Everyone has a plan for Africa; but does Africa have the conviction to drive its own? (1), By Dipo Baruwa

So why does it often appear that Africa has no plan? Why does everyone else appear able to impose or advance their own agendas on the continent? From my low-plains position, what Africa appears to be in short supply of is collective conviction, effective coordination and sustained implementation… Perhaps, therefore, the statement that “everyone has a plan for Africa except Africa” identifies the symptom but misdiagnoses the disease.

I was on LinkedIn the other day when I came across this screaming headline: “Everyone has a plan for Africa, except Africa.” At first, I was so engrossed by the headline that I thought, wow, what an apt description. The accompanying write-up reinforced the point by citing various engagements between Africa and its external partners, while also drawing attention to the fragmentation within Africa itself.

So yes, the headline is captivating. But it could also be very misleading. Perhaps it is another reminder of the old saying: do not judge a book by its cover.

What is more important to me in this reflection is not what the writer has argued. Rather, the headline triggered a different question for me: what has Africa continually missed because of its persistent tendency to privilege externally generated solutions over confidence in its own capacity?

It brings me to wonder what has happened to the Pan-African drive — an era when bold and incisive ideas of African self-determination were articulated and, in many cases, matched by equally ambitious attempts at implementation. Unfortunately, many of the early believers who articulated these visions were removed, undermined or isolated — sometimes with the complicity of fellow Africans and the support of external interests pursuing their own agendas on the continent.

The irony is difficult to ignore!

Who is Planning for whom, and for What?

There is nothing inherently wrong with other countries or regions having plans for Africa. In fact, it would be strange if they did not. China will naturally design its engagement with Africa around Chinese interests. The United Kingdom will pursue British interests. The European Union, the United States, India, Türkiye, the Gulf states and others will equally approach Africa through the prism of their own strategic, economic and geopolitical priorities.

Isn’t that what states do?

The real question, therefore, is not why others have plans for Africa. It is whether Africa possesses sufficient collective agency to engage those plans from the standpoint of clearly articulated African interests.

And yes, that is what it should be: an African plan into which all other plans must fit.

Does Africa Have a Plan?

Across virtually every major development challenge confronting the continent, from infrastructure and industrialisation to trade, food security, energy, technology and human capital, there is hardly a shortage of declarations, protocols, strategies or institutions. The continent has the African Union. It has the African Continental Free Trade Area. It has the African Development Bank. It has Regional Economic Communities. It has Agenda 2063 and numerous continental, regional and national development frameworks.

Clearly, Africa does have a plan!

The Pan-African project must, therefore, confront perhaps its most difficult challenge: its own internal weaknesses. Africa’s future will not be determined primarily by speeches about African unity. It will be determined by whether African governments and institutions can translate collective ambitions into the everyday infrastructure of development: functioning transport corridors, interoperable payment systems, efficient borders…

So why does it often appear that Africa has no plan? Why does everyone else appear able to impose or advance their own agendas on the continent? From my low-plains position, what Africa appears to be in short supply of is collective conviction, effective coordination and sustained implementation.

Perhaps, therefore, the statement that “everyone has a plan for Africa except Africa” identifies the symptom but misdiagnoses the disease.

What Happened to the Pan-African Aspiration?

The early Pan-African idea was more than an emotional appeal to racial or continental solidarity. At its strongest, it represented an argument about agency: the belief that Africans must possess the political, economic and institutional capacity to determine the direction of their own socioeconomic and political development.

Independence was never supposed to end with the lowering of one flag and the raising of another. Political sovereignty for individual African states was intended to provide a foundation for economic transformation, deeper continental cooperation and a stronger African voice in shaping the international system.

Africa is not merely home to a distinct people and history. It also contains the largest number of sovereign states of any continent. Yet it has struggled to translate this numerical and collective weight into corresponding geopolitical and economic influence; somewhere along the journey, the political symbolism of Pan-Africanism appears to have overshadowed its economic and institutional foundations.

Since the creation of the African Union, African leaders have gathered around common declarations but have too often returned home to pursue narrowly defined national political interests. Countries have endorsed regional integration while simultaneously maintaining barriers against their neighbours. Governments celebrate the AfCFTA while trucks remain stranded at borders, customs systems remain poorly connected, and businesses continue to struggle to move goods across the continent.

There is, therefore, a significant difference between agreeing on a continental aspiration and building the institutional capability required to make it work.

And this work must begin within individual countries. Continental capability cannot exist independently of capable states. Strong national institutions, productive economies, efficient infrastructure and functioning domestic markets ultimately aggregate into continental strength.

The Pan-African project must, therefore, confront perhaps its most difficult challenge: its own internal weaknesses. Africa’s future will not be determined primarily by speeches about African unity. It will be determined by whether African governments and institutions can translate collective ambitions into the everyday infrastructure of development: functioning transport corridors, interoperable payment systems, efficient borders, productive industries, reliable energy, skilled labour, deeper financial markets, and institutions capable of coordinating across national boundaries.

That is where Pan-Africanism moves from political symbolism to developmental action.

That process of self-discovery is itself part of development. There will always be opportunities for policy learning, adaptation and knowledge transfer from elsewhere. But the importance of self-discovery in building domestic capability cannot be discounted. An imported solution may tell us what worked somewhere else; it cannot automatically give us the accumulated knowledge of why it worked, how it evolved or what must change for it to work here.

The Danger of Continually Looking Outward

There is another dimension to the problem. African policymaking has often demonstrated considerable confidence in solutions that arrive from elsewhere. We borrow development models. We import institutional templates. We reproduce policy frameworks. We engage consultants to explain what successful countries have done and sometimes proceed as though development were merely a matter of replicating those arrangements locally.

But development rarely works that way; there is, of course, no one-size-fits-all solution!

While the problem is not learning from elsewhere; at least every successful economy has borrowed, adapted and learnt from others. The problem arises when transplantation substitutes for adaptation and domestic institutional learning. This mostly occurs when domestic and continental institutions fail to accumulate their own problem-solving capabilities; the temptation to look elsewhere for ready-made answers becomes even stronger.

Institutions are not merely pieces of organisational architecture that can be lifted from one society and transplanted into another. Behind every successful model lies a history of experimentation, mistakes, adaptation, political negotiation and institutional learning. Before the successful model becomes visible, there is often a much less visible process of failure, learning, self-conviction, purposeful experimentation and commitment to particular objectives.

This matters because when models are imported without sufficient participation by local actors or adaptation to domestic circumstances, what may be acquired is the visible structure without the capability required to make it work.

This is why stumbling should not always be interpreted as failure; learning is achieved by doing. Institutions develop through repeated experimentation. Policies are adjusted when they encounter realities their designers did not anticipate. Governments discover what their economies can produce competitively, which capabilities are missing and which interventions generate unintended consequences.

That process of self-discovery is itself part of development. There will always be opportunities for policy learning, adaptation and knowledge transfer from elsewhere. But the importance of self-discovery in building domestic capability cannot be discounted. An imported solution may tell us what worked somewhere else; it cannot automatically give us the accumulated knowledge of why it worked, how it evolved or what must change for it to work here.

And, that is perhaps where Africa must begin looking inward; not to isolate itself from the world, but to build the capability required to engage it on its own terms.