Professional association the Project Management Institute Educational Foundation (PMIEF) has provided a multimillion-rand grant to education organisation the African Leadership Academy (ALA) for its project management curriculum, which is a portable content and teaching materials toolkit that allows ALA student facilitators to run professional Entrepreneurial Leadership camps in their home countries.

The grant expands on PMIEF’s current partnership with the ALA, the organisation said.

“By partnering with ALA, we have equipped more than 1 700 emerging African leaders with project management skills in the recent year and are excited about continuing our relationship. Through ALA, we will work to transform Africa by developing a powerful network of young leaders who will work together to address Africa’s greatest challenges, achieve extraordinary social impact and accelerate the continent’s growth trajectory,” says PMIEF executive director Dr Ashley Forsyth.

The ALA curriculum is based on Build, which is a framework for teaching youth entrepreneurship to fight unemployment and engage them to lead solutions to local problems. The Build-in-a-Box curriculum seeks to introduce students to project management. ALA works with its students to find partner organisations that they can work with to run a successful and impactful camp in their respective countries.

Students enrolled in ALA’s flagship two-year programme have led and facilitated more than 60 Build-in-Box camps for more than 2 000 of their peers in cities like Accra, Bamenda, Harare, Kinshasa, Lagos, Nairobi and Port Elizabeth.

According to development finance institution the African Development Bank (AfDB), the continent sees about 12-million students graduate each year and compete for three-million jobs, resulting in sub-Saharan African youth becoming entrepreneurs by necessity.

ALA’s strategy is to train its students in entrepreneurship and project management and enable them to go into communities to train more young people to run and manage businesses. Successful startups will create much-needed employment and contribute to the gross domestic product.

Further, according to the AfDB, 22% of Africa’s working-age population is starting businesses. This is the highest entrepreneurship rate in the world. The entrepreneurial rate ranges from 9% in Algeria to about 40% in Nigeria and Zambia.

Research from consultancy Accenture indicates that 79% of executives agree that the future of work will be based more on specific projects than roles, so young people with the know-how to manage projects successfully will be best positioned to excel in their future careers.

“By working with PMIEF, ALA is able to integrate project management skills into their science, technology, engineering and mathematics, entrepreneurial or social impact programming and curricula so that the young people participating can apply these newfound skills to be more successful,” Forsyth said.

PMI sub-Saharan Africa MD George Asamani quotes US automotive manufacturer Henry Ford in stating that: “A country’s competitiveness starts not on the factory floor or the engineering lab. It starts in the classroom”.

In the long term, knowledge of project management skills is vital to creating more strategic and collaborative professional future partners and leaders.

“Passion, attitude and character are one side of the enterprise coin, and having a programme that sharpens the leadership and project management skills required to become entrepreneurs definitely helps and yields better results. The programme is well-integrated with the industry, and PMI South Africa Chapter volunteers often provide the required support and participate with students in their projects and serve as mentors,” Asamani added.

“The programme’s approach is well aligned to this year’s World Youth Skills Day theme of skilling teachers, trainers and youth for a transformative future. Entrepreneurship has been a driver of global economic growth, and Africa should be no different,” he emphasised.

ALA creates a robust student-centred curriculum that is designed to equip the youth with knowledge and inspiration to act as agents of change on the continent.

Projections by the United Nations show that the world population will hit ten-billion by 2055. About 95% of this growth will occur in low and middle-income countries. In particular, the population of sub-Saharan Africa is projected to double by 2050. As of 2022, 40% of Africa’s population was under 15, making it the continent with the youngest population.

The ALA class of 2023 has 126 students, of which more than half are female, drawn from 38 countries enrolled in the two-year diploma. The diploma replaces Grades 11 and 12.

Meanwhile, ALA is an accredited Cambridge International Examinations test centre, which is the world’s most popular international examination for high school students and A-Levels and is widely accepted as proof of academic preparedness for entry into universities.