Year 6-Quarter 1 Report: YALI Regional Leadership Center, Southern Africa (RLC-SA)

The program provides leadership training and networking opportunities to youth between the ages of 18 and 35. Africa is a youthful continent with up to 60% of its population below the age of 35, presenting many challenges but also bountiful opportunities for the continent. The YALI RLC-SA program started on 14 August 2015 and will end on 13 August 2023, according to the Cooperative Agreement, No. AID-674-A-15-00011, and Modifications 6 and 7. The Center is hosted by the University of South Africa's Graduate School of Business Leadership (Unisa SBL) in collaboration with a growing number of African and international partners. YALI RLC-SA serves as the regional hub for 14 Southern African countries: Angola, Botswana, Comoros, eSwatini, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. The program's vision is to create a Southern African region led by critical, innovative, and responsible leaders. The mission is to build a generation of diverse, professional, and innovative young African leaders who are ethical and skilled in the management of private businesses, civic organizations, and public resources. The objectives of the RLC-SA program during the Extension Period include training 2,680 participants on the YALI Program, supporting alumni through mentorships, internships, and grant opportunities, and promoting sustainability through fundraising and revenue-generating programs. During the first quarter of the financial year 6 (1 October 2020 to 31 December 2020), the Center continued to find solutions to respond to the impact of COVID-19, which necessitated the temporary suspension of all In-Person Programs. The Center implemented a revised recruitment strategy, which aims to integrate country chapters into the recruitment process and create greater strategic partnerships from across the region. The strategy also focuses on creating regional recruitment working groups to engage and support recruitment needs. The Center initiated a curriculum enrichment project, which seeks to enrich participants' learning experience during the pandemic. The project aims to enhance the online program and achieve its targeted training throughput. During the same quarter, the Center put out a call for Online Cohort 10, which generated 1,511 applications. The Center also finalised the re-election of Chapter Country Committees in all 14 countries, who officially assumed work from 1 October 2020. The Center extended coaching support to grantees as part of its continuous learning initiative. Both coaches and mentees have offered positive and generous feedback on the initiative. The alumni continue to design interventions to support and spur entrepreneurial growth in their communities amid the COVID-19 pandemic. An alumna from Botswana trained 50 women in beekeeping, who have in turn established their own beehives and are now self-reliant and financially independent. An alumnus from Zimbabwe founded an award-winning Waste Management Services Company, which currently employs 12 people, 6 of whom are full-time. The institutionalisation of RLC-SA at UNISA during the quarter has progressed well, with discussions on finding strategies of how best RLC-SA alumni can be integrated within a broader UNISA alumni community for continuous learning and to benefit from activities and events hosted by UNISA. YALI alumni were invited to participate in a Rural-Urban Market place event, which took place on 27 November 2020, hosted by UNISA SBL. The Center also put out a call for proposals from U.S. Higher Education Institution (HEI) to partner with YALI RLC-SA and UNISA for curriculum expansion with the development of a Human Centred Design Thinking module, and building YALI Africa's capacity regarding resource mobilisation. The appointment of the U.S. HEI is expected to be finalised in quarter 3.