GLAC Africa
As the African community of the Global Leadership Academy (GLAC Africa) we belong to a global network of professionals. Our members are characterized by their strong local knowledge, technical grounding and experience in Africa. We are committed to unlock Africa’s immense potential and contribute to the development and growth of the continent while building a generation of conscious Africans who will raise the bar in their work and environment.
166
People
26
Countries
Benin, Botswana, Burundi, Cameroon, Congo DR, Cote D'Ivoire, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritania, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, The Gambia, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe
Leadership and core group
Under the leadership of our first ambassador Allen Asiimwe a strong foundation was laid to form GLAC Africa as a regional community within the global GLAC Network, mobilize participation and aim to drive GLAC Africa’s agenda within Africa and globally. The GLAC ambassador role started out as a solo one that did not have the option of a technical advisory support structure. One key lesson we took forward is that such an ambassadorial role requires collective support and must be set up with a support structure such as a working/advisory/technical group.
Fabrice Muchiga
Fabrice Muchiga
Mr Fabrice Muchiga is the current GLAC regional ambassador for Africa. Fabrice is one of our members who joined the network via the Global Diplomacy Lab. He takes care of 166 regional members from 28 countries. Fabrice also organizes GLAC Africa's central dialogue format Rethinking Africa Convening (RAC).
Fabrice is a leadership, education policy and social innovation enthusiast, with exceptional communication and advocacy skills who believes in making a difference and in the power of groups of people to find solutions to the most pressing issues in their communities through collaboration and innovation. He works as a country representative for ASHOKA in the DR Congo, coordinates the Robert Bosch Alumni Network in East Africa and has joined the Training for International Diplomats programme.
Allen Sophia Asiimwe
Allen Sophia Asiimwe
Ms Allen Asiimwe served as the regional ambassador for GLAC Africa up to 2020. Allen joined GLAC as a member of the Transformation Thinkers network and successfully participated in the Power of Diversity Lab as well as the Impact Lab. She is a Ugandan advocate with over 20 years’ experience as a policy advisor and development practitioner. She is passionate about shaping Africa’s narrative on governance, trade, regional integration and development issues and empowering women to lead. She has worked with governments, the private sector, civil society and donors and founded AVID Development, a regional consulting firm working on key issues of trade, development and governance in Africa. Allen is passionate about women’s rights and chaired the Board of FIDA Uganda (Association of Uganda Women Lawyers). She sits on the board of The Water Trust an international NGO that provides clean water and sanitation to communities in East Africa. In 2016, she co- founded the Girls4Girls Global Mentoring Initiative.
Patrick Mpedzisi
Patrick Mpedzisi
Mr Patrick Mpedzisi is one of our members who joined the network via the Global Diplomacy Lab. Patrick is one of the organizers of our Community of Practice on the Demographic Transition in Africa. He is an organisational development consultant with over 20 years’ experience being located at different times in Kenya, Zimbabwe and South Africa. During this time, he managed to open various processes for civil society organisations in Africa to engage regional processes including the African Union, African Peer Review Mechanism, Pan African Parliament, etc. He has managed major civil society projects, led regional campaigns and built civil society capacities across the continent. He has moderated high level dialogues at intergovernmental levels (AU, SADC, UN), Business platforms and parliamentary (inter as well as intra) processes. He is a co-founder of Nahari Africa.
Elizabeth Maloba
Elizabeth Maloba
Ms Elizabeth Maloba joined the GLAC Network successfully participating in the Power of Diversity Lab. She later co-designed and facilitated the Solutions Lab and is co-organizing our Community of Practice on the Demographic Transition in Africa. Elizabeth is a co-founder of Nahari - a collective of changemakers applying creative approaches to provide safe spaces for joint decsion making, communal knowledge exchange, and collaborativem learning. She is a Speaker, Moderator and Entrepreneur with over 20 years’ experience in addressing complex challenges – her passion is fostering the development of lasting, mutually beneficial relationships that contribute to global sustainable development.
Kami Firmin Adjahossou
Kami Firmin Adjahossou
Kami Adjahossou joined the GLAC Network as a Transformation Thinker - a former community of change supported by GIZ and Bertelsmann Stiftung (Germany). He is a Pan Africanist peacemaker and social entrepreneur with extensive experience in program management and political advocacy. Kami has worked in Africa and beyond in diverse multicultural environments on social justice, peace, and reconciliation issues. He contributed and co-facilitated many programs for the advancement of the SDGs including hosting the Global Diplomacy Lab 2019 for the first time in Africa with the Accra Incubator Lab addressing the issue of the “Democratic Dividend”. Very passionate about youth empowerment, leadership and gender equality he co-founded “Girls for Tech and Innovation - Africa” together with his wife Ms. Badjo Ahimon, focusing on the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls in Africa through the usage of Technologies and Innovations. Kami has very good knowledge and understanding of the Smart Africa Secretariat (SAS) and its flagship program the Smart Africa Digital Academy (SADA) . Against this background they co-create PERMA - An African Wo-Men Leadership Program (see section Projects and Impact).
Welcome
Dear friends,
over the last decade we have been witnessing a rapid social change, disruptions from various spheres from economic, social, political, and cultural, posing a new type of challenges. Covid-19, climate change alongside with other pre-existing vulnerabilities have amplified the challenges, in Africa especially. At GLAC Africa, a community of leaders from across Africa and the diaspora, we have embraced these challenges and we are committed to taking action, collaborating, innovating to bring about change. For that to happen, a new kind of leadership that innovates and adapts to challenges of our times must emerge. We have been leveraging on new technologies and assets within GLAC to spark collaborations to contribute to addressing the most pressing societal issues in our communities with GLAC Africa.
Since 2020, our focus turned to developing interventions across the continent and we started to create a hub of innovators and changemakers rooted in the continent but with access to global expertise from a wide area of strategic and functional areas. It is that mindset that encouraged us to create our format Rethinking Africa Convening to channel the assets, collectively in the same direction, tackling the key issues in our society, in collaboration with like-minded organizations, networks and local organizations, as well as other initiatives on the demographic dividend, girls and technology, etc.
From 2022, we are looking forward to creating more safe spaces for collaboration to achieve greater impact on issues of our focus regarding, peace, migration, human trafficking, girls and technology, climate, and agriculture. Be part of it, get engaged and reach out.
Your GLAC Africa Ambassador, Fabrice Muchiga
Why we created GLAC Africa
We believe that change will come through work, commitment and will power to collectively tackle the issues facing the continent, and every action, every voice is of precious value.
Africa is undergoing a demographic transition; it is currently the world’s “youngest” and by 2050 its median population will be under 25 years old. Africa is currently at a crossroads in which its historic and structural challenges and contradictions have come into sharp focus as a result of the global COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic has exposed the economic and social fractures arising from decades of underinvestment in the people and social sectors. It has also exposed the challenges of inequalities and high levels of poverty especially among the urban poor across the continent. However this period of global adversity also offers great opportunities for sustainable transformation.
This process of unlocking the continent’s potential and creating a driving force for transformative change demands that the continent’s best talents are combined with its valuable resources to create new possibilities for communities and for the entire continent. Members of GLAC Africa include some of the continent’s most talented, committed and networked professionals and change makers. The challenge is to marshal, strengthen and capitalize on this rich network in an effort to co-create innovative solutions to impact Africa’s development.
Most of the African countries have crossed 50 years of self-rule. The political and economic history of this time is well documented; while we have seen progress, we have also witnessed significant challenges compounded even further by the current pandemic. The question is many people’s minds is what will the next 50 look like. The transformation may come from huge, momentous events. But it could come from many small individual victories on the frontiers of change in our everyday lives. The coalition of these small transformative changes could lead to the big transformation. That is why the next steps by GLAC Africa must be measured, structured and focussed ensuring that our interventions are strategic and impactful.
Furthermore these next steps must be able harness the human capacity and assets within the community as well as navigate the unique set-up and founding principles of the community. This is a call to every member of GLAC Africa to rise to this generational challenge.
Strategic plan 2021-2023
To build on the momentum generated during 2020 and accelerate towards impact, we propose the following strategy objectives:
In the short term we will seek to support and leverage the assets and engagements of the GLAC Africa members particularly those on the frontline of COVID-19 interventions in the continent who are facing adaptive challenges. We will seek to support interventions which have an impact at continental, regional, national or community level which are replicable, scalable and with a transformative potential. It is key that such initiatives have a champion leading or key in that process who is a member of the GLAC Africa community.
In the intermediate we will devolve and support at least one major/flagship social impact work per region on the continent. During this period we will also explore and support new areas that provide opportunities for collaboration in-country and transboundary.
In the long run, we aim to support multiple interventions across the continent and create a hub of innovators and changemakers rooted in the continent but with access to global expertise from a wide area of strategic and functional areas.
The important underline across these time periods and frontline actions is to NOT duplicate on-going work but rather seek ways to raise the bar, scale or replicate. The overall goal is to speak change and social transformation fluently through our expertise and action.
How we work
We believe that change will come through work, commitment and will power to collectively tackle the issues facing the continent, and every action, every voice is of precious value.
As GLAC Africa members we are connected via exclusive social media groups and provided with an online platform that offers safe spaces for learning, exchange and collaboration built on trust and equality among them. In Case Clinics we share both our good practices and the challenges we face, and as such serve as coaches and drivers of the discussion to each other. To this end, we use co-creation and peer learning methods to draw out interests, insights, and learning from practice.
Furthermore as GLAC Africa members, we frequently participate actively in formats organized by the wider GLAC Network like the GLAC Dialogue Forum or Governance of the Platform Economy.
Projects and Impact created
Contributing to SDG 17 and others
We created Rethinking Africa Convening (RAC), as an open format for mobilizing the African community and African diaspora to exchange on priority cross-cutting issues facing the continent especially emerging threats to peace and stability. RAC offers opportunities for diverse African voices to be heard and creates a platform to co-create solutions and develop answers to questions dealing with conflict in Africa. RAC provides spaces for inspiration, peer-support and leadership and addresses the leadershift needed for the continental transformation. The format is explicitly not limited for members of GLAC Africa.
Contact: Mr. Fabrice Muchiga (Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Contributing to SDG 8, SDG 9 and SDG 17
One of the focal topics in 2021 evolved into the Community of Practice on the Demographic Transition in Africa, which started to dive deeper into questions of how to support the harnessing of Africa’s potential demographic dividend through international collaboration with expert panels and discussions.
Contact: Ms. Elizabeth Maloba (Kenia) and Mr. Patrick Mpedzisi (Zimbabwe)
Contributing to the SDG 3, SDG 4 and SDG 5
As a joint venture of GLAC Africa (Kami) and GLAC Europe and MENA (Jörg) the idea developed to kickstart the first African Wo-Men (Women & Men) Leadership Program based on the approach of Positive Psychology.
The aim is to use a digital learning solution to teach Positive Psychology in a practical way, enabling young wo-men leaders to apply these skills in their daily work. Kami, Jörg, Badjo and Marlen plan to guide them as learning coaches through this journey, aiming to foster sustainable development and socio-ecological transformation for every corner of Africa.
Objectives are to
teach the core philosophy of Positive Psychology and its benefits on arts and cultural diversity. While creating a local team of ambassadors of Positive Psychology to maintain and further roll out this journey.
empower a new generation of African Wo-men Leaders to further develop their strengths and apply the new leadership skills to significantly increase their impact.
create a network and fellowship of impactful African Wo-men Leaders to support each other and strengthen their communities’ social and ecological transformation.
This is a joint initiative co-created by Positive Psychology Arts (PPArts) based in Berlin, Germany and Girls for Tech and Innovation-Africa based in Entebbe, Uganda with the support of friends and potential partners from our networks GLAC Africa, Global Diplomacy Lab (GDL), Gender Alliance, Bosch Alumni Network, BMW Responsible Leaders and Nkumba University.
Contact: Mr. Kami Adjahossou (Uganda), Mr. Jörg Reckhenrich (Germany)
How to get engaged
If you should be interested in taking an active role, please approach our GLAC Africa Ambassador Mr Fabrice Muchiga at muc.fabrice@gmail.com