The Southern Africa Trust’s invites applications for the second cycle of its Leadership for Change programme. The programme will run over a two-year period starting in September 2013, and will include four focus sessions each lasting one week. A maximum of fifteen (15) successful applicants will be selected from all southern African countries.

Leadership for Change was designed by the Trust to enhance leadership capability within civil society in Southern Africa to engage policy makers and leaders in other sectors of society. The programme strives to improve the collective strategic leadership of the civil society sector, providing selected emerging civil society leaders with a platform to reflect on different experiences and models of leadership, especially in pro-poor policy development and implementation. It enables civil society leaders to engage with each other on a range of leadership practices in a changing social, economic, and political context.

“Given their proximity to communities, civil society groups hold a strategically important position for poverty eradication efforts,” said Themba Mhlongo, head of programmes at the Southern Africa Trust. “However, civil society leaders are very often ineffective at exerting their influence on pro-poor policy formulation and decision making processes,” he said.

“The Leadership for Change initiative offers a space for next generation civil society leaders to activate their capabilities to influence the vision, values, and direction of civil society in southern Africa as a whole—and to develop their abilities to engage decision-makers in government and business with strategic ease and influence, for more effective poverty eradication efforts,” said Mhlongo.

More information and application forms are available at www.lead4change.org or through www.southernafricatrust.org. Applications close on 15 July 2013.

The Southern Africa Trust is an independent non-profit agency that supports deeper and wider regional engagement between state and non-state actors to change the systems that keep people in poverty.