Africans Rising is a pan-African organization that is pushing for left-of-center policies all over Africa. It was formed in August 2016 and issued the Kilimanjaro Declaration in 2017. It also has expressed support for the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States. ¹

The organization is an umbrella organization of other organizations, labor unions, and human rights activists from all over Africa and in the African diaspora. It attacks what it sees as growing corruption and advocates wealth redistribution on the continent. ² As of 2019, the organization reported 23,000 individual members, 400 organizational members, and a presence in 49 African countries and 56 total countries. ³

The organization was founded in part with the help of a $400,000 grant from ActionAid USA which was in turn provided by the Ford Foundation. ⁴ In 2020, it received a grant worth “over six figures” from the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. ⁵ In addition, it has received undisclosed support from left-wing foundations such as NoVo Foundation and Wallace Global Fund. ⁶ It also received a $50,000 grant from George Soros’s Open Society Foundations in 2019. ⁷ It also received $250,000 grants from the Ford Foundation in 2018 and 2019. ⁸

Overview

Africans Rising is a pan-African organization that pushes for human rights and left-wing policies all over Africa. The organization was formed in August 2016 and formally launched in May 2017 by human rights advocates and left-wing activists in Arusha, Tanzania. ⁹

The organization was founded in part with the help of a $400,000 grant from ActionAid USA which was in turn provided by the Ford Foundation. ¹⁰ The founders of the organization wanted to oppose political corruption in Africa, support redistribution of wealth, and push for replacing reliable and cheap conventional fuels with less reliable and more expensive renewable energy. ¹¹

Much of the work of Africans Rising is relatively noncontroversial and is in opposition to dictatorships and corrupt governments all over Africa. It supports protests and other activism against these governments. Before the organization formally launched, it sponsored a fact-finding mission to Cameroon to investigate the government’s repression of protests by its English-speaking citizens. It also sent aid to protests in Gambia after its president would not relinquish power after losing an election. ¹²

In 2019, it supported protests against military rule in Sudan. It also supported activists in opposing Zimbabwe’s government. It also supported anti-corruption and pro-democracy protests in Senegal, the Gambia, and Mozambique. ¹³

The organization is a strong supporter of the Palestinian cause and is opposed to Israel. Citing the radical-left viewpoint of intersectionality, it claimed that the Palestinian cause was a part of the African struggle against “capitalism, patriarchy, and dispossession.” ¹⁴

In 2020, the organization expressed support for the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States. It called for protests in Africa in support of BLM. It called on African governments to put pressure on the U.S. to end what it called the systemic racism in the country. ¹⁵

It is a strategic partner of the U.S. Africa Bridge Building Project, an organization that seeks to raise taxes in Africa. ¹⁶

Kilimanjaro Declaration

In May 2017, the organization officially launched by issuing the Kilimanjaro Declaration. The Kilimanjaro Declaration outlined the beliefs of the organization. ¹⁷

Among the things the declaration called for was for the sharing of all wealth on the continent, attacking “neoliberalism” for damaging the continent, the embracing of Ubuntu which is an African anti-individualist philosophy,¹⁸ and the building of a citizens’ movement. ¹⁹

Among the goals it called for was fighting against political corruption, for women’s rights, support for more regulations to fight climate change, and more wealth redistribution. ²⁰

On the eve of the organization’s official launch, it urged its supporters to wear the color red. Red was chosen because it symbolized the blood shed during liberation from colonial rule and the loss of wealth from the continent. It was also chosen to symbolize that Africans have the same red blood and are more alike than different. ²¹

Leadership

The organization is led by movement coordinators. One of them is Muhammed Lamin Saidykhan from Gambia. He previously worked with ActionAid. ²²

The other movement coordinator is Coumba Toure from Mali. Previously, she worked with the Youth for Environmental Sanity and 21^st Century Youth Leadership Movement. ²³

Finances

The organization does not disclose its finances. However, it has received undisclosed support from left-wing foundations such as the NoVo Foundation and Wallace Global Fund. ²⁴

It received undisclosed financial support from the Hip Hop Caucus, who also wrote a blog post in support of the organization on the eve of its formal launch. ²⁵

It was founded by a $400,000 grant from ActionAid USA that was provided by the Ford Foundation. ²⁶

It received a “six figures” grant from the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation in 2020. ²⁷

It received a $50,000 grant from the Open Society Foundations in 2019. ²⁸

It received $250,000 grants from the Ford Foundation in 2018 and 2019. ²⁹

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