and general health services — at times that accommodate working schedules. Read the full article on the Khayelitsha men’s clinic.

Looking ahead

For the current third cohort, the learning moves into phase three, where they will work on their leadership projects. Through HFSA, UCT’s role in hosting the WGHLF reflects a broader commitment to engaging these questions and to supporting a generation of women leaders equipped to respond to them.