If you were a leader, what would you do to ensure that peace and security is achieved and sustained in Africa?

When it comes to supporting different industries and growth, the typical answer is for government to throw money at the problem. Local governments are certainly involved with business accelerators nationwide, but beyond the basics of business administration, is there a place for public bodies in teaching private innovation?

What is it that real leaders should possess? Well, let us look at the following aspects that might help us paint a clear picture: Education, Skills Development, Millennial Development, Innovation and Technology, Safety and Security, Business and Radical Economic Transformation. The purpose of this communique is to illustrate a clear view of an ideal United States of Africa in peace.

Education

Design thinking has become the go-to play philosophy for creativity and innovation, according to Adam Oxford, but it remains mired in misconception, and the skills required are hard to teach. If I were a leader I would stimulate innovation. Education is said to be a key to success but what is the use of feeding one with knowledge they won’t need nor use in the future? My goal would be to transform the chaos of teaching to “design thinking”, and even if you’ve never heard of it, you’ve probably come across the many tenets of it. The many tenets to spin out of it that have become common parlance, if you’ve been told to be iterative, encourage failure, “thinking outside the box” then you’ve heard of design thinking. Training Africans for effect is for the greater good, and education to us Africans means a service to Africa.

Skills Development

What we can all agree on is that we need skilled people to reach any kind of goals at all. Whether you’re building a company or a country, you need the right mix of talent to achieve almost anything. As a leader I would invest in skills development for our future leaders. Governments promise infrastructure, they promise better education and better health care. But if they don’t have the engineers, teachers and nurses and the community to help them in a process of lifelong learning to stay ahead of their game they will fail to deliver. Under my leadership I would strive to rectify that mistake. As I understand, “life skills are equally important to bridge the gap between the education and the working world”- Lutz Zoir.

Millennial Development

Ideal leaders should pay attention to our millennials with haste. What is a millennial? Millennials graduated from high school starting in the year 2000. If I were to design training courses for millennials, I would look at works on the web as a guide to making compelling course materials. According to Hubspot, the medium people are most likely to pay attention to is video, which is a good place to start. I have observed that loyalty to an employer is driven on the bases of understanding and support of millennials career and life ambitions, as well as providing opportunities to progress and future leaders.

Innovation and Technology

Should everyone code? In the “fourth industrial revolution”, everything will be digitised. Does that mean programming is an essential skill for every job? Everything is digitised, from the way we conduct our social lives, to the way we book a cab, to the factory systems that are used to do something as innocuous as bottled milk, powerful algorithms are at play. I would introduce this skill to our education system for one to have a basic knowledge. Technology is becoming more sophisticated, to unite Africa we must move with the times. We must always know that creative and empathy are what set us apart from machines, as Mark Chaban says.

Africa is not that big on internet, that needs to change we must have a fair share on the opportunities in digital marketing to drone technology. As drone technology begins to take off in South Africa, I see a need to train more armchair pilots and that the whole African continent should benefit. As a leader I would use drones, trailing them to deliver medical supplies in hard to reach areas. The time is now to invest in young people to train on flying drones for the innovative development and betterment of Africa.

Safety and Security

With the kind of high technology on the peak, our safety and security might be at risk. As a leader I would transform our defence. But it starts at the bottom, render corruption to our law enforcement officers. Eradicate cadre deployment to ministry and management posts if the person is not qualified on that post. For instance a minister of police should rise within the ranks of police. The defence industry has undergone a massive evolution in recent years, progressing into hi-tech enabler of nation states developmental and economic goals.

If I were a leader I would urge other African countries not to ignore skills development, SGD has noticed skills shortages in its development of large spectrum defence oriented solutions. The likes of: microwave antenna engineers, radio frequency along with software engineering fields, which can play a big role in our defence system. Deploy cyber intelligence units to render cyber related crimes and fraud all alike. It’s a human right to feel safe.

Business and Radical Economic transformation

When we talk about radical economic transformation, to me, what came to mind is business opportunities for our people. Africa needs more entrepreneurs, creating more businesses and more jobs. I would propose that Africans make use of their skills development platforms to help them expand their agriculture, from commercial farming to business people. Africans should be able to trade across all of Africa and the globe making riches for our land. We need the skills to grow, manufacture and process our own food. We should be able to purify our own minerals, cut our own diamonds and own majority in our mines. Self-starting is an innate ability or a skill that can be developed.

“The skills can be taught, but the entrepreneurial spirit needs to be given opportunities to flourish”-Roger Norton.

Readers are leaders and we should never forget that, “education breeds confidence, confidence breeds hope, hope breed peace”- Confucius.

If I were a leader to ensure that peace and security is achieved and sustained in Africa. I would strive to unite Africa and promote Pan Africanism.

The wheel of progress revolves relentlessly and all the nations of the world take their turn at the field-glass of human destiny. “Africa will not retreat! Africa will not compromise! Africa will not relent! Africa will not equivocate! And she will be heard! Remember Africa”-Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe.

Tell us: Why is the debate about Leadership important in South Africa and in Africa as a whole?