The newly launched African Union Leadership Academy (AULA) is expected to train African leaders in leadership skills in order to support the implementation of African Union strategic priorities and aspirations, according to Amine Idriss Adoum, African Union Commission director for administration and human resource management.

"The African Union Leadership Academy started operations earlier this year. One of the main objectives of the academy is to develop African Union leaders’ skills in planning and execution of projects as well as management and, in turn, this will encourage the spread of AU values,” he noted last week.

Underlining the role of the academy, Adoum said it will not only be instrumental in helping the commission achieve Agenda 2063, but will also ensure flexibility in the execution of complex duties within the Commission.

According to the Commission, the realisation of AU priorities and aspirations requires a specialised learning agency that is abundantly dedicated to competence development, innovation and learning support towards results-oriented execution of programmes through different but relevant modes of learning.

In January, at the launch of the academy, the African Union Commission Chairperson Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma stressed the goal of the academy is to provide a systematic way training towards the implementation of Agenda 2063.

"This project lies at the heart of the priorities and flagship projects of Agenda 2063: The Africa We Want,” said Dlamini-Zuma.

The AUC Chairperson emphasised the need for capacity building mechanisms such as the leadership academy, since Africa’s greatest resource is her human resources.

Dlamini-Zuma then went on to add that the African Union leadership academy will become a strategic node, and means to facilitate service delivery and result-oriented programme implementation on the continent, as well as provide knowledge-based responses to any challenges.

This new project will facilitate the development of professional skills of AU staff members for effective policy design and workplace efficiency that would create a high level Pan-African learning and development agency, driving capacity building solutions to challenges of managing the process of realisation of Agenda 2063.

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