Our approach
Our purpose
A space where African intelligence meets African experience to think through African action.
Agora Négritude was born of an invitation: to come together to think about Africa differently and to play our part in building the Africa of tomorrow.
At our first meeting, on 4 September 2026 in Paris, I took everyone’s presence as a twofold commitment. A yes addressed to me, which I welcomed as a mark of trust. But also a yes to something far greater than me: a yes to Africa.
A yes to the idea that each of us, at our own level, with our own path and our own skills, can contribute to its future. This trust is where our approach begins. To those who made it possible, and to those who are joining it, I first want to say thank you.
To think about Africa is first to know Africa
Not the Africa we imagine.Not only the one we hear about.Africa as it really is.
Knowing the realities of our societies. Understanding our economies, our institutions, our education systems, our agriculture, our industry, our energy and our public finances. Understanding our successes, and also having the courage to look at our failures.
To think about Africa is to be able to make our own diagnoses: based on facts, figures, surveys, reports, research and the experience of those who act.
And only then will we form our own opinion.
To think about Africa must also mean thinking about action
We are going to talk a great deal about Africa. We are going to make diagnoses and explain what does not work. But then we will have to ask ourselves another question:
What do we do?
Our reflection must also lead us to rethink the tools, the means, the schemes and the mechanisms of public action. On every topic, we must have the courage to ask four simple questions:
- 1What works?
- 2What does not work?
- 3Why?
- 4And above all: what do we propose?
This is the standard that must guide our work: understanding enough to be able to propose.
Each of us holds a piece of the puzzle
I firmly believe we are capable of it, because our paths and our skills are many.
Among us are engineers, economists, financiers, lawyers, and specialists in human resources, agriculture, energy, data, urban planning, education and health. There are consultants, managers, students and professionals.
There are also doctors, researchers, women and men who have spent years deepening their knowledge of a field.
This diversity is our greatest asset.
Nobody knows everything. And nobody needs to know everything. But everyone knows something. Everyone has learned something. Everyone has lived through something. Each of us holds a piece of the puzzle.
So perhaps our responsibility simply begins there: putting the pieces together.
Getting ready before the time to act comes
I am convinced of one thing: we already are, or will become, actors in the Africa of tomorrow.
Some will help build our businesses. Others our public administrations, our universities, our infrastructure, our economies and, perhaps, our institutions.
And if one day the time comes for us to act, on that day it will be too late to start learning.
We must prepare beforehand.We must understand beforehand.We must work beforehand.
We must rise early. Very early.
And, if need be, we will also have to wake those who are still asleep.
Gradually building an African strategic think tank
This is what I am proposing through Agora Négritude.
- Not simply a series of conferences.
- Not yet another WhatsApp group.
- Not a place where we meet once a month to complain about what is going wrong in Africa.
I propose that we gradually build an African strategic think tank.
A space where we learn, where we challenge ideas, where we pass on knowledge, where we debate and where we make proposals.
A space where African intelligence meets African experience to think through African action.
We are heirs. We are also here to build.
This approach does not come out of nowhere.
Long before us, others came together, often far from their homeland. They thought, wrote, debated. They disagreed, too. But they carried an essential struggle: winning recognition for the dignity, the identity and the capacity of African people to think through their own destiny.
Aimé Césaire.
Léopold Sédar Senghor.
Léon-Gontran Damas.
And, with them, an entire generation.
They had the questions of their time.We have the questions of ours.
They had to assert that Africa could think for itself. And Frantz Fanon was already warning us:
Each generation must, out of relative obscurity, discover its mission, fulfil it, or betray it.
It is now up to our generation to show that it, too, can build for itself.
That is why I chose this name: Agora Négritude.
Agora
because we need a place to meet, to test our ideas against one another and to build together.
Négritude
because we know we are not the first to take up the pen, the floor and the mind to question Africa’s destiny.
We are heirs.But we are not here only to inherit.We are also here to build.
An adventure that begins with us
I do not yet know where this adventure will take us. But I know one thing: it begins with us.
With our differences.With our skills.With our will to understand.And, I hope, tomorrow, with our capacity to act.
Thank you for your trust.
And now, let things begin.
Constantin Atsu ANAGOInitiator of Agora Négritude