The Platform for African Democrats

GMA works with the Platform for African Democrats (PAD) to build the next generation of African leaders. The PAD is the outcome of an inclusive process which started in 2017, subsequently widened to include bringing African opposition leaders together around election monitoring missions, first in Somaliland, and later in Kenya, Lesotho and Liberia. Several workshops have accompanied this process including in Hargeisa and Cadenabbia, and culminating in a gathering in Poland which produced the Gdansk Declaration. Further PAD summits have been held in Benguela and Cape Town.

The PAD was originally formed by the World Liberty Congress and the Brenthurst Foundation with the support of the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung. Brenthurst's involvement ended in June 2025. The Platform recognises the ongoing struggle between autocracy and democracy, the heroic democratic campaigns exemplified by the colour revolutions, and the central role of Iran, Russia and China in promoting autocracy and rejects the jaded caricature of democrats as counter-revolutionaries, neo-liberals or Western proxies. 

As Freedom House has noted, 2024 marked the 19th consecutive year of decline in global freedom. The long democratic recession is deepening, with more than 90% of Africans now living under various shades of authoritarianism, whereas around two-thirds of those polled by Afrobarometer prefer democracy to other forms of government.  

As all our research illustrates, unless we get the politics right, development will remain a fraught, insecure and difficult path, driven less by inclusivity than elitism. For more detials for to: www.pad.africa.