Personal Look at the PMI Africa Conference 2019

Being my first PMI Africa conference I honestly didn’t know what to expect. Both from the attendees prospective and the themes that would have been presented. I also honestly didn’t know how my intervention would have been perceived, leave aside if understood at all, being the Project Management profession universe mainly formed by infrastructure or IT people.

What I found, beside the superbe organization, was a vibrant network of Project Mangers and entrepreneurs from all African countries, and working in all sectors. I also definitely acknowledged that the profession of Project Manager and the PMI family is well embraced in Tanzania, and the enthusiasm of the young volunteers from the PMI Tanzanian chapter was almost touching and definitely enlightening at the same time.

I had the chance to share ideas with the President and CEO of PMI, Sunil Prashara, and, together with others colleagues from the GCC, investigate the possibilities for creating chapters in Countries like Oman or Qatar. Because, let’s be honest, once you meet the Cameron chapter or the Nigerian chapter or the Tanzanian chapter, you, the one without a Chapter, kind of feel a bit like an orphan. But aside the professional network, the human universe of people actively making a change as Project Managers is what makes these events special.

With a background in the civil engineering industry and infrastructure development I could relate with all of the others attendees and speakers, yet none of them talked about infrastructure necessarily. But what amused me is that they could relate to me, to what we do with Zamani and they could see how, what we do can bring the real change, the real sustainable development, the real inclusiveness and bridge the gaps.

I talked about what we do, how heritage Regeneration need a clear purpose, needs to be profit oriented to be sustainable and need to look at the communities (the people) and the planet. I talked about how tourism can be a catalyst for a change, once you stop looking at the single project and you look at the bigger picture of the programme, using different projects to maximize the benefits of each other and most important empowering local businesses in the process. Involving all sectors, including educational and agriculture, specially in remote areas, where the gaps are wider.

The genuine interests and the number of questions I received during and after my talk was somehow surprising and surely unexpected. As Muzungu, you probably see yourself as the last person entitled to tell them what to do to solve issues most of the time created by your own people, specially when it relates to the concepts of tourism - sustainability - preserving natural and cultural resources - empowering local communities.

Yet, I was wrong again and yet, I learned a lot myself. Including things that you sometimes give for granted, like Project Culture, successful educational programmes in Zimbabwe like ZIVA, dairy cows and livestock capacity building projects like iCow (as well as genetic databases of Tanzanian cows), women empowerment projects in the most male dominated industry in the world - construction- happening now in Rwanda, how Nigerians understand the importance heritage assets and yet they feel is still under looked by their government (either it is a National asset or a privately owned one that the family is willing to regenerate).

I came back with a number of new contacts in my phone, new ideas, dots to link further, but most important I came back with the strong feeling that we will cross paths again.

author - Chiara Cei Ph.D - PMP