Africa
Regional Manager: Fran Mate
The first missionaries from the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (SPG) to go to Africa set sail in 1752, to a part of west Africa that is in Ghana today. The SPG sent missionaries to South Africa for the first time in 1821, then to the Seychelles in 1832. The Universities’ Mission to Central Africa (UMCA) was formed in 1858, sending missionaries to Zanzibar, Tanganyika (now Tanzania), Nyasaland (now Malawi), Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) and South Africa. UMCA eventually merged with SPG in 1965 to form USPG.
Today, USPG has long and cherished relationships with churches across Africa and also with the Church of the Province of the Indian Ocean, which covers Madagascar, Mauritius and the Seychelles.