The U.S. Department of State and IREX seek academic, professional, and regional experts to read and score applications for the 2022 Mandela Washington Fellowship.  Over the first seven years of the Fellowship, the program received nearly 300,000 applications from 49 Sub-Saharan African countries for 5,100 Fellow slots.  Your talents and expertise in helping score our high volume of applications are greatly appreciated!

Responsibilities and Reading Period

Readers will be responsible for evaluating program applicants based on set guidelines and a scoring rubric.  Readers will each read approximately 40 applications and may receive a one-time, $100 honorarium for their service.  Please note that Fellowship Alumni and U.S. Government employees and contractors are not eligible to receive an honorarium.  Only readers who have a U.S. bank account are eligible to receive an honorarium; the program is unable to send international wire payments for honoraria.

The reading period will begin on September 16, 2021, and comprises up to three separate reading phases, each lasting approximately two weeks, from mid-September through early November.  Selected readers will be assigned to one of the reading phases to review about 40 applications.  Each application takes about 10-15 minutes to read and score; the total time commitment is estimated at 10 hours.

Eligibility

Ideal readers are academics and/or professionals with expertise in one or more of the Fellowship’s thematic areas (business, civic engagement, or public management), have experience working in Africa, or experience working on Sub-Saharan African issues. U.S. Government employees and Fellowship Alumni are eligible; however, they may not receive honoraria (please see above section for more details).

If you are interested in serving as a reader, please complete the application form as soon as possible.  Submit the application form by September 1, 2021, to be eligible for the reading pool starting from the first phase.  We will confirm via email whether you are selected to be a reader before the Fellowship application closes on September 15, 2021.

Questions?

Please contact the Fellowship Team at MWFReaders@irex.org with any questions.