Africa must move away from seeing itself through what it lacks and instead draw on its own institutions, knowledge, communities, wealth and talent to address the continent's challenges, speakers at the Africa Mindset Reset Forum said on Wednesday, August 26.
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The speakers said Africa's development will depend on countries and communities taking greater ownership of the solutions they pursue, rather than relying on models developed elsewhere or allowing others to define the continent's story.
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Doris Uwicyeza Picard, CEO of the Rwanda Governance Board, said Rwanda's recovery from the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi showed how local approaches can be adapted to address complex challenges.
She highlighted Gacaca courts, which handled about two million genocide cases, as well as Umuganda, Abunzi and Girinka, as examples of locally developed approaches that have involved communities in development and social protection.
"True changes occur when we become true authors of our own futures," she said.
Picard gave an example of community-based health insurance (CBHI), saying Rwanda adapted the scheme to its culture of shared responsibility. She said 92.9 percent of households pay their own contributions, 99.7 percent report seeking healthcare promptly and 84.1 percent say the scheme protects them from selling essential assets during medical emergencies.
She noted that maternal mortality fell from 1,071 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2000 to 149 in 2025, and life expectancy increased from 46 to 70 years. She noted that the gains were the result of broader reforms and not CBHI alone.
"African countries should learn from Rwanda's experience without copying its models wholesale. They should start with their own realities, mobilise communities, adapt imported ideas and continuously improve what works," Uwicyeza said.
Sport as an economic sector
NBA Africa CEO Clare Akamanzi said sport should be treated as an economic sector, not simply as recreation.
She used the example of Khaman Maluach, a South Sudanese refugee who discovered basketball in Uganda at age 13, joined the NBA Academy in Senegal at 14 and four years later became a top-10 NBA Draft pick.
Akamanzi said Maluach's journey showed what could happen when African talent is connected to deliberate development pathways.
The Basketball Africa League (BAL), NBA Academy and scouting networks, she said, are creating such pathways while opening opportunities for jobs and businesses.
"Sports is not just talent. Sports is not just recreation. Sports is actually an economy," Akamanzi said.
She said the BAL had contributed $250 million to GDP and created 37,000 jobs across four African countries during its first four seasons.
She said plans to introduce a home-and-away competition involving 12 teams from 12 countries could increase the league's economic impact to billions of dollars and create an estimated 650,000 jobs within a decade.
Akamanzi urged governments to include sport in development strategies and treat arenas as economic infrastructure. She also encouraged parents to regard sport as part of education because of the leadership, resilience, teamwork and discipline it can develop.
She called on the private sector to look beyond sponsorship and invest in media, content, venues, teams and franchises.
Africa, she said, should also find ways to retain more of the value generated by its athletes.
"When you export talent, you export the value that comes with the talent," she said.
African wealth, African solutions
Zouera Youssoufou, CEO of the Aliko Dangote Foundation, said Africans should make greater use of the continent's wealth to address its challenges.
She said philanthropy was already deeply rooted in African communities, where people routinely support relatives, neighbours and other people in need. The challenge, she said, is to turn that culture of giving into long-term investment capable of addressing structural problems.
Youssoufou said Nigerian billionaire Aliko Dangote's pledge to give away 25 percent of his wealth was significant beyond the amount involved.
"The real mindset shift is not the percentage that Aliko Dangote pledged. Rather, it is converting private African wealth into patient, institutionally governed and intergenerational capital that enables Africans to set priorities, build delivery capability and act collectively," she said.
She added that the foundation invests in African professionals, institutions, research and programmes in health, education, agriculture and economic empowerment, to leave capacity on the continent.
"During Nigeria's Covid-19 response, private companies raised more than $120 million in two weeks and supported local production of essential supplies," Yousoufou said.
"Strong governance, accountability and succession planning will be essential to ensure the 25 percent pledge delivers lasting results. African wealth can become transformative when we build things that outlast the funder, founder, and giver."
Faster action needed
Former Nigerien Prime Minister Ibrahim Mayaki explained that Africa's growing population makes speed and coordination essential, particularly in agriculture.
He said the continent had made progress over the past two decades, including a fivefold increase in worker productivity, a three- to fourfold rise in land productivity and a threefold increase in intra-African trade in agricultural products.
However, he said population growth of 3.8-4.2 percent was eroding those achievements. Africa is expected to add about one billion people by 2050, taking its population to about 2.5 billion.
Mayaki said the first mindset reset Africa needs is to accelerate the implementation of solutions. He identified four other areas that require a rethink, including bringing different sectors together, recognising the changing relationship between rural and urban areas, rethinking how agricultural development is planned and involving communities more directly in policymaking.
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Agriculture, he said, cannot be tackled in isolation from transport, infrastructure, nutrition and energy.
He called for agricultural planning to focus on food baskets, natural basins and development corridors rather than national borders.
Mayaki said communities should also have a greater role in shaping policies and implementing Agenda 2063, the African Union's long-term development framework, to make it more relevant to young Africans.
"The only way to have them own the Agenda is to make them part of a process where they feel they are actors of implementation," he said.
Moky Makura, Executive Director of Africa No Filter, an organisation that works to challenge stereotypical narratives about Africa, said the continent must take greater control of the stories told about it.
"Our weapon of mass destruction is story. When we continue to focus on poverty, conflict and dependency, we shape how young Africans see their prospects and how investors assess risk. Stories influence how people see the world and the decisions they make," she said.
She noted that Africa's progress is often overlooked and urged greater attention to successful policies, businesses, innovations and people across the continent, including Rwanda's efficiency and innovation and the African Continental Free Trade Area.
Through the "Opportunity Africa Initiative" and its "Not Waiting campaign", she said organisations and individuals are being brought together to share stories of Africans creating change.
"The hardest thing we have to do as Africans is collaborate. It's our duty to show the world what we want the world to see about us," she said.
