By Mamadou Edrisa
Njie
Just back from Dakar
Marie Angelique SAVANE,
Sociologist and International Consultant, has
said that Africa needs ethical leaders who are accountable to their citizens
for sustainable development to be effective. She was speaking in an interview
with our editorial assistant in Mbour – Senegal at the first national session
of the LEAD Africa Fellowship training programme organized by the LEAD
Francophone Africa Regional Programme Office.
LEAD Africa is part
of the global LEAD network whose common mission is to inspire leadership and
charge for a sustainable world. Africa hosts three Regional offices in Malawi
for Eastern and Southern Africa, in Nigeria for Anglophone West Africa and in
Senegal for Francophone Africa. The LEAD Africa fellowship Program (LAFP)
builds on more than a decade of experience in knowledge management and
training, particularly pertaining to issues of leadership, environment and
sustainable development.
Its main objectives
is to galvanize the emergence of leadership capacity in Africa, and to foster
in potential leaders a greater sensitivity and responsiveness to environment
and sustainability issues.
According to Madame
SAVANE, African leaders need to be accountable to their people adding that good
leaders hold onto the principle of good governance. She stated that today in
Africa, many leaders lack ethical leadership and are sit-tight leaders who for
the most part are not serving their countries and bringing the desired development.
Meanwhile, every citizen has a right, and these rights have to be respected. Respecting
the rights of citizens, she said includes the right to education, access to
health facilities and social services as it were.
Dwelling on the past,
she said that Africa was divided by colonialism which has caused many problems
in the past: “We are all one people”, saying that The Gambia and Senegal share
the boundary, tribe, language and culture but were divided by the west.
In Cassamance, where
I was born she continued, I have relatives in The Gambia as well as some
Gambians also having relatives in Cassamance. The Gambia and Senegal, she noted
shared the same traditional values while calling on LEAD associates to come
together to make the desired change in Africa.
On good governance,
Madam SAVANE pointed out that African leaders need to have institutions and laws
are compatible to the international standards noting that the institutions need
to create conducive environment for sustainable development. The LAFP training she
maintains, aims to enhance the capacities of young Africans across professions and
cultures to build a network of a like-minded critical masse to bring effective
change in Africa. She advised the Associates to become veritable change agents.
This year’s Cohort 17
will be made up of around sixty young leaders drawn from different sectors of
society (private, public, non-governmental etc) from The Gambia and Senegal.
Chad and Malawi are also training sixty others who will all converge in Malawi
in September 2012 for the Pan-African training session.
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