FAQs: Mastercard Foundation’s Endowment for Educational Excellence at Ashesi University Foundation Canada

What is the Mastercard Foundation Endowment for Educational Excellence?

The Mastercard Foundation Endowment for Educational Excellence is a partnership between the Mastercard Foundation and the Ashesi University Foundation Canada designed to enable world-class, inclusive higher education in Africa while driving innovation and entrepreneurship on the continent.

The endowment with the Ashesi University Foundation Canada will help:

• Support the growth of an Ashesi-led Education Collaborative, which will bring together over 100 higher education institutions to exchange insights, increase their impact, and improve education outcomes for more than 1 million students by 2030.
• Enable the continuity of the Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program at Ashesi University, supporting 1,500 new scholarships at Ashesi each decade in perpetuity, ensuring that Ashesi is accessible to a diverse group of students.
• Amplify African youth entrepreneurship by enabling 400 students and alumni of Ashesi to start or scale businesses in Africa every decade in perpetuity.

How will the endowment fund be managed?

Ashesi University Foundation Canada will manage the Mastercard Foundation Endowment for Educational Excellence. Ashesi University Foundation Canada is a registered Canadian charity. It is part of the Ashesi ecosystem, whose mission is to educate ethical, entrepreneurial leaders in Africa; and to cultivate within students critical thinking skills, concern for others, and the courage it will take to transform the continent.  

What inspired the Mastercard Foundation Endowment for Educational Excellence?

The partnership with the Ashesi University Foundation Canada builds on a decade of collaborating for impact between the Mastercard Foundation and the Ashesi community. This began in 2012 with the Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program—an education and leadership development initiative that supports talented young people, primarily in Africa, who face economic and social barriers to learning but share a deep commitment to service.

Ashesi and Mastercard Foundation are building on that foundation to reach even more young people by strengthening higher education institutions across Africa, enabling Ashesi to provide more scholarships that make higher education accessible to diverse young people, and accelerating youth entrepreneurship.

What is the history of Mastercard Foundation’s relationship with Ashesi University?

The Mastercard Foundation first partnered with Ashesi University in 2012 when the University became one of the inaugural partners of the Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program – an education and leadership development initiative that supports talented young people, primarily in Africa, who face economic and social barriers to learning but share a deep commitment to service. The Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program is intentional about reaching young women, forcibly displaced youth, and young people with disabilities.

The Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program at Ashesi University has enrolled over 600 young Africans since its inception, 375 of whom have graduated with the majority being young women. Through this partnership, the Mastercard Foundation has also enabled:

• A high school robotics, engineering, creative arts, and entrepreneurship program that has reached nearly 1,000 high school students;
• An entrepreneurship program in Ghana, administered in partnership with Solidaridad, that reached 1,000 people in cocoa-growing regions and led to the creation of 400 new businesses; and
• The Ashesi Education Collaborative, which has impacted learning outcomes for 149,000 students, across 23 partner universities.

Read more about the partnership here.