The winds of change are blowing in the right direction — how will we catch them?
Across Africa, from our coastlines to our great inland basins, there is a shared understanding that a favorable wind only matters if the navigator knows their destination. Whether it is the Harmattan scouring the Sahel or the Sirocco rising from the north, our continent knows that winds carry immense energy, but they do not choose where they land. That work belongs to those who set the sails.
We are at such a moment now. In global philanthropy, the air is thick with the language of change: trust-based giving, localization, and #ShiftThePower. These ideas, long championed by African civil society, are finally gaining traction in Global North boardrooms. Yet, while the rhetoric has shifted, the reality on the ground remains anchored in the past. Beyond a few visible hubs, African civil society remains structurally unseen, waiting for resources that are often talked about but rarely delivered. The question for 2026 is not whether the wind is favorable; it is whether we are done signaling and ready to steer.
The hands at work and EPIC-Africa’s vantage point
This is not a theoretical observation for us. Throughout 2025, EPIC-Africa sat at the intersection of funders, intermediaries, and African civil society organizations across regions, languages, and political economies. What we heard — consistently — was not a lack of capacity or ambition, but a lack of visibility, shared intelligence, and trusted infrastructure. African CSOs are doing the work, adapting daily to complexity and constraint, yet too often they remain invisible to the very systems seeking to support them. The wind may be shifting, but many African shipmates are still sailing without charts.
| Earlier this year, during a convening with civil society leaders from across West Africa, I listened as the head of a regionally respected organization described years of measurable impact — strong governance, audited accounts, deep community trust — yet no visibility beyond her immediate network. When I asked how funders typically found organizations like hers, she paused and smiled wryly: “They don’t. Unless someone introduces us.” That moment was not dramatic. It was ordinary. And that is precisely the point. Across the continent, capable organizations are not excluded because they lack impact. They are excluded because the system relies on proximity and informal networks rather than shared intelligence. |
What 2025 revealed — evidence, not rhetoric
Our work last year — from Challenging the Myths to From Fragility to Fortitude — surfaced a clear pattern. The dominant narrative of African civil society as fragile or high-risk no longer holds under scrutiny. What emerged instead was a picture of resilience, ingenuity, and deep community trust, particularly among locally-rooted organizations operating beyond capital cities and outside Anglophone networks. The bottleneck was not effectiveness. It was recognition. It was duplication of due diligence. It was the absence of shared, pan-African data that could enable funders to move with confidence and speed.
Naming the structural failure plainly
This is where the gap between intention and impact becomes most visible. Trust-based philanthropy cannot function in a system that withholds information. Localization cannot scale when data remains fragmented and proprietary. And community-led-development is undermined when African organizations must repeatedly prove their legitimacy to multiple actors, each working in isolation. In regions such as Francophone West Africa, this invisibility is particularly acute — not because civil society is weaker, but because the infrastructure to see it has never been built.
A survey of funders we were privileged to run in 2025 reinforced this structural gap. When asked how they most often discover African civil society organizations, the dominant response was simple: “asking around.” Personal referrals and informal networks remain the primary gateway to funding. While relationships matter, reliance on proximity limits visibility, reinforces linguistic and geographic bias, and slows the scaling of trust-based philanthropy. A system that depends on who knows whom cannot claim to be fully localized or equitable.
Pan-Africanism as strategy
This is why EPIC-Africa exists. To be pan-African is not to smooth over difference; it is to stretch our sight and our arms across the continent’s linguistic, cultural, and historical diversity. It is to recognize that Africa’s strength lies precisely in this plurality — in its communitarian traditions, in its generosity, and in the creative force of its youth. Africans are already among the world’s most generous givers of time, resources, and care. What has been missing is not solidarity, but systems that honor and amplify it at scale.
Adjusting the sails — what 2026 requires
If 2026 is to be more than a rhetorical turning point, we must now adjust our sails deliberately. This means treating data as a public good, not a competitive asset. It means foundations and intermediaries committing to shared intelligence and collective due diligence, reducing duplication and building trust across the ecosystem. And it means African civil society organizations being supported to lead with their own narratives, models, and solutions – not as beneficiaries of change, but as architects.
A measured impatience
The wind will not wait. Favorable conditions rarely announce themselves twice. This moment calls for alignment, courage, and collaboration — across borders, languages, and institutional habits. EPIC-Africa enters 2026 ready to sail alongside those willing to do the work of building shared infrastructure for a stronger, more visible African civil society. The direction is clear. The question now is whether we move together.
ddd