The deferred African renaissance: Intellectual poverty and knowledge production Christopher Zambakari 2014-05-29, Issue 680 http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/91923 cc KWAfrica has no alternative but to invest in building the infrastructure of knowledge-based production. This means good governance, better school systems, excellent universities and a deliberate effort to bolster research and development across private and public sectors There was much to be celebrated when the African Union (AU) convened to commemorate the 50th anniversary of its formation. The theme for the 2013 summit was ‘Pan-Africanism and African Renaissance.’ In the opening remarks at the summit, the African Union’s Chairperson, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, noted that ‘one of our legacies, as Africans, will be to reclaim our responsibility to define our own narratives and tell our African story.’[1] Given the proliferation of writings about ‘Africa rising’ or the ‘African renaissance,’ Africa cannot rise without building an effective knowledge-production system. In other words, Africa cannot have a sustainable renaissance without an Africa-focused intelligentsia.[2] To do this, African countries need to build better infrastructure to produce knowledge that is local and relevant. The intellectual poverty of Africa has contributed to the delay of the continent’s renaissance. Africa’s poverty, as I have argued elsewhere, is related to its intellectual productivity.[3] This can be assessed from Africa’s minimal world share in publication and its low expenditures in research and development (R&D). The plethora of problems facing the continent is daunting: political instability, chronic underdevelopment, communicable diseases, mass poverty, and bad governance. A common denominator of these problems is Africa’s poverty in knowledge production.[4] Poverty in the field of knowledge production poses a greater danger to the future of the African people than any other problem; it affects all fields of inquiry and thus directly affects the current generation of Africans and future generations. What seems to be lacking is the ability to produce more thinkers; people who can come up with original ideas capable of uplifting the continent and moving it forward. Unlike the production of goods and services and other commodities for the marketplace, the making of a world-class thinker takes a long time, great resources, and capable institutions. II. THE PROBLEM OF VIOLENCE AND DEVELOPMENT To enable progress, Africans must improve the production of knowledge, otherwise the AU’s