“Together for a New Africa” Surveying gaps in Leadership ahead of 2023 Training Cycle

“The more the people participate in the study, the more reliable the responses will be,” he told ACI Africa during the May 10 interview. 

More than 400 young people have already responded to the survey that seeks to investigate issues of concern in Africa, including violence and war, corruption, poverty, and relationships between various African nations.

According to Ulz, problems facing African countries are interconnected, “and need interconnected solutions such as co-leadership and the spirit of Ubuntu.”

One “interesting” feature coming from the responses to the survey, Ulz says, and adds, “I am surprised that many young people who have responded to our survey so far say that they love their native countries. Many say that they would like to live here all their lives and go nowhere else. I am surprised because I have always thought that many youths in Africa are always looking for an opportunity to go abroad.”

The survey probes the young people’s involvement in leadership in their communities, their level of satisfaction with their politicians, religious leaders, and civil society organizations, and whether or not they are being given spaces to exercise their leadership potential.

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Over 1,400 young people from 14 African countries have expressed their interest to participate in the T4NA training slated for later this year.

The entity is completing the selection process that will see 140 young people from Angola, Benin, Cameroon, and Ivory Coast enrolled in the program to undergo three training cycles.

Others will be drawn from Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Rwanda, Burundi, Madagascar, Mozambique, Nigeria, and Togo.

Ten participants in each of the 14 countries will be accompanied in the training sessions by three tutors who have graduated in previous T4NA cohorts.

For a period of one week, the successful applicants will be equipped with resources and tools to identify leadership gaps in their communities and find ways of addressing them after the training. 

They will then hold physical meetings in their respective countries, and later, on a date to be communicated, have one big T4NA virtual meeting. 

Agnes Aineah is a Kenyan journalist with a background in digital and newspaper reporting. She holds a Master of Arts in Digital Journalism from the Aga Khan University, Graduate School of Media and Communications and a Bachelor's Degree in Linguistics, Media and Communications from Kenya's Moi University. Agnes currently serves as a journalist for ACI Africa.