Freedom Giant: Wilmot Selase Kwami Date: 19th September, 2025
According to Dr. Umar Johnson, African societies everywhere in the world lack five fundamental institutions required for development: a school, farm, hospital, bank, and shop. I believe these institutions are critical but must be owned and controlled by Africans to serve their best interests. Many companies that run key economic sectors in both Africa and the diaspora are owned by non-Africans. Even African-owned institutions depend largely on an infrastructure dominated by non-Africans. For example, the telecom sector includes African giants like Glo and MTN, but the cutting-edge technologies enabling telecommunications are often owned by non-Africans. It is critical for Africans to change this trend.
This phenomenon is also evident in development banking, a sector largely dominated by international institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Although the African Development Bank exists, it is not wholly owned by Africans. This raises serious concerns about the ability of Africans to fund their own development sustainably. Many African countries borrow excessively from foreign creditors and Bretton Woods institutions, which impose burdensome conditionalities and interest payments. This leads to distress for citizens in African countries and their diaspora counterparts. To resolve this, the African Development Bank must be strengthened into a true pan-African bank to address the developmental challenges of all African and Caribbean countries. It should offer affordable credit and be the first point of call for financing developmental projects and addressing financial challenges.
Although Africa has the largest available arable land globally, many African countries still wrestle with food insecurity. This is partly due to failures by African governments to mechanize and improve their agricultural sectors. Many prioritize cultivating ‘cash crops’ like coffee, cocoa, rubber, and bananas to the detriment of food crops needed to feed their people. Furthermore, conditionalities imposed by the IMF and the World Bank force many African governments to allow cheaper food imports to flood their markets. These imports compete with local produce and drive farmers out of business. To address this, African governments must prioritize establishing state-owned farms to produce enough food for local demand while exporting the surplus to other African and Caribbean countries.
I also strongly advocate for a pan-African hospital and medical research facility dedicated to the needs of Africans and people of African descent. This institution must conduct advanced research into herbal and alternative medicine to produce natural remedies for lifestyle and communicable illnesses that kill many Africans, including Malaria, Hypertension, Ebola, and Cholera. It must lead cutting-edge innovation in the medical field in Africa and the diaspora and be comparable to top global medical institutions. Similar to the World Health Organization (WHO), it must be an authority on medical issues confronting Africa and Africans. It should also have a subsidiary focused on resolving medical issues in conflict zones across Africa and the Caribbean, such as DR Congo, Somalia, and Haiti.
Education can be both the key and the lock to a prosperous future, depending on its substance, context, and quality. The current educational curriculum in Africa does not address the developmental needs of Africa, the Caribbean, and the larger diaspora. Many people progress through the educational system only to become disillusioned, unemployed, or underemployed. This must be addressed by tailoring the curriculum to meet the urgent economic demands of Africa and the world. African governments need to prioritize technical vocational programs, STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics), and STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics) in their educational reforms. Civic education, history, and pan-African studies must be given equally high priority. The end goal of education should be to produce quality people useful to the global economy. Through such policies, Africa can become the next India or China, producing the world’s best technicians and professionals.
Commerce plays a critical role in life and in the global arena, where countries trade on bilateral and multilateral bases. Therefore, I believe there must be a pan-African-owned shop dedicated to selling the best African products and services to the global market. This shop should be able to compete with giants like Walmart and Amazon and project the best of African products to the world. It will provide needed revenue for institutions like the African Union and the African Development Bank and help alleviate developmental challenges on the continent. It should have physical branches across Africa, the Caribbean, and the entire diaspora, as well as an online shop accessible to global customers.
Finally, Africa needs indigenous developmental organizations or a pan-African social institution to tackle societal problems. This organization should be on a scale similar to international non-governmental organizations like Care Int., the UN, GIZ, and USAID. It should work directly with African and Caribbean governments and stakeholders to address developmental needs, with no hidden political or profit-seeking agenda, prioritizing only the well-being of Africans. It must be well-resourced with adequate and sustainable funding to sustain its work.
These institutions are the bedrock for the sustainable development of all nations. People of African descent ought to see themselves as one people irrespective of country of birth, religion, or language. Local media and governments in Africa and the Caribbean need to rally their citizens behind the creation, support, and patronage of these institutions to foster lasting and sustainable development.
WHAT AFRICAN GOVERNMENTS CAN DO TO CREATE INSTITUTIONS THAT ARE FUNDAMENTAL FOR DEVELOPMENT:
The first step is for all African countries to rally behind the agenda of building these six fundamental institutions: banking, agriculture, commerce, medicine, social services, and education. Once there is broad consensus and political will, laws, feasibility studies and regulatory frameworks must be established to support their creation and continued existence.
The second step is to hire the right people to run these institutions. After establishing the necessary rules, laws, and policies, highly competent, experienced, and dedicated individuals must be hired to run all departments competently.
There must be external monitoring and oversight to ensure these institutions run appropriately, that staff respect the rules and regulations, and that the institutions achieve their mandates by keeping staff in check.
Furthermore, governments and local media in Africa, the Caribbean, and the diaspora must ensure support for these key institutions is at its peak. All citizens need to know about their work and support them accordingly.
Finally, and most importantly, these institutions must be resourced regularly. All African and Caribbean countries need to contribute their quota to establish and continuously support them to ensure they are strong and viable. Additionally, these institutions need self-sustaining business models to operate successfully even if funding from some or all African countries is lacking.
In conclusion, the key institutions mentioned are critical to the development of all peoples. Unlike Africans, Europeans and Asians have key institutions that have played a pivotal role in their countries’ development and ensured their continued dominance on the global stage. For Africa to rise and reach its full economic potential, it is critical for all African and Caribbean stakeholders to come together to establish and maintain these key institutions to meet the developmental needs of all African peoples. I strongly believe this is of urgent and critical importance.
AFRICAN VOICES INTERNATIONAL, FREEDOM IN AFRICA
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