But for Mauritius, Seychelles and many of the countries on the northern part of Africa, the entire continent are way behind in the attainment of the 17 sustainable development goals set by the United Nations, and apart from some of Africa’s peculiar problems of leadership challenges, requisite talent and labour capabilities, the major inhibiting factor militating against development has been finance.
A heritage of colonialism has created a culture of dependency. Many African countries still look upwards towards Europe for guidance and direction on national economic management and prescriptions on development choices. In the desperate search for funding, African countries have entered into contracts that have mostly left them shortchanged as far as income is concerned. This stems mostly from the tendency to remain resource generators, but far away from the table where added values are laid out and shared.
For instance, according to the Special Adviser on Africa to the United Nations’ Secretary General, Cristina Duarte, ‘Ghana exported $9.58 billion in gold in 2024, yet it only retained 14% of the value due to the nature of multinational agreements. The DRC produces over 70% of the world’s cobalt, yet only 1% is refined in the country before being exported. Zimbabwe was ranked as the third-largest producer of chromium in 2023, yet most was exported in raw form.
Today, the chocolate market is valued at $119.4 billion, and collectively, West Africa produces 70% of the world’s cacao beans, but contributes less than 1% of the global chocolate market. In Somalia, illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing by foreign fishing fleets costs the economy $300 million annually’.
Nigeria, on its part, is still battling to add value to its crude oil exploration and production, importing petroleum products worth more than $25 billion annually, even when its earnings from the export of crude oil hover between $10 billion to $12 billion.
The culmination of these has led to slow capital accumulation. African countries and African businesses play at the peripheral of world trade and overall global business. In a 2004 research publication titled, Financing Africa’s Future Growth and Development, Ernest Aryeetey, of the Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research, University of Ghana noted how the weak foundations of most African economies prevented the continent from benefiting from the globalization trends of the 1990s, even when many East Asian nations measurably profited.
The failure to diversify exports by investing in value creation, Aryeetey further argued, “left the continent virtually ignored by the dynamic forces that swept the international trading and financial systems with the aid of advanced information and telecommunication technology.
To develop the continent, the Mo Ibrahim Foundation estimates that Africa needs from $900 billion to $1.3 trillion annually over a long period to escape the underdevelopment trap and hope to leapfrog close to where the rest of the advanced world is.
Since the structure of present earnings, donations, and borrowing is grossly inadequate in bridging the gaps, many Africans have advanced development options capable of supporting African countries to solve lingering African development problems.
Prescriptions for reforms have ranged from devaluation, fiscal discipline, and, as far as African economic activists are concerned, reparations for years of slavery and colonialism.
But reparations, as an economic rescue solution, appear far-fetched given their measurement contradictions; how do you determine the degree of affliction from colonialism and slavery on each of the nations and the commensurate swathe of reparation due therefrom? Given that slavery also had the active and beneficial participation of many physically and politically powerful Africans, how do you discount these roles in the payment of reparations, assuming that route was even remotely possible?
To develop Africa, for the region to have the chance of catching up with the rest of the world, the continent must be intentional about it and seek internal means of solving its problems. In the milieu of economic prescriptions, none will be as effective as the one designed by Africans for Africa.
Interestingly, it was the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, an NGO many Africans see as neo-colonialist, that gave the sort of “Africa-for-Africa prescription that appeared practical. Before the Tony Blair Foundation wrote this in February 2025, the African Tony, Tony Elumelu, had been evangelizing the continent with an economic model which he calls Africapitalism, a concept predicated on the belief that Africa’s private sector can and must play a leading role in the continent’s development.
When the Tony Blair Foundation, therefore, speaks of “homegrown solutions” to Africa’s economic challenges, they are talking about Tony Elumelu’s Africapitalism, using different words.
For the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, Africa has to prioritise homegrown solutions and strengthen intra-African collaboration, “the continent can define its developmental trajectory and reduce its vulnerability to external policy shifts. How leaders across the globe choose to respond to the shifting geopolitical landscape could determine whether this era enables progress or deepens existing inequalities’.
‘The adoption of an ‘America First’ trade policy signaled a shift towards prioritising domestic economic interests over multilateral agreements. The decision to withdraw from the World Health Organisation raised questions about global health cooperation and the future of international partnerships. The announcement of a 90-day suspension of development-cooperation disbursements and the move to shut down the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) have created uncertainty around US foreign assistance.
The president’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement demonstrated a retreat from global climate commitments, while the ‘Unleashing American Energy’ policy prioritised domestic oil, gas and critical minerals, highlighting a focus on energy independence and resource extraction’, the Foundation wrote on their website (institute.global) under the headline, ‘Africa First: A New Vision for Africa’s Growth and US Engagement’.
At the risk of being interpreted as cynical, the prescription from Tony Blair Institute for Global Change is not different from what Tony Elumelu had preached for years now, and I guess the call for homegrown solutions should, as a matter of urgency, begin with giving resonance to an African voice that had been able to condense the direction into a simple, easily communicable philosophy – Africapitalism.
Looking inwards for development direction and priorities must impel the sourcing of Africa’s development capital within the continent, and this will demand a lot from the continent’s financial institutions. Far from bumper profits, the financial institutions on the continent must help in the design of the framework for the floating of cheap capital for the industrialisation and infrastructure explosion on the continent.
With his ‘America First’ policy, Donald Trump is in a hurry to return home, businesses that have been outsourced to other economic jurisdictions, such as China. Even if, as is practically difficult, he does not succeed, his efforts are to get greater value for the American people, whether it is in the cost of returning those goods to America or in the cost of inputs that he believes can be made on American soil.
In the same vein, African financial institutions must seize the initiative from government and policy drivers, in championing the ‘Africa first’ economic direction (Africapitalism, if you like). While integration has been impossible for the African Union to achieve, the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) provides the rallying ground for the exchanges that will catalyse change. It is at this gathering that economic cross-pollinations capable of leading to the birthing of cheap financial pools for the continent’s development will happen.
Luckily, African banks are increasingly spreading all over the continent. A bank like the United Bank for Africa (UBA), has already spread to 19 African countries. Access Bank is also in 19 countries, Zenith Bank, 4, Ecobank, 33, and Standard Bank, 20.
The intentional collaboration of African banks for a higher African common economic purpose will achieve three things quickly. First, it will send a message to the west, and even east, that Africa is ready and that will instigate a behavioural change, impact on Africa’s negotiating power, and add confidence to the jaunty steps of Africans on the world stage. Secondly, it will trigger more purpose-driven Diaspora investment home-flow. Africans have huge capital in the Diaspora, with remittances accounting for less than 10 percent of what is possible, but with opportunities back home appearing more assured, remittances will rise to more than 70 percent, while investments from Diaspora Africans will increase quite impressively.
The margins in Africa are higher than in Europe, Asia, and the Americas, and since capital is perpetually in search of fertile grounds to multiply, it is expected that the continent will be the new beautiful bride for Diaspora investments flow.
Thirdly, with Africans creating their terms of engagement before the world, donor agencies and foreign venture capitalists will alter their arrogance, and begin to engage the continent on more even and more respectful terms. Seeing the continent is cooking homegrown alternatives will trigger a change in behaviour by its foreign economic powers.
On a final note, this intervention will seek the cultivation of venture capitalists and angel investors for the innumerable startups and scalable businesses stymied by a lack of capital and capacity on the continent. In the past, we have been treated to television reality shows like The Apprentice and Dragon’s Den. Africans have watched many others through satellite television.
But the continent needs the emergence of the sort of investors that lifted geniuses like Steve Jobs, Mark Zukerberg and Elon Musk to the billionaires’ club. The mergence of this category of people will lead to massive job creation, incubation of talents and the amplification of continental infrastructure.
Africa will be better is it stops developing in silos. The continent’s development must be intentional, and it must also be inclusive, given the cultural and historical interconnectedness of the people.
