Kenyatta University to host new Africa centre

Kenyatta University (KU) has been selected to host the Africa Centre for Transformative and Inclusive Leadership (Actil).

Actil’s vision is to raise a critical mass of transformational leaders in politics, business, government and society, raise a network of female and male policy makers that are committed to and applying approaches that promote gender equality and women’s empowerment in all spheres, create a formidable alliance of leaders in Africa who can transform politics, business and society for the benefit of all and prepare African leaders to influence development, political and economic discourse in the global level.

The centre, a brainchild of the UN Women, a United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, will be officially inaugurated on February 19, 2014, at Kenyatta University.

Announcing the selection of KU at a media briefing on Wednesday, in Nairobi, UN Women’s regional director Christine Musisi said that the centre’s programmes will go a long way in making a reality the narrative “Africa Arising.”

Ms Musisi said that the centre was necessary for the creation of a group of leaders who will harness Africa’s potential when countries move from good leadership to transformative leadership by investing in its people, liberate itself from poverty, ignorance and strife, and take leadership in the global economy and global political discourse.

The objective of the centre is therefore to train leaders to have a positive mindset; who are driven by purpose to live by transformational principles – integrity, stewardship, justice, work ethic and understand the value of charity.

The centre will draw participants from the UN, partner private and community organisations, academic institutions, governments and other affiliated institutions. The training will be done through training, mentoring and experiential learning.

Kenyatta University’s Vice Chancellor Prof Olive Mugenda said the selection of the institution was not by accident.

She said the university has in the past decade experienced tremendous growth through a deliberate transformative leadership and now boasts of 14 schools from six a decade ago among them the school of law and medicine, a student body of 70,000 from 15,000, massive infrastructure development, rapid growth in research and improvement in gender parity in the number of faculty.

She said the lessons learnt by the institution will be translated and replicated for wider social transformation through Actil.