Cycle Africa:
Insights from 10,000km across Africa’s development landscape
About
I’m Ellie, an experienced international development professional with a passion for exploring.
In 2025, I completed a 10,000km cycling expedition across Sub-Saharan Africa, engaging with 100 local NGOs to understand how programmes are delivered in practice. The journey focused on documenting their work, challenges and approaches.
The project now serves as a platform for sharing insights and supporting more grounded, effective approaches to development. This includes the development of a practical guide that brings together lessons from organisations across multiple countries, providing actionable recommendations for both locally led organisations and INGOs.
The Route
This 10,000-kilometre expedition from Kigali to Cape Town, will take me through 10 countries across Eastern and Southern Africa, including:
Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa.
Along the way, I engaged with approximately 10 NGOs in each capital city, focusing on organisations working in education, gender and youth economic activity, building a cross-country picture of how programmes are delivered in practice.
Each country presented distinct terrains and contexts, requiring constant adaptation and offering a wide range of experiences along the way.
Context
Grounded in direct experience working with locally led organisations, I have seen how context-specific approaches can deliver meaningful impact. This has shaped my focus on understanding what works in practice and how these insights can inform wider programmes and partnerships.
Field Insights
I captured insights from across Africa’s local development ecosystem, with a focus on how programmes are delivered in practice. This includes documenting challenges, adaptive approaches and lessons, as well as identifying gaps that influence programme effectiveness, partnerships and funding approaches.
Toolkit
Lessons gathered across countries are translated into a practical toolkit, capturing common challenges, adaptive approaches and insights from locally led organisations to support more effective programme design, partnerships and funding approaches.
Bring These Insights to Your Team
Organisations are increasingly looking to better understand how programmes are delivered in practice and how to build more effective partnerships with locally led organisations.
Drawing on insights from engaging with NGOs across multiple countries, I offer talks for INGOs, donors and networks that explore the realities of programme delivery, common challenges on the ground, and practical lessons for programme design, partnerships and funding approaches.
These sessions are tailored to different audiences and support teams to reflect on current approaches and identify opportunities for more effective and context-responsive ways of working.
Alongside this, I also offer talks focused on the journey itself, exploring resilience, uncertainty and adaptation in complex environments. Drawing on a 10,000km expedition across Sub-Saharan Africa, these sessions are well suited to broader audiences, events and leadership discussions.
Partners
Friends of Bata empowers young people by providing funding, mentorship and resources to turn innovative ideas into impactful community projects.
With a shared focus on entrepreneurship and youth-led solutions, they have been a key partner in shaping the themes emerging from the journey. Their support has contributed to translating insights into practical approaches that can inform and empower future change-makers.
I am working in collaboration with the Southern African Council for Non-Governmental Organisations (SAf-CNGO), a regional network supporting civil society organisations across the SADC region.
Through this partnership, the insights gathered during the Cycle Africa expedition are being synthesised into practical outputs, including reports and learning materials designed to support NGOs, networks and partners.