Eisenhower Fellowships (EF), a US-based organization, has selected Sulemana Braimah, the executive director of the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), as the recipient of the Eisenhower Fellows' Impact Award for 2023.
In recognition of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, the 34th President of the United States, and his contributions to mankind as a soldier, politician, and global leader, Eisenhower Fellowships were founded in 1953.
The Fourth Estate at the MFWA, Ghana's first independent, non-profit, public-interest accountability journalism initiative, was founded and operationalized by Braimah as a result of this prize.
The award letter from EF President George de Lama said, "I want to congratulate you on your selection as the recipient of the 2023 Eisenhower Fellowships' Impact Award.
"In a field filled with very competitive projects, a distinguished panel of Trustees, Fellows, outside experts, and top EF staff chose your idea as the winner. The Fourth Estate Investigative Journalism Project has created a wide-ranging impact, including encouraging openness and good governance, safeguarding public health, and pursuing criminals, according to The Panel, which emphasized that it is closely connected to your Fellowship Program in the award letter.
Former US Secretary of Defense and EF Chairman Robert M. Gates will present Sulemana Braimah with the honor at the 70th anniversary World Forum of EF in San Francisco.
He will get US$10,000 as part of the prize to help with the work of the Fourth Estate initiative.
Please accept my best wishes on behalf of the EF Board of Trustees as you pursue this prestigious accolade. Your initiative embodies EF's goal of making the world more tranquil, affluent, and just. Later this year, we hope to recognize your contributions in front of the whole EF community, according to the award letter.
Sulemana Braimah was selected as an Eisenhower Global Fellow in 2019 along with 21 other ambitious leaders from around the globe. He made the decision to launch an independent, non-profit, public-interest journalism initiative at the MFWA as his fellowship project.
He said that one of the most important stages in addressing the lack of trustworthy, critical, independent public-interest journalism in Ghana and throughout West Africa was the formation of such a newsroom.
As an Eisenhower Global Fellow, Sulemana traveled to numerous US cities and nine different states from March 27 to May 9, 2019 to meet with leading media academics, journalists, and think tanks in order to discuss the project and gather feedback.
Notably, he visited these cities and met editors and reporters from the Philadelphia Enquirer, the Chicago Tribune, the Seattle Times, Propublica, Bloomberg News, and the Tampa Bay Times in Tampa, Florida.
He went and spoke with top officials at the Lanfest Institute in Philadelphia, the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Florida, the Nieman Center at Harvard University, and the Knight Science Journalism Center.
Along with seeing and speaking with journalism professors from the Universities of Pennsylvania, Columbia, Boston, and Sandford,
Sulemana visited the offices of Facebook (now Meta) and Google and spoke with prominent executives, including Richard Gingras, Google's Vice President of News, to investigate the impact of big tech on online journalism.
By the time he had completed his fellowship, he had solidified the concept of the fellowship project and was sure that it was both doable and sustainable. When he returned to Ghana, he began conversations with colleagues and other professionals and actively raised money for the project. The COVID-19 epidemic prevented the project from starting in 2020 as scheduled.
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