A fellowship program created to nurture a new generation of African leaders will be renamed after Nelson Mandela, according to a statement released by the White House on Sunday.

Obama discussed the fellowship program when he went to South Africa in 2013. The U.S. president said he wanted present and future leaders to participate "in figuring out how we can best work together."

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During the fellowship, 500 future leaders from sub-Saharan Africa will be trained in top U.S. universities and will be introduced to different American society members, businessmen and government officials.

The U.S. president will announce the renaming of the program during a meeting on Monday, in front of guests who were present during the opening of the fellowship that is currently named Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders.

Obama will also announce on Monday the construction of four new "Leadership Centers" in Africa, as well as several new private-public partnerships in the continent.

The fellowship program is part the Young African Leaders Initiative, a project launched by the U.S. president in 2010.

The week's events with the future leaders of Africa will serve as the introduction for the opening of the U.S-Africa Leaders summit which will be held in Washington on Aug. 4 to 6. The summit is reportedly going to be the largest gathering of African heads of state in the U.S., with around 50 African leaders attending.

Nelson Mandela spent 27 years in prison under apartheid and went on to serve as the first black president of South Africa from 1994 to 1999.

Mandela's greatest gift was "his recognition that we are all bound together in ways that are invisible to the eye; that there is a oneness to humanity; that we achieve ourselves by sharing ourselves with others, and caring for those around us," Obama said.

TagsU.S. President Barack Obama, Nelson Mandela, Africa