How can African countries better prepare for Expo 2025?
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How can African countries better prepare for Expo 2025?
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By Dr. Levi Uche Madueke, Former Head, AU Strategic Partnerships & AU Commissioner General for Expo 2020 Dubai
March 23, 2023
Every five years, the World Expo brings together representatives from different countries to engage and address the world's most pressing issues. With the participation of 192 nations, Expo 2020 Dubai set a record that begs to be broken. Amidst high expectations, the next Expo will take place in Osaka, Japan in 2025.
Africa had a significant presence at Expo 2020 Dubai. For the first time in the 170-year history of World Expos, every African country participated and had its own pavilion. They had the opportunity to display their unique future visions and to focus on commercial opportunities and collaboration. However, the majority of participating African nations lacked the strategies necessary to take full advantage of this unparalleled global stage. To rectify this in the upcoming Osaka Expo, African nations individually and collectively ought to prioritize the following three areas: effectively engaging the youth, strategically collaborating with the private sector, and developing powerful and distinctive narratives about individual nations, as well as the continent at large.
Africa is the world's youngest continent, and the Expo offers an opportunity to demonstrate this both symbolically and practically. While many countries struggle with demographic crises in the form of aging populations, Africa is the youngest continent in the world - 70% of the Sub-Saharan African population is under the age of 30. The importance of young people - as agents of change, growth, and innovation - cannot be understated. It is why youth and education have long constituted a major part of many countries’ soft power efforts. Countries as far-flung as China, Russia, Turkey, India, and the US host thousands of African students every year - ranging from around 4,000 in Turkey to 80,000 in China. Young people are a powerful demographic. Keeping this in view, African countries should center youth perspectives in the Expo 2025, prioritize engaging young people in its programs, and undertake initiatives that directly impact their needs and interests.
For instance, volunteers for Expo 2025 could be recruited through the ABE education initiative, which annually brings hundreds of African students to Japan to study at the country's top graduate institutions. Student volunteers can ideate 5- to 10-minute pavilion tours to help improve visitor engagement and retention, especially young people. Young Africans can also propose activities to support on-site exchange programs that are focused on intercultural dialogue and highlight the work of young innovators, artists, and businesses. The possibilities are endless, and by involving students and youth organizations, the continent’s participation can be made interactive and creative.
The private sector may support African governments in choosing sectoral priorities and creating commercial strategies for Expo 2025. One of the objectives of Expo 2025 is to facilitate commercial cooperation and knowledge transfers between various countries. Therefore, it would be crucial for African nations to determine their sectoral focus for Expo 2025 and to find international partners to collaborate with well in advance. Especially now that the Global South is experiencing an increase in minilateralism on the geopolitical front, which could potentially pave the way for new forms of economic collaboration, too.
African pavilions should involve their respective private sectors from the outset. For instance, individual countries' investment promotion agencies could work alongside their respective private sectors to shed light on the less obvious opportunities that the countries have to offer - beyond the usual suspects. The private sector can also provide critical inputs as to how these opportunities should be packaged and pitched to potential investors and partners. Through this approach, governments can better balance their private and public goals as well as determine what tangible accomplishments they would like to reach by the conclusion of the mega-event.
Lastly, creating a local story that also fits into the metanarrative of the African continent is essential as one of the principal motivators for all activities at the Expo 2025. A 2019 study analyzed how the Western media broadly depicted the African continent negatively in terms of conflict, politics, and as a country and not a continent with 55 countries. African countries, both individually and collectively, ought to consider how they can inspire people to perceive Africa in fresh and unexpected ways. Specifically, how can African countries use a global platform, like the World Expo, to resolutely dispel the preconceived ideas held by those who are unfamiliar with Africa and convince them to view the region with new eyes, as potential tourists and investors?
One way to do so would be to go beyond typical geographic demarcations and shed light on connections - social, cultural, and economic - between different countries and regions that may not be immediately obvious. For example, different African pavilions can collaborate to create a multi-destination tourism corridor, finding ways to physically and/or virtually link aspects of their pavilions to produce a sensorial and immersive experience to whet the appetites of prospective visitors to the content. Meanwhile, on the commercial front, such an interconnected tour could also showcase the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) in practice, by, for example, strategically placing products that are already being traded along the way for visitors to sample and enjoy.
By involving local individuals and organizations, African countries will change the way the world views the continent, give young Africans a voice, and reset the African story. Governments will also have less onus of creating their Expo participation strategy independently if they purposefully include youth and the private sector. This will also help local representatives to engage with global contemporaries, identify collaborative opportunities, and bring new knowledge and business opportunities home.
Dr. Levi Uche Madueke, Was the AU Commissioner General for Expo 2020 Dubai