We train, mentor, and protect women across all five regions of the continent. Building political leadership where the door was previously closed.
We create pathways for women to engage meaningfully in decision-making, across every region of the African continent.
The Women's Academy for Leadership and Political Excellence Africa works with aspiring women leaders and women already active in business, public service, and civil society. Through training, mentorship, legal protection, and regional networks, we build the political leadership of women: particular focus goes to young women, women with disabilities, and women in rural communities.
WALPE Africa maintains focal point partners across all five regions, sustaining a movement that is continental in reach and precise in its work.
Four interconnected pillars, each designed to move women from aspiration to influence: in office, in the economy, and at the peace table.
Transformative feminist leadership training for women, young women, and women with disabilities. Campaign management, public speaking, and governance skills, paired with mentorship from experienced political leaders and digital literacy for political engagement.
Lobbying governments and political parties for gender-responsive electoral laws. Research and policy analysis on barriers to women in political life. Campaigns that engage institutions on gender parity and name the problem directly.
Monitoring and reporting political violence against women. Legal aid and psychosocial support for women facing discrimination or harassment. Safe spaces, support networks, and coordination with security agencies and human rights organisations.
Regional and continental platforms that bring women political leaders together. Alliances with feminist movements, civil society, and policymakers across Africa. Showcasing role models and strengthening the ties between women who govern.
Two areas of work that show what women's economic power looks like in practice: one built on the continent's newest trade architecture, the other on one of its oldest economic traditions.
Cross-border trade & the AfCFTA
Women have always been the continent's traders, too often informally: undercounted, unprotected, and shut out of the value chains where the returns are made.
As the African Continental Free Trade Area reshapes how goods move across Africa, we strengthen women's trade networks, open routes into formal value-addition, and carry women traders' voices into AfCFTA policy. A trade agreement built without the women who move the continent's goods is built on an incomplete picture of Africa's economy.
Stokvels & collective savings
Long before formal financial institutions reached many African communities, women were pooling resources and sharing risk through stokvels. These are not informal workarounds; they are indigenous financial systems that have quietly funded school fees, businesses, and futures for generations.
Flagship intervention Our baseline assessment establishes, with evidence, what these networks already achieve: how collective savings translate into women's leadership, and how that solidarity builds peace at household and community level.
From ministers in Botswana and Namibia to presidential candidates in Senegal and Uganda: young women already building the continent this movement works toward.
Minister of Youth and Gender Affairs
National Council of Provinces, EFF
Presidential Candidate, 2024
Former Mayor, Epworth
Minister of Information and Communications Technology
Presidential Candidate, 2026
From Nehanda's defiance in colonial Zimbabwe to Ngozi's direction of global trade, we are inspired by their courage and determination.
Military vanguard, Kingdom of Dahomey
c. 1625 – 1892
Spirit Medium, First Chimurenga, Zimbabwe
c. 1862 – 1898
Anti-apartheid activist, ANC, South Africa
1936 – 2018
Director-General, WTO / Finance Minister, Nigeria
2003 – 2006 · 2011 – present
Deputy President, South Africa / Executive Director, UN Women
2005 – 2008 · 2013 – 2021
Minister of International Relations, South Africa
2004 – 2024
President of Ethiopia
2018 – 2024
Whether you are an aspiring leader, a woman already in political life, or an ally committed to equal governance: there is a place for you in this work.
