How the world took Africa’s knowledge and how the continent can win it back
Apple rose from humiliation to dominance. Africa, too, can reclaim its intellectual sovereignty. PHOTO | FILE
By Bryan Bwana
In 1997, Steve Jobs shocked the world by announcing that Apple—the once-legendary innovator on the brink of collapse—would accept $150 million in investment from its fiercest rival, Microsoft. To save Apple, Jobs had to deal with the very company that had borrowed, copied, and built a global empire on Apple’s ideas. It was humiliating, but it bought Apple time. Within a decade, Apple was no longer a wounded giant. It was the world’s most valuable company.
Africa today finds itself in a strikingly similar position. For centuries, the continent has been a fountain of innovation—medicinal, agricultural, spiritual, and cultural. Yet like Jobs watching Microsoft launch Windows, Africans have watched outsiders take this knowledge, patent it, sell it back to the world, and reap enormous profits. Unlike Apple, however, Africa has yet to find its comeback strategy. The question remains: who will be Africa’s Steve Jobs—and when will the continent reclaim its genius?
Africa is often described in economic terms as a continent rich in minerals, oil, and arable land. But its greatest resource has always been knowledge.
Ancient Egyptians pioneered surgical techniques, astronomy, and irrigation methods that sustained vast populations in the desert.
East African farmers selectively bred drought-resistant crops long before modern biotechnology.
Southern African healers catalogued thousands of medicinal plants and their applications, preserving this information through oral tradition.
This knowledge was not stumbled upon by accident. It was the product of centuries of careful observation, experimentation, and cultural transmission. It was Africa’s intellectual capital and its operating system for survival and prosperity.
But once outsiders arrived, they saw something different – opportunity. Like Microsoft in the 1980s, they borrowed, copied, patented, and profited from Africans, often without consent, consultation, or compensation.
1. The neem tree (Azadirachta indica): For generations, African and Indian farmers used the neem tree as a natural pesticide and medicine. In the 1990s, the US Department of Agriculture and chemical giant W.R. Grace patented neem-based pesticides. This outraged communities who had used neem for centuries. After a decade of legal challenges, the European Patent Office revoked the patent in 2000. But by then, corporations had already extracted immense value.
2. Rooibos tea (South Africa): For hundreds of years, the Khoisan people brewed rooibos as a calming herbal drink. In 1994, a US company attempted to trademark the word “Rooibos” in more than 100 countries, positioning itself as the global gatekeeper of a beverage it did not invent. South African farmers fought long, expensive legal battles and eventually won—but not before foreign firms captured millions in profits. Today, rooibos is a $650 million global industry. Yet only a fraction of that wealth reaches the indigenous communities who first cultivated it.
3. Hoodia gordonii (Namibia, South Africa, Botswana): The San people, among the world’s oldest continuous cultures, chewed Hoodia cactus to suppress hunger during long hunts. In 1996, South Africa’s Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) patented Hoodia’s appetite-suppressing compound and licensed it to Pfizer and Unilever for development as a weight-loss drug. The San were not consulted. Only after international protests did CSIR agree to share royalties—6 percent, a token sum compared to the billions such products could generate.
4. Malaria treatments (quinine and artemisinin): Long before laboratories, African communities used bark and herbs to treat fevers. Western pharmaceutical firms isolated compounds like quinine and artemisinin, transforming them into life-saving drugs. Malaria treatment is now a multi-billion-dollar industry. Yet African communities—the very people who contributed the foundational knowledge and who suffer most from malaria—pay some of the highest prices for medicine derived from their heritage.
These are not isolated cases. According to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), over 80 percent of patents on medicinal plants used globally are held outside Africa, even though many of those plants originate here.
The global herbal medicine market was valued at $151 billion in 2023 and is projected to reach $347 billion by 2032.
Africa, home to more than 45,000 documented medicinal plant species, captures less than 5 percent of that market.
UNESCO estimates that Africa loses billions of dollars annually to biopiracy and weak intellectual property protections.
In short, the world thrives on Africa’s ideas, while Africa itself remains on the margins. This is Africa’s “Apple in 1985” moment—its best ideas have been taken, commercialised, and locked into foreign value chains.
So, what must Africa do?
Like Jobs in 1997, Africa must think beyond outrage. Apple’s genius was not in lamenting the theft of Windows, but in building something new – the iPod, the iPhone, the iPad. Africa too must stop merely protesting old injustices and start building new industries around its indigenous knowledge.
Below are my proposed five immediate steps:
1. Digitise indigenous knowledge: India offers a blueprint. Its Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL) documents more than 200,000 medicinal formulations in Sanskrit, Urdu, and Tamil, making them accessible to patent examiners worldwide. This has blocked hundreds of illegitimate patents.
Africa needs its own Pan-African Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (ATKDL). Every African university should be mandated to digitise herbal knowledge, farming practices, oral traditions, and cultural innovations. Such a database would both preserve heritage and prevent outsiders from patenting what already belongs to Africa.
2. Protect knowledge legally: The African Union must establish a continental indigenous intellectual property office to oversee and defend traditional knowledge. Every African state must fully implement the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing, which legally requires fair compensation when companies use indigenous biological resources.
3. Commercialise it ourselves: Protection is not enough. Africa must turn its knowledge into thriving industries.
4. Link ESG to indigenous knowledge: Global investors are pouring trillions into environmental, social, and governance (ESG) funds. Africa should position indigenous knowledge as the world’s oldest ESG framework. One based on the community and is sustainable, and respectful of the environment. Herbal medicines, traditional farming methods, and conservation practices are not only heritage; they are cutting-edge sustainability models.
5. Educate and inspire: Too often, Africa’s brightest minds produce brilliant dissertations that gather dust. Universities must pivot; research should lead to apps, startups, and patents. A new generation of African innovators must see indigenous knowledge not as “folklore” but as a foundation for billion-dollar industries.
The Steve Jobs lesson for Africa
Steve Jobs did not waste energy suing Microsoft over Windows. He built an entirely new game. Likewise, Africa cannot waste decades fighting yesterday’s battles over stolen patents. Instead, it must digitise, protect, and commercialise indigenous knowledge.
The future is not in endless court cases against multinational corporations. The future is in Africa owning its genius—turning centuries of knowledge into tomorrow’s industries.
Consider the names rooibos, neem, hoodia and artemisinin. Each represents a story of Africa’s knowledge taken, repackaged, and sold. Each is a reminder of what is lost when heritage is unprotected.
But these stories also offer a roadmap. Apple rose from humiliation to dominance. Africa, too, can reclaim its intellectual sovereignty.
Today, Apple is worth $3 trillion.
Tomorrow, Africa’s indigenous knowledge—if properly digitised, protected, and scaled—could generate far greater value.
The question is not whether Africa has the knowledge, the people, or the resources. It does. The question is whether Africa has the vision, courage, and structure to finally play the long game.
Because the age of sharing too much is over. The age of owning Africa’s genius must begin now.
Bryan Toshi Bwana is a Founding Trustee, Umoja Conservation Trust. www.umojaconservation.org
