It's been six months since the Youth Organisations Directory was launched by AFLI as part of Project Pakati's goal to showcase the work being done by youth-led and youth-serving organisations across Africa. The directory assists African NGO's be recognised and found. Because it aggregates these NGO's on a single, searchable platform, it makes it straightforward for donors, funders and the audiences these organisations serve to find them.
Since it was launched, more than 330 organisations have taken the opportunity to register and create entries for their organisations in the directory. At this point, most African countries are represented. As the directory has grown and become better known, it has been shared by those already listed on it. While entry submission rates were initially slow, submission rates have increased. On a single day towards the end of this month, 23 NGO's submitted entries.
Traffic has also been trending upwards month by month. This month, the directory saw 3,620 pageviews, with every organisation attracting page views. Visitors to the AFLI site are also searching for it. The directory registered more than 80 search instances, one of the most common for the entire site.
The Youth Organisations Directory allows organisations to create and update their own profiles. It is set up to be fully searchable to make results more useful. Organisations can be searched for by map, alphabetically, whether they are youth led, youth serving, or both, by country, focus areas, if it is a women's-only NGO, or by typing in a word.
There are many young African leaders who have started organisations for the African youth market - the largest demographic segment on the continent - and is is underserved. This directory should make it easier for these organisations to find each other to partner and network. It should also over time become a valuable resource for grant-givers; for NGOs themselves; and for people looking for help. The directory went live on 20 August 2019.
If you know of an organisation that could benefit from being listed, please ask them to create a directory entry. All the information on how to do so is at the Submit a Youth Organisation Listing page. The directory was developed by the African Leadership Institute with grant funding from the Ford Foundation.
Note - when this article was written, the directory was on the Pakati subsite. This directory was migrated in July 2021 to a standalone site of its own at YouthForYouth.Africa
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