Africa Rising Building on African Strengths Building on African Strengths African communitybased organizations canlearn and grow by networking with each otherand relying less on Western donors What it was Africa Rising was an attempt to create an alternative to dependency on Western donors. The organization networked 14 African communitybased organizations together over an eight year period. The About pages describe the philosophy history the people and why the experiment came to an end. What was achieved The 14 organizations in the Africa Rising network responded enthusiastically to the opportunity to learn from and each other and to collaborate on projects.