African philanthropy experts call for shift from dependency to homegrown solutions

African development experts and youth leaders are calling for a major shift in how philanthropy works across the continent, urging African countries and organizations to move away from dependence on foreign funding and focus more on local solutions, local resources, and community-led development.

The conversation took place during a virtual dialogue hosted by the African Youth Philanthropy Network on 7 May 2026 as part of The Next Architecture of Philanthropy-Roundtable Series, under the theme “The Reckoning: Auditing Philanthropy’s Promises in Africa.”

The session brought together youth leaders, development practitioners, and philanthropy experts to discuss whether current aid and philanthropy systems are truly helping African communities or continuing cycles of dependency.

The discussion featured Tendai Murisa, a development practitioner and researcher, and Michar Mushiko, Programs Associate for Gateway Zimbabwe, who served as moderator, alongside youth advocates and community leaders sharing their experiences from across the continent.

Opening the discussion, Murisa challenged Africa’s continued dependence on outside funding and donor-driven development systems.

He argued that Africa cannot build long-term change while relying on systems designed and controlled elsewhere.

“We cannot complete Africa’s transformation based on other people’s resources. We cannot build Africa based on other people’s scaffolds. Scaffolds are temporary; we need to build our own houses. We need to build our own granaries and our own storehouses using our own resources,” Murisa said.

Murisa said Africa already has many strengths, including a large youth population, a growing middle class, and strong diaspora communities.

However, he noted that Africans will only be able to mobilize their own resources if there is trust and transparency in how resources are managed.

“The only way we can do that is when we build trust in what we are doing. So we need higher levels of transparency in how we mobilize and utilize resources,” he added.

The discussion later turned to how philanthropy in Africa has changed over time.

Speakers noted that African communities have always supported one another through shared resources, family systems, and collective care, but argued that modern philanthropy has slowly become commercialized and heavily influenced by donor interests.

Ian Takudzwa Vambe said traditional African philanthropy was rooted in Ubuntu and community support long before formal aid systems existed.

“The founding principles of philanthropy work are in Africa before colonization, where families lived together and helped each other without necessarily looking for clout or any other benefits that came with it,” Vambe said.

“But now there is commercialization of the philanthropy sector where people are looking at it as an opportunity more than as a platform to help and a way to develop one another.”

Vambe, who also represents Zimbabwe in the SADC Youth Parliament, argued that many organizations are now forced to shape their work around donor interests instead of focusing on what communities actually need.

“We rarely put on our own African lenses and understand what the African problems are and how we solve them using African solutions,” he said.

He also called for stronger cooperation between African countries and organizations, saying Africans should learn from one another’s experiences instead of relying mostly on outside models and funding systems.

“We need to remove those spectacles of saying there is money in the NGO sector and go back to the basics of saying it feels good to do good,” Vambe added.

Meshack Otieno based his remarks on his experience working with marginalized communities in Mathare and said philanthropy has slowly moved away from helping people toward politics and donor interests.

“Philanthropy traditionally had certain values that defined it: the value of love, the value of giving to save humanity,” Otieno said.

“But today philanthropy has been incentivized. It is more of a political tool, an exchange tool. It has lost the sense within which it was founded.”

Otieno explained that many organizations that started work in communities during the 1990s and early 2000s focused mainly on improving education, healthcare, and access to basic needs.

However, he said funding priorities now decide which issues receive attention.

“There is a group of people who dictate where funds go. If today they wake up and say we are supporting SDG4, everybody moves in that direction. If they say support SDG1, organizations shift towards that direction,” he said.

According to Otieno, this has led many organizations to focus more on financial survival than on directly responding to community needs.

“So philanthropy has lost its traditional architecture of saving humanity and become a strategic setup for fetching more funds for a select few who can follow certain directions,” he added.

Still, Otieno said grassroots groups and young people continue to play an important role in holding the sector accountable because they remain close to the communities they serve.

“For me, young people and grassroots organizations are already becoming the second liberators of philanthropy because they are still reaching communities with the little resources they have,” he said.

Joshua Quaye, a youth development and communication specialist currently serving as Communications Officer for the African Youth Panel, also described philanthropy as something deeply rooted in African family and community life.

“In my household or in my family where I come from, if the next neighbor has something in abundance, they just call you and say, ‘ Come and join us,” Quaye said.

“That is the basic understanding of African philanthropy.”

Quaye argued that modern aid systems have changed this relationship by placing African countries mostly at the receiving end of development funding, allowing outside funders to shape local priorities.

“It becomes a one-layered approach where it comes from the West all the time. The person bringing the money determines what should be done, and whether it aligns with your values becomes secondary,” he said.

To explain the broader accountability challenges within philanthropy, Quaye argued that many development systems operating in Africa are still largely shaped by external institutions that determine priorities, allocate resources, and influence how success is measured.

He said this often leaves local communities with little control over decisions that directly affect them.

According to Quaye, accountability becomes difficult when communities are excluded from decision-making while institutions focus more on project cycles, donor expectations, and reporting structures than on long-term impact.

“The people who matter most are the ones suffering,” Quaye said. “So accountability should not only focus on funders. Governments, contractors, implementing organizations, everyone in that chain must be held responsible.”

He added that meaningful accountability should ultimately be measured by whether resources improve the lives of communities at the grassroots level, arguing that philanthropy loses its purpose when systems become disconnected from the realities of the people they claim to support.

As the session came to a close, speakers agreed that Africa must begin building stronger systems of local giving, transparency, and community ownership if philanthropy is to create lasting impact.

The discussion repeatedly returned to one central message: Africa already has the people, knowledge, and resources needed to solve many of its own problems, but lasting change will require moving away from dependency and rebuilding philanthropy around solidarity, trust, and African-led solutions.

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