About us

What we do

Everything we do is designed to tackle the pressing sustainable development challenges facing our continent.

Speak up Africa’s aspiration is to be unparalleled in lifting African actors to drive equitable and sustainable change towards healthy and thriving African societies.

We work on different thematic areas, but not in silos. We understand that our ability to tackle specific diseases or challenges depends on strong health systems and, ultimately, universal health coverage. This belief drives all of our work and cuts across all of our issues.

We convene

Because there is power in numbers and in diversity, we bring together stakeholders from all walks of life to increase relevance of the issues affecting our continent, generate commitments and foster immediate action.

We enable

We equip our partners with technical and financial resources so that they are better able to influence positive change and provide platforms for their voices to be amplified.

We advocate

We work with leaders within government, the private sector, civil society organizations, media and global donors and organizations to drive long-lasting policy change.

Our Value Proposition

We work across countries, cultures and contexts. We make connections and spur dialogue to achieve common goals.

We have our feet firmly grounded in Dakar, Senegal, our strategic base, but our team is just as comfortable on a football pitch in Abidjan, at Ministry of Health offices in Ouagadougou or in a board room in Geneva. For over 10 years, we have built strong relationships with governments, leaders from the private and public sectors, media, civil society organizations, research institutions, regional bodies, international organizations and donors. We have networks we can tap to move things forward. We know whom to speak with and how to speak with them. We know how to bring the right people together to get things done.

We intimately know and understand African contexts and can tap into local expertise and ingenuity.

Our team understands the issues we work on because we have lived them ourselves. Inadequate sanitation and clean water, lack of access to women’s hygiene products, the suffering caused by malaria and neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) — we have confronted these problems in our lives and within our families. We don’t just parachute in and quickly leave; Africa is our home. Being deeply embedded allows us to understand the nuances of our work and to translate those for different individuals and organizations.

We lift our partners up. We advocate with those who need support and provide platforms so they can make their voices heard.

To the African women, men and youth whose daily lives are affected by endemic diseases, poor sanitation and gender inequality, we are facilitators, enablers and partners. We listen, learn and then support them — community members, businesses, governments, media, research institutions and public health experts, as well as civil society organizations. They lead the change we are all working toward, while we stay out of the spotlight, celebrating their successes.

We are an organization founded and led by women. We are vibrant, energetic and dedicated Africans who know how to create impact.

Everyone on our team is committed to building lasting partnerships and alliances, and making a difference. As we have grown over the last 10 years, we have remained flexible and nimble enough to deliver on our commitments and generally exceed them. We share our knowledge and expertise with others, and our passion is contagious.

Our Reach

West Africa

Headquartered in Dakar, Senegal, our solid relationships with key decision makers, uniquely qualify us to drive policy change and advocacy across the region.

Francophone Africa

We are committed to enabling coordinated actions between French speaking African countries.

Africa

Working across the African continent, we catalyze systemic change for public health and sustainable development.

Global

We amplify and enable African voices globally to participate in developing the architecture needed to drive sustainable change.

Our Story

Speak Up Africa was founded in 2011 by Yacine Djibo with one goal in mind: to work with actors from all levels of society to discover and implement effective, sustainable solutions to the most challenging problems facing Africa’s people. At the time, Yacine and her co-founder, Fara Ndiaye, were working on malaria prevention and control and saw a gap in West Africa in implementing tailored responses to the specific public health challenges in the region.

Yacine and Fara saw that the solutions to Africa’s problems had to be driven by, and anchored in, the realities, preferences and priorities of each country. So, they set out to put their skill sets and connections to this task.

Starting small, with an office in Dakar and a team of three, Speak Up Africa has since grown into a well-respected strategic communications, policy and advocacy organization. With a team of 40 bilingual experts, Speak Up Africa now has projects in more than 8 countries, including: Benin, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Ethiopia, Guinea, Kenya, Niger, and Senegal.

More about our team