Lead Africa Learning Process

Introduction:
The LEAD Africa Cohort training begins in the first quarter of each year in the three Programmes across Africa. Overall, the Programme includes approximately 18 face-to-face days of training and a number of distance learning activities organized over a 12 month period. New entrants – known as LEAD Associates – remain in full employ-ment during their training. When their training is complete, they become part of the Pan-African and worldwide network of LEAD Fellows.

LEAD Africa’s approach encourages learn-ers to search for joint solutions by working with colleagues from different countries and diverse professions. A cohort of LEAD Africa Associates might include an econo-mist from Nigeria, a journalist from South Africa, an environmental activist from Zimbabwe, a lawyer from Malawi, a banker from Senegal and a business executive from Tanzania – all bringing their collective ex-perience and expertise to bear on issues and challenges in sustainable development and leadership in Africa.

As is critical of the Pan-African cohort, the national groups of Associates are also cross-sectoral, and most importantly belong to the same Association at the national level, where they can follow national policy de-velopments (e.g. Millennium Development Goals - MDGs etc). As everywhere else in the world the national level is the most ap-propriate level for action (e.g. Multi-lateral agreements on environment and develop-ment, etc). LEAD Associations, being cross sectoral, are able to contribute to these and support sustainable development.

Learning by doing: LEAD Africa’s unique approach to learning

LEAD Africa’s Member Programme stud-ies have shown that there are four corner-stones to effective learning:

1) Learning by knowledge acquisition;
2) Learning by exchange and network-ing;
3) Learning by practice (doing);
4) Learning by mentorship.

The Shell Foundation’s mission is to develop, scale-up and promote enterprise-based solutions to the challenges arising from the impact of energy and globalisation on poverty and the environment. It was established by Royal Dutch Shell in 2000 as an independent, charity operating with a global mandate. Visit : www.shellfoundation.org for more information.

ENDA-TM is an international non-profit organisation based in Dakar, Senegal. Founded in 1972, ENDA is an association of autonomous entities co-ordinated by an Executive Secretariat.
Visit : www.enda.sn