Africa must design and produce its own solutions, says Gugu Motlanthe

Africa must move beyond being a consumer of ideas and technologies developed elsewhere to designing and producing its own solutions, says Gugu Motlanthe, the executive trustee of the Kgalema Motlanthe Foundation.

Speaking at the launch of Pan Afrikan Design Week 2026 in Cape Town, Motlanthe said African products and innovations were gaining greater recognition, credibility and trust, creating opportunities for the continent to shape its own future.

“Africa must increasingly become a continent that imagines, designs, produces and exports its own solutions to the world,” she said.

The Kgalema Motlanthe Foundation, founded by its patron, former president Kgalema Motlanthe, promotes inclusive dialogue, technology and education through collaboration with civil society across Africa.

Motlanthe said collaboration among designers and innovators could help address societal challenges, create opportunities and strengthen communities, while contributing to the development of lives and livelihoods across the continent.

“That is why a gathering such as the Pan Afrikan Design Week matters,” she told delegates.

Africa’s demographics presented “another extraordinary, yet complex opportunity”, she said.

The continent had one of the world’s youngest populations but young people faced significant health risks and threats to their humanity. The design and creative industries therefore had a collective responsibility to nurture young Africans and equip them with skills, she said.

Motlanthe also called for a stronger connection between business and social purpose, arguing that commercial success was more meaningful when accompanied by social entrepreneurship.

Design, she said, should be human-centred, reflecting how people experience problems and how solutions could be shaped to address them.

Every society, she argued, was built around systems that had been designed, from cities, schools and transport to housing, food production and communication.

The people behind the systems made decisions that influenced the opportunities available to others, as well as the barriers they faced.

Even in an era of rapid advances in artificial intelligence, she said, understanding people and their needs remained essential to good design.

Motlanthe challenged delegates to consider whose knowledge and needs should shape Africa’s future.

“The question before us is what collaboration of like-minded people will design Africa's future? Whose knowledge will inform that design and whose needs will it serve?”

Among the design specialists attending the conference were Suné Stassen, the co-founder and chief executive of Open Design Afrika, and professors Felix Ofori Dartey and Des Laubsher of the Pan Afrika Design Institute.