Rebranding Africa – What is Africa’s Agenda?

Reading a Zimbabwe politician’s recent solutions to HIV infections in his country left me thoroughly bemused. Senator Morgan Femai’s idea that HIV infections can be reduced if women shave their heads, bathe less often and undergo female circumcision has made the rounds in news outlets across the globe. His ideas have also been termed as ‘nonsense on stilts’ – a fitting description if you asked me.Sometimes, it is stories such as Femai’s misleading solutions to HIV that reinforce global perceptions of the African continent as one filled with laughable politicians and a downward spiral of development. It adds to the continuous brand of Africa as a joke, and a place where progress is stunted by the warped vision of some of its leaders who seem to still live in the Middle Age. Reading this story in The Huffington Post, a Pulitzer Prize-winning U.S digital media enterprise, made me think of all the other negative reporting on Africa by leading Western news outlets. Stories like this are perfect fodder for the negative content on Africa by Western media, and one wonders when this news slant will stop and offer more positive stories on what happens in Africa. Also, stereotyping Africa as one homogeneous community doesn’t do justice to reputations of countries that are doing well.That is why it was refreshing to read the title of a New York Times’ article titled ‘Rebranding Africa’. Vogue Italia, an Italian fashion magazine, is dedicating the month of May to showcasing uplifting images of Africa to its readers, images that are not “sad, trashy or poor.” All read well in the article, until the author at one point referred to Africa as a nation. That a European fashion magazine feels responsible in the rebranding process of Africa, and that the reporting agent refers to a continent as a country, begs the question on what Africans are doing about this issue, and their thoughts on it.At the 2010 Brand Africa Forum, Jay Naidoo, Chairman of the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition stated that “China has an agenda in Africa. India has an agenda in Africa. The US has an agenda in Africa. We are naïve to think that the people that come into our countries, even the ones who are here to help us, have no agenda. Everyone has an agenda. What is Africa’s agenda?” In this rebranding process, we must, as Africans, take the lead in how our continent tells its stories - its achievements, its hopes and, most importantly – its, future. It may be difficult sometimes with rhetoric from people such as Senator Femai, but the alternative, which is to have others to continue doing it for us alone in this day and age is unacceptable.