The developed and emerging economies’ renewed interest in Africa is healthy. However, the continent will benefit little from the surge if it does not creatively engage the economies. This was observed by representatives of over fifty African research institutions and think tanks that gathered in Nairobi  to discuss Towards a New China-Africa Partnership.

Africans have no excuse to wallow in economic balkanization while they have several best examples across the globe to learn from. Japan, India and China for example, have reaped immensely from strategic alliances. They have appropriated technology, indigenized it and are producing differentiated products that not only uplift the quality of life of their citizens, but also enrich the global market.

With tremendous physical and intellectual resource at its disposal, the continent ought to develop well defined continental core interests; embrace coordinated approaches; fund research on potential partners; develop a strategy for engaging developed and emerging economies; and set benchmarks for engagement that should be reviewed annually.

Fifty years of independence is a long time for the continent to still be a parasite of cultures it had no hand in making; impotent in value addition and mere consumers of the products, whims and caprices of other nations. Now is the time to creatively engage development suitors.