Foundation empowers emerging African leaders with skills

The PMI Educational Foundation (PMIEF) has equipped over 1,700 young African leaders with project management skills through its partnership with the African Leadership Academy (ALA).

The foundation recently donated a multi-million rand grant to expand on its partnership with the academy, which seeks to introduce students to project management through the build-in-a-box curriculum.

Ashley Forsyth, executive director at PMIEF said the foundation have equipped over 1000 young African leaders and are excited to partner with ALA in training potential leaders in the continent.

“By partnering with ALA, we have equipped over 1,700 emerging African leaders with project management skills in the recent year and are excited about continuing our relationship.

Through ALA, we will work to transform Africa by developing a powerful network of young leaders who will work together to address Africa’s greatest challenges, achieve extraordinary social impact, and accelerate the continent’s growth trajectory.

“We’re truly excited to collaborate with such an exemplary and impactful organisation,” Forsyth said.

George Asamani, managing director at PMIEF Sub Saharan Africa quoting Henry Ford, in his speech, said,” A country’s competitiveness starts not on the factory floor or the engineering lab.

It starts in the classroom. Passion, attitude, and character are one side of the enterprise coin, and having a program that sharpens the leadership and project management skills required to become entrepreneurs definitely helps and yields better results.

The programme is well-integrated with the industry, and PMI South Africa chapter volunteers often provide the required support and participate with students in their projects and serve as mentors.”

In addition Asamani said, “The programme’s approach is well aligned to this year’s World Youth Skills Day theme – skilling teachers, trainers, and youth for a transformative future. Entrepreneurship has been a driver of global economic growth, and Africa should be no different.”

Students enrolled in ALA’s flagship Two Year Programme have led and facilitated over 60 build-in-box camps for over 2000 of their peers in cities like Lagos, Nairobi, Accra, Harare, Bamenda, Kinshasa, and Port Elizabeth.

Read also: China, Africa partner on innovation, entrepreneurship to drive youth development

Projections by the United Nations show that the world population will hit 10 billion by 2055. Approximately 95 percent of this growth will occur in low and middle-income countries.

In particular, the population of sub-Saharan Africa is projected to double by 2050. As of 2022, 40 percent of Africa’s population was under 15, making it the youngest continent.

According to the African Development Bank (ADB), the continent sees some 12 million students graduate each year and compete for three million jobs – resulting in sub-Saharan African youth becoming entrepreneurs by necessity and not by choice.

ALA’s strategy is to train its students in entrepreneurship and project management and enable them to go into communities to train more young people to run and manage businesses.

Successful start-ups will create much-needed employment and contribute to the GDP.

The ADB report indicates 22 percent of Africa’s working-age population is starting businesses. This is the highest entrepreneurship rate in the world. The entrepreneurial rate ranges from 9 percent in Algeria to about 40 percent in Nigeria and Zambia.

Furthermore, research from Accenture indicates that 79 percent of executives agree that the future of work will be based more on specific projects than roles, so young people with the know-how to manage projects successfully will be best positioned to excel in their future careers.

Working with PMIEF, ALA is able to integrate project management skills into their STEM, entrepreneurial, or social impact programming and curricula so that the young people participating can apply these newfound skills to be more successful.

In the long term, knowledge of project management skills is vital to creating more strategic and collaborative professional future partners and leaders.

The Class of 2023 has 126 students, more than half female, and drawn from 38 countries enrolled in the 2-year diploma. In the traditional sense, the diploma replaces Grades 11 and 12.

ALA combines a world-class faculty and unique instructional methods to create a robust student-centered curriculum that is designed to equip the youth with knowledge and inspiration to act as agents of change on the continent.

ALA is an accredited Cambridge International Examinations (CIE) test center, the world’s most popular international examination for high school students and A-Levels and is widely accepted as proof of academic preparedness for entry into universities.

PMIEF announced more than R92 million worth of global grants this year to help youth-focused non-profits shape the next generation of leaders. These grants will enable recipient organisations to bring project management skills to an additional 2.1 million youth in 2023.