Who We Are
RIYAADA Institute for Leadership & Governance is a professional, standards-based academy founded to address one of the most persistent challenges in fragile states: the gap between leadership intent and institutional performance.
Headquartered in Mogadishu, RIYADA serves leaders across Somalia, the Horn of Africa, and similar high-uncertainty contexts. Our work spans public administration, health systems, emergency preparedness, governance reform, and evidence-based decision-making.
RIYAADA is a premier institution dedicated to cultivating leaders who transform fragile and complex systems into resilient, accountable, and high-performing institutions.
OUR PHILOSOPHY
RIYADA is built on four integrated pillars:
1. Systems Thinking as a Leadership Discipline
Leaders are trained to understand interdependencies across governance, health, finance, data, and emergency systems.
2. Applied Professional Mastery
Each programme is grounded in real institutional challenges and produces real institutional tools.
3. Ethical Leadership & Public Purpose
Integrity, accountability, and legitimacy are treated as core leadership competencies.
4. Competence Through Practice and Reflection
Simulations, diagnostics, and capstones are central—not optional.
Mandate: Leadership & Transformation
RIYAADA stands as a premier institution dedicated to shaping leaders who can drive transformation in fragile and complex systems. Its overarching mandate is to convert leadership intent into institutional capacity, ensuring that public institutions, governance structures, and national systems are not only visionary but also accountable and resilient.
Core Purpose
RIYAADA exists to cultivate leaders who can:
Lead with integrity and clarity of purpose
Govern with evidence, standards, and systems-thinking
Innovate for transformation, embedding sustainable change into institutions
Through an integrated approach, RIYAADA moves beyond sector-specific training to focus on the architecture of leadership and governance that underpins all successful systems.
Mission, Vision & Values
Mission
To be a continental reference institute for leadership, governance, and institutional transformation where every graduate leaves not with a certificate alone, but with the ability to redesign, strengthen, and sustain the systems they serve. To equip public-sector and health leaders with the capabilities, tools, and integrity systems required to design, deliver, and continuously improve institutions that communities can trust.
Vision
Our mission is to transform leadership intentions into institutional capacity.
Institutions in fragile settings led with purpose, governed with accountability, and managed through evidence—consistently delivering safer, better, and fairer outcomes.
Leadership & Academic Governance
RIYAADA is led by a team of health systems, governance and education specialists with deep experience in Somalia and the wider region. Academic quality is overseen by an Academic Council and supported by joint governance structures with partner institutions such as NOVA Institute.
Dr. Abdulrazaq Yusuf Ahmed -Founder & Chairman
MBChB, MD, MPH, MSc(HM), PhD(Healthcare Economics), PhD(Demography & Social Sciences), FRSPH, FRSTMH, FeSMA | Executive Director of The National Health Insurance Authority
Mohamed Jafar Ali
BSN, MSc. HSM, MPH | Director General of Forlanini Hospital; National Public Referral & Teaching Hospital, Ministry of Health & Human Services, Federal Government of Somalia.
Mohamed Yusuf Ahmed - Administration, Logistics & Office Operations Officer
Programs and Institute Operations
Falis Yusuf Hassan - Marketing & Communication
Master | Supply Chain Unit MNE section Coordinator
Ahmed Mukhtar Ahmed - Program Coordination & Institutional Partnerships Officer
Programs and Institute Operations