The awards will be selected based on performance criteria set out below. Gender, religious affiliations, country of origin and age will not be primary considerations in the selection process although they will be secondary considerations at a certain stage along the awards selection process to ensure inclusiveness.

However there are certain eligibility criteria applicable for nominees

The following categories of individuals are eligible to be nominated for awards under the scheme:

• Indigenous Africans domiciled on the continent;
• Indigenous Africans temporarily or partly domiciled outside the continent;
• Foreign nationals domiciled and professionally active in the continent.

THE SELECTION PROCESS

The section of award winners will be done through a comprehensive process that ensures the integrity of the awards selection process and consequently the credibility of the awards themselves. The selection process will comprise of the following stages;

1) Nominations will be invited from the public all across the continent;

2) The nominations will be received and any clarifications and/or adjustments to the format used by, or on behalf of nominees will be sought by the organizers and presented by the nominees or their agents;

3) Nominations will be examined to ensure that they meet the eligibility criteria;

4) The contents of nominations that meet the eligibility criteria will then be authenticated by our contracted team of researchers to confirm claims made in the nominations;

5) A specially constituted team of Award Consultants will then assess each nomination against the performance criteria (see below) established by the organizers using a quantitative performance assessment model designed specifically for this awards scheme ;

6) The 20 nominations in each delineated sector that score the highest will then be assessed along the lines of country of origin/domicile, gender and age. This to ensure wide levels of inclusiveness with regards those considerations. From this process 10 nominations will be short listed in each delineated sector of socio-economic activity;

7) The short list of 10 nominations from each sector of activity will then be forwarded to the Awards Jury for consideration.

8) The Awards Jury will then meet virtually over several sessions to consider each shortlisted nominee. Where a member is unable to join meetings either for technical reasons or for reason of unavailability due to acceptable cause, that member will forward his or her inputs into the considerations to the meetings of the Jury;

9) Finally the Awards Jury will determine the actual winners and the first and second runners up, by consensus or where non can be reached by two-thirds majority votes by members.