Africa is facing multiple, complex crises at this moment. According to the World Food Program, Africa is in the midst of its most alarming food and nutrition crisis in decades. This crisis is due to a series of regional and global factors, including insecurity and armed conflict, extreme weather events, the COVID-19 pandemic, the rising cost of living, fertilizer shortages following the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, and more. All of these events are combined to make an already difficult governance situation in Africa even more complex. Since the beginning of 2023, anti-government protests have been taking place in every region of the continent, motivated by electoral injustice, shrinking democratic spaces, and the increased cost of necessities: Nigeria, South Africa, Mozambique, Kenya, Tunisia, the Sahel, etc. Since 2020, an alarming number of coups d’etats, seven to be precise, have occurred in the Sahel region, each citing insecurity and bad governance as reasons for a military takeover. African civil society and social movements have consistently sounded the alarm about the need to rethink Africa’s future and
transform governance models to ensure the interests of African citizens are at the heart of decision-making. When it was founded in 2020 with the support of GIZ, the School of Politics, Policy, and Governance (SPPG) set itself the mission of transforming politics in Nigeria and the rest of Africa, by building a massive base pipeline of a new value-based and disruptive thinking political leaders with the requisite knowledge and skills to lead effectively.

In conjunction with its third Graduation Ceremony, SPPG is organizing a conference that will bring together value-oriented politicians in Africa to connect, learn from one another and build a lasting network of disruptive leaders in the public space, ready to shape and influence the future of governance in their respective countries and throughout the continent. Specifically, the conference will look at transforming African governance in the short, medium and long term, at the levels of Political leadership,  Institutions and Policies, Citizen engagement and participation.