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Showing posts from April, 2021

AFRICA’S STORYTELLING TRADITION MUST PERSIST

Storytelling has long played a central role in African societies with storytellers often holding a special place as the keepers of history and tradition. However, with migration, Africa’s stories have left the continent and are now disseminated across the world. Taking full ownership of our stories through new Afro-centric content requires us to reclaim our rich storytelling culture. With digitalisation, we have observed a renewed and increased interest from the diaspora in stories from home, as well as a strong desire from African creatives to share their authentic stories with a wider international audience. Observing these two dynamics has made it apparent that only by mutually strengthening collaboration between the diaspora and locals will we be able to ensure our storytelling tradition endures. Here again there is important work to be done to ensure we enable such collaboration to thrive. We must create an enabling environment, composed of structures facilitating knowledge sharin

A CASE FOR HOMEGROWN LEADERSHIP

For too long Africans have been spectators watching others come up with solutions to the continent’s socio-economic development challenges. However, the tide has started to turn with more and more Africans vocal about the need to take ownership and come up with African solutions to African problems.   There’s a new forward-looking generation of talented and ambitious individuals eager to take back control the continent’s narrative and bring about solutions from an African perspective.   Nevertheless, adequate resources and pan-African knowledge-sharing programs are urgently needed for this generation to be successful in taking leadership positions across all spheres of influence.   Providing an enabling and intellectually stimulating environment must be an integral part of the strategy to grow the upcoming generation of African leaders. Identifying overlooked talent must also be part of this strategy and education is the best place to start.   Poverty remains the main obstacle to impro