ABOUT VANGUARD AFRICA

Founded in 2016, Vanguard Africa represents the synthesis of best practices in campaign management, strategic communications and public advocacy with the mission-driven focus of a pro-democracy organization. In emergent situations we also act as a rapid response platform, quickly activating our networks to highlight arrests and unlawful detentions of pro-democracy leaders in real time in order to raise awareness, keep our partners safe from further abuse, and to quite literally save lives. Our work has been featured in a range of global media outlets including: Newsweek, CNN, Le Monde, World Politics Review, Delayed Gratification Magazine, and Ozy.com.

Testimonials

"When you confront an African dictator, you have chosen a risky path. You need to have a friend to rely on, more so, in times of extreme repression. When I was arrested and tortured by President Yoweri Museveni's guards in August 2018, Vanguard Africa took my plight and made it their own. Since then, they have never stopped supporting the people of Uganda in our struggle for democracy. They have been with us through thin and thick. At every opportunity, they have helped expose Museveni's neverending brutal crackdown on our work. They have become a bridge between us and other freedom fighters across the continent. They have connected us to the world’s most influential leaders and networks. It is difficult to find an organization as dedicated to Africa's redemption as Vanguard Africa. The people of Uganda owe them a debt of gratitude."
-Kyagulanyi Ssentamu Robert (AKA Bobi Wine), Leader of the People Power Movement (Uganda)

“When the world was silent to our suffering, Vanguard Africa was there to shine a light. When others told us our cause was lost, when others ignored our pleas for help, Vanguard Africa was there, always, to extend a hand. Our gratitude and our appreciation is unending." 
-His Excellency Adama Barrow, President of the Republic of The Gambia

"For five decades, my country of Togo has been ruled by a dictatorship. Never have we gotten as much international attention as when Vanguard Africa stepped in to help us amplify our struggle for democracy and justice. We are grateful for the support Vanguard Africa has provided to raise awareness on the grave human rights violations, as well as its massive advocacy efforts to help the people of Togo overcome tyranny and misrule."
-Farida Nabourema, Director of the Togolese Civil League (Togo)

“I would like to genuinely thank Vanguard Africa for the great support to our cause of democracy in Djibouti, where we have been fighting for social change since 1992. Since we started working with Vanguard Africa in 2017, our relations network and our visibility have significantly progressed, especially in the United States. We hope this work continues where it is much needed, in Djibouti and elsewhere in Africa.”
-Daher Ahmed Farah, President of Movement for Democratic Renewal and Development (Djibouti)

"The magic of Vanguard Africa is their deep understanding of the continent today. Their counsel reveals an understanding of the different systems and institutions at play, always placing human rights, freedom of the press and the fight against corruption as the pillars that guide their action. This approach is testimony of their concern for ordinary citizens yearning for a better life."
-Akere Muna, founder of Transparency International-Cameroon and 2018 presidential candidate (Cameroon)

"The corrupt networks that currently comprise the core of many states are deadly. They kill with impunity to accumulate. Occasionally they will threaten someone like me who can make noise and be heard. But mostly, it's the poor who disappear into a broken criminal justice system. This is why Vanguard Africa’s platform and voice are essential.”
-John Githongo, award winning anti-corruption campaigner and CEO of Inuka Kenya Trust (Kenya)

Our ADVISORY COuncil

Dolika Banda has nearly three decades of experience working with globally renowned institutions that operate in emerging markets. Her experience is a combination of banking, development finance and global capital market development, all of which have informed her deep understanding of the balance between building shareholder value, assuring return on investment and responsibility to social welfare. Over the decades she has served in leadership roles with Citibank, Barclays, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), and most recently with the Commonwealth Development Company (CDC Group).  As CDC’s first Africa Regional Director in 2013, Dolika advised on a strategic shift towards direct investments in Africa following decades of an indirect style. As acting mission director for CDC’s Africa private equity fund, Ms. Banda was responsible for new investments of over $200 million per annum with Africa-focused private equity funds. Similarly, as Director at the IFC, Ms. Banda had responsibility for all financial market activities across sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, including a portfolio of over $5 billion. Ms. Banda is also a signatory to the historic founding documents of Zambia's first stock exchange (LUSE). Ms. Banda is primarily based in Zambia, her home country, but works globally in the United States, South Africa and the United Kingdom, among other locations.  She is also a renowned advocate for ethical leadership and good governance, and serves as an independent consultant with a passion to be a gamechanger on the African continent by committing to bring the rigor of risk and financial control management into the private and public sectors.

Dr. Isatou Touray is the current Vice President of The Republic of The Gambia. Prior to being appointed Vice President by democratically elected President Adama Barrow, Dr. Touray served as the Minister of Trade, Regional Integration and Employment and later as Minister of Health and Social Welfare. In the summer of 2016, Dr. Touray became the first woman to run for president in The Gambia’s history and was at the time one of the country’s most respected civic activists with a global reputation of integrity. Later in 2016, Dr. Touray suspended her independent campaign for president, which was supported by Vanguard Africa, joining an ultimately victorious opposition coalition, led by current President Adama Barrow, that defeated longtime dictator Yahya Jammeh, who had brutally ruled the country for over two decades. Prior to her involvement in national politics, Dr. Touray served as the executive director and co-founder of The Gambia Committee on Traditional Practices Affecting the Health of Women and Children (GAMCOTRAP), which led the campaign to ban the practice of FGM in The Gambia. In 2017, Dr. Touray was the recipient of the World Democracy’s Network annual prize for women’s leadership, which was presented in Washington, DC, due to her longtime work to advance social justice and equality, often at great personal peril during the Jammeh dictatorship. Dr. Touray remains a leading voice against gender-based violence, the rule of law, and is a staunch pro-democracy spokesperson within the Gambian government.

John Githongo is the CEO of Inuka, a Kenyan NGO that promotes good governance and anti-corruption. He is a past Chairman of the Africa Institute for Governing with Integrity, the Africa Center for Open Governance (AFRICOG), and served as a Commissioner of the Independent Commission on Aid Impact (ICAI). Previously, he was Kenya’s Permanent Secretary in the Office of the President in charge of governance and ethics. He remains a weekly columnist for the Star newspaper and occasionally writes for international press outlets such as the Guardian. In 2011, Mr. Githongo was selected as one of the world’s 100 most influential Africans by New African magazine and one of the world’s top 100 global thinkers by Foreign Policy. In October 2013 he was awarded the OXI! Award by the Washington Oxi Day Foundation that marks heroism and the defense of freedom. In 2015, he was appointed the Mimi and Peter E. Haas Distinguished Visitor at Stanford University and was awarded the prestigious University of British Columbia Peter A. Allard School of Law Prize for international Integrity. Mr. Githongo is also a Senior Advisor to the Office of the President of South Sudan.

EMERITUS Council

Amadou Janneh is a former Minister of Information and Communication in The Gambia. In 2011 he was sentenced to life in prison for treason after distributing t-shirts with the slogan "End Dictatorship Now." After worldwide protests, including from Amnesty International, Janneh was pardoned and later settled in the United States. As coordinator of Coalition for Change-Gambia (CCG), he continues to be a leading advocate for democracy and human rights in West Africa.

Dapo Olorunyomi is currently publisher and editor-in-chief of the Nigerian multimedia platform, Premium Times. Prior to this, he served as policy director and chief of staff at Nigeria’s anti-corruption agency, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). His work as editor during the years of military dictatorship in Nigeria earned him the 1995 International Editor of the Year Award, presented by World Press Review, the 1996 PEN Center (West) Freedom to Write Award, the 1996 Press Freedom Award from the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) New York and a Hellman Hemmett grant from Human Rights Watch.

Oby Ezekwesili is a Senior Economic Advisor with Africa Economic Development Policy Initiative (AEDPI) where she advises reform-committed African heads of state on economic and policy issues. Mrs. Ezekwesili is also a co-founder of the #BringBackOurGirls citizens’ movement, advocating for the safe rescue of the abducted 219 school girls in northern Nigeria. She has also served in leadership roles at the Open Society Foundation and the World Bank, where she managed an extensive African portfolio. From 2002 to 2007, Mrs. Ezekwesili served in the Nigerian Cabinet as Minister of Education and headed several transparency initiatives. She is a founding director of Transparency International and has extensive international development experience. In 2015, she was named as one of Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World and 50 Most Powerful Africans by New Africa Magazine. Ezekwesili was also named as one of the New York Times’ 2015 Women of Impact.

OUR Washington, D.C. TEAM

Jeffrey Smith (Executive Director) is a pro-democracy campaigner, writer, and consultant who has advised presidents and pro-democracy leaders from more than a dozen African countries. He is also the co-creator of The Resistance Bureau, a monthly program that spotlights the leaders at the forefront of the struggles for democracy and human freedom. Mr. Smith has over a decade of experience building democracy promotion campaigns, including prior leadership positions at the Robert F. Kennedy Center, Freedom House, National Endowment for Democracy, Institute for Democratic Alternatives in South Africa, and UNESCO. He has been honored multiple times for his work, including by the Government of The Gambia as a ‘Champion of Democracy’ — for his role in the years-long campaign to defeat autocrat, Yahya Jammeh, at the ballot box — and was named among the ‘Top 40 Under 40 Professionals’ by the Washington Business Journal. He has planned and conducted assessment missions to a number of African countries, and has organized high-profile delegations — including for African heads of state and Presidents-Elect — to the White House, U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Congress, and various European capitals. He has written extensively on issues pertaining to democracy and U.S. foreign policy for premier international publications, including the Washington Post, Foreign Policy, Foreign Affairs, TIME Magazine, The Atlantic, and Journal of Democracy, among others.. He is often quoted, and his work cited, by major media publications and has provided on-air analysis for the BBC, CNN, MSNBC, NPR, Public Radio International, Voice of America, and Al Jazeera. He is a graduate of the University of Connecticut, where he also received a masters degree in international relations with honors in 2007, and remains active in the campus community, serving on the Board of Overseers at the Gladstein Family Human Rights Institute.

Joe Trippi (Co-Founder) is heralded on the cover of The New Republic as the man who “reinvented campaigning" and has been at the forefront of movement politics for three decades. Mr. Trippi began his political career working on Edward M. Kennedy’s presidential campaign in 1980 and has worked on numerous presidential, gubernatorial, senate, and congressional campaigns in the United State and around the world. In 2008, he helped Morgan Tsvangirai and the Movement for Democratic Change receive the most votes, and helped garner international media attention to Robert Mugabe’s democratic subversion and violence which led to a ‘unity’ government and Tsvangirai becoming Prime Minister of Zimbabwe. He has also led or been a senior advisor on winning presidential campaigns in Nigeria, South Africa, and several other African countries. In 2010, Trippi was a senior strategist and media consultant in Jerry Brown’s successful run for California Governor. Most recently, Trippi helped manage the senate campaign of Doug Jones in Alabama, who became the first democrat to win statewide office in over a decade. He is the author of "The Revolution will not be Televised: Democracy, the Internet and the Overthrow of Everything," which chronicles his revolutionary use of the internet in political campaigning.

Christopher Harvin (Co-Founder) has practiced the arts of public, crisis, political, and corporate communication in more than 100 counties. He is the Managing Partner of GlobalPoint International, a global communications firm providing strategic communications, digital media and government affairs to domestic and international clients. Previously, he was a partner at Sanitas International, an international strategic communications and government affairs firm as well as a partner at Barbaricum, a Service-Disabled, Veteran-Owned Small Business focused on providing strategic communications, cyber security and intelligence solutions. Mr. Harvin has served in the White House multiple times and has held senior advisory positions with the Secretary of Defense, Deputy Secretary of Defense, Secretary of Veterans Affairs, members of Congress, and the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq. He has provided strategic communications, political management, and government affairs counsel to Heads of State, including in Africa, as well as multinational corporations and foreign governments. Additionally, he has served as an advisor on six U.S. presidential campaigns, worked for the White House and Pentagon Transition teams, served on two Presidential Inaugural Committees and has over two decades of experience as a Lead Advance Representative for the President and Vice President of the United States. 

Bruce Fryer (Strategy Adviser) is the founder of Future Pact LLC, which supports government and commercial leaders who are advancing a fair, inclusive, robust, and environmentally-responsible future. Bruce is a media and reputation management expert with global experience, having managed and executed strategic communications campaigns throughout the United States, Africa, Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Before founding Future Pact, Bruce spent over a decade advising business leaders experiencing acute corporate crises — from the reputational fallout following the global financial crisis to data breaches and disaster response. He has a demonstrated an ability to circumvent hostile media markets and tell stories that otherwise might go unnoticed. A trained open-source analyst, Bruce combines research and a background in human psychology to develop messaging that moves stakeholders to action. He has secured interviews and placed opinion pieces in nearly every major media outlet today, including The Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Newsweek, CNN’s Amanpour, and Foreign Policy.