LEAP Africa

With the mission to inspire, empower and equip a new cadre of African leaders, LEAP has successfully provided a series of leadership programs for business owners and young leaders in nine cities across Nigeria. LEAP also invests in continuous research on leadership development in Africa. This research serves as the basis of our innovative curriculum. We have benefited from various Internet tools in our work, though using technology is not without challenges. Nonetheless, it is important to recognize that we must continue to adopt new technology in order to achieve our visions and collaborate with our counterparts in the global arena.

In both developing and developed countries, there is widespread recognition that leadership skills are crucial for individual and organizational success and wealth creation. As a result, over the past twenty years, numerous leadership institutes and centers have emerged to support entrepreneurs and managers in the private sector as well as youth in various spheres of development. Unfortunately, Africa continues to lag behind in this area. Leadership, Effectiveness, Accountability and Professionalism (LEAP) Africa is a non profit organization that emerged in May 2002 to fill this gap.

In an effort to create awareness and generate widespread publicity about its programmes and activities, LEAP uses ICTs [information & communication technologies] to achieve its mission. For example in June 2004, LEAP launched the Annual Nigerian Youth Leadership Awards, targeted at Nigerian youth who are leading change efforts in their communities. A call for nominations was made in national dailies and interested applicants were directed to our Web site, where they could download applications and access more information on the Awards.

In addition, due to the high cost of courier services and the snail pace of regular mail, the use of e-mails as a communication tool has provided an affordable, yet fast way of reaching our participants and funders, who are spread not only across Nigeria, but also across the globe. Through the Internet, applicants also have the opportunity to fill and submit online applications. This eliminates the time wasted if regular mails are used and also reduces the risk of losing mails.

Given that LEAP is a non profit organization with limited resources, we are constantly raising funds for our projects and we have achieved a level of success in this area which would not have been possible without a professional Web site that provides information about our organization and lends us credibility. Another way that ICTs have proven extremely useful is by introducing the technology that makes the transfer of heavy documents possible. We were recently trying to send a heavy document via e-mail to one of our funders/partner organizations and the document just would not attach because of its size, and then someone told us a Web site designed specifically to meet that need! We did not only send the document, we sent it on time! [Editor’s note: Need a service like this? Try http://www.yousendit.com]

Using ICTs in our work has not been without challenges. The greatest challenge is the epileptic nature of the Internet connection, coupled with the slow speed that we regularly experience. Given these uncertainties, we have developed the habit of saving our emails or downloading information from the Internet. This approach enables us to continue our work offline when the connectivity is bad.

Another challenge is the high cost of connecting to the Internet, although it is becoming increasingly affordable. At LEAP, only one computer is currently linked to the Internet, as a result, there is usually a queue to get online. This is another area where saving and downloading information is helpful, as it reduces the time spent waiting on the queue.

In conclusion, we would like to encourage organizations that are working to develop leadership skills in Africa to strive for perfection and excellence. In addition, it is important to recognize that we must continue to adopt new technology in order to achieve our visions and collaborate with our counterparts in the global arena.