07/06/2026
Project45: Issue 12 🟧
Africa has no shortage of young people with ideas. What it has always needed is more people who know how to execute them.
The African Leadership Academy was built on a simple but ambitious belief; that Africa's greatest challenges will be solved by Africans who are equipped to lead. Since 2021, PMI South Africa Volunteers have been part of that work in partnering with ALA through the PMIEF Skills for Life programme to bring project management into the heart of its student enterprise curriculum. Students move through the full arc of a real project, supported by mentors who teach the framework and share what it looks and feels like to deliver something under pressure. By 2023, that partnership had equipped over 1,700 young African leaders from 47 countries across the continent with project management skills, with a multi-million rand grant secured to take it even further.
Our Chapter volunteers have continuously played an active role in the partnership, bringing real industry experience into the room, walking students through the full weight of delivering a project. Mentoring, coaching, troubleshooting, staying the course. The kind of behind-the-scenes contribution that rarely gets a spotlight but quietly shapes what someone believes they are capable of.
Project management taught in a classroom becomes a life skill. A way of approaching problems that does not disappear when the course ends. That is what is being built at ALA. Not just the next generation of project managers, but the next generation of individuals who will lead the way.
Forty-five years of excellence is even more meaningful when it travels further than we do.
Project45, Celebrating 45 years of Project Excellence and Community. Be part of the legacy. Share your contribution or recognise someone whose work has helped shape this milestone in our project management community https://forms.gle/FgjfTtbVeU2ch3wh7
