This site was created by the African Leadership Institute (AFLI).
For more than a decade, AFLI has been working with young leaders to empower them, create a network of ethical, like-minded African leaders that can support one another as they seek to create positive change across Africa through it's premiere, flagship programme, the Archbishop Tutu Leadership Fellowship.
In keeping with the philosophy of identifying and empowering young leaders, in 2017, AFLI initiated a project called Project Pakati, that was funded by the Ford Foundation. The initiative sought to harness the collective influence of Africa’s young leaders by building a commmunity in greater numbers that affords young leaders the ability of reaching a critical mass to impact the issues that Africa faces. It set about cataloguing all of the leadership programmes across Africa to establish the scope and scale of leadership programmes on the continent to validate the pool of young leaders. It also provided the capability for AFLI to be able to network all of the alumni of those programmes at NewLeaders.Africa.
Project Pakati also facilitated setting up this site to provide a platform for African-based, youth-based and youth-serving organisations to be more easily found and to find each other for purposes of networking. This site showcases the work being done by youth-led and youth-serving organisations across Africa. The directory assists African NGOs be recognised and found. Because it aggregates these NGOs on a single, searchable platform, it makes it straightforward for donors, funders and the audiences these organisations serve to find them.
This Directory allows organisations to create and update their own profiles. It is set up to be fully searchable to make results more useful. Organisations can be searched for by map, alphabetically, whether they are youth led, youth serving, or both, by country, focus areas, if it is a women's-only NGO, or by typing in a word. There are many young African leaders who have started organisations for the African youth market - the largest demographic segment on the continent - and is is underserved. This directory should make it easier for these organisations to find each other to partner and network. It should also over time become a valuable resource for grant-givers; for NGOs themselves; and for people looking for help.
If you know of an organisation that could benefit from being listed, please ask them to create a directory entry. All the information on how to do so is at the Submit a Youth Organisation Listing page. The directory went live on 20 August 2019.
"Pakati" is a Bantu word – Shona, Ndebele and Zulu - which means the 'centre' and aptly captures the objective of the project which is to make young leaders more visible in this journey.
Funding for Pakati was provided by the Ford Foundation. At the end of the grant, AFLI continued funding of this site. To help sustain this site, please consider supporting AFLI.
