It has now been two years since the launch of LEAD Africa, the pan-African platform for the three African LEAD Member Programmes. Efforts to further establish the LEAD Africa Secretariat continued in 2008 and the communications, management and fundraising strategies are now being further developed and implemented. The websites both for LEAD Africa (www.leadinafrica.org) and for the Member Programmes are operational and the new Afrikki website (www.afrikki.tv) has joined the family.

The ‘Afrikki’ documentaries, showcasing positive stories in Africa and initiated on the basis of the recommendations from Tunis in 2006, are now in production.  The first episode “Water management challenges in Africa”, featuring an interview with AfDB President Kaberuka and success stories from Tunisia, was shown on Africable on 20th July. The second episode, ‘Africa on the Track: the case of Mozambique, centres on the recent  economic progress in Mozambique and features successful women’s ‘enterprises’, Arms for Peace and an interview with Ms. Louiza Djogo Diaz, Prime Minister of Mozambique. This episode was broadcast on 28th September. Both the first and second episodes have now been translated into English to be disseminated in Anglophone countries. The first has already been shared with the individual Member Programmes and the second is en route.
The third episode, which is on Leadership and Governance, will be broadcast in December and features an interview with Joaquin Chissano, ex President of Mozambique and recipient of the Mo Ibrahim Prize, and a report on successful monitoring of governance from Mali,.

The start-up of the Afrikki project has been challenging, however, we now begin to see the results and feel that we are making progress towards furthering our vision of showing the “real” image of Africa, fostering a  “can do” attitude amongst Africans and a more balanced perception of Africa from outside. We hope that through the English versions of the programmes, we will now be able to reach the whole continent and go even further and share the programmes worldwide.

In 2008, LSEA and LFA, together with LEAD International, achieved funding from DFID (UK Department for International Development) for a 3-year pilot programme on Strengthening Civil society and Climate Change Adaptation. We hope that this pilot project will be able to be replicated in the coming years to have wider reach across the continent. The project teams in the target communities in Malawi, Mali and Senegal are currently putting the final touches to the baseline survey in anticipation of the commencement of training sessions, and community adaptation projects during the New Year. The initial results of the situational analysis are showing some fascinating stories around climate change and local interpretation of climatic events and we hope to be able to share these findings fully, shortly. We will post project updates here on the website, and through the project website soon (ccca.lead.org).

2009 - The year ahead

LEAD AFRICA will continue the work on the Afrikki programmes and climate change activities in 2009, along with further activities to strengthen our presence on a Pan-African level. Efforts from the MPs and the secretariat will be focused on strengthening existing and establishing new National Associations, and the member programmes will continue to share training programmes, as recommended in Tunis. We will strive to further ensure that the flow of information in the LEAD in Africa network is optimal, in preparation for reactions from the network, as done for the African Government consultations in 2007.

We will continue to work with regional partners such as the African Development Bank, not only around climate change related policy discussions but also events related to their General Assembly in Dakar in May. The AfDB has showed great interest in the Afrikki programmes and this partnership will continue in 2009.

We are pursuing further network activities such as establishing the ‘Communities of Practice’ for which we have already built a platform via this website. Please keep checking the website for updates on the official launch of these.