Africa Catalyst

Africa Catalyst aims to strengthen professional engineering bodies in sub-Saharan Africa so that they can effectively promote the profession, share best practice and increase local engineering capacity, to help drive development.

The Africa Catalyst programme awards grant funding to professional engineering bodies in sub-Saharan Africa for projects lasting one year in duration. The aim of the Phase 5 call is twofold; to support new pilot initiatives working in partnership with professional engineering and engineering training institutions to support strong engineering professional bodies in Africa. Additionally, the scheme supports the continuation and dissemination of successful projects from the pilot, Phase 2, Phase 3 and Phase 4 schemes, to exploit the impact of previous cohorts. 

Since the first Pilot programme was established by The Royal Academy of Engineering in 2016, we have worked with over 30 institutions across sub-Saharan Africa covering a rich mix of initiatives ranging from policies and systems, student and graduate training schemes, the promotion, retention and upskilling of women in engineering, STEM in primary and secondary schools, and harmonisation and accreditation of engineering education and professional training.

We are supporting our awarded partners to become strong professional bodies that are effective, self-sustaining, transparent and provide useful services to its members, as well as positively influencing public discourse on engineering. 

Projects and awardees

Find out more about our awardees and all the projects supported by the Africa Catalyst scheme throughout sub-Saharan Africa.