When the world visits Africa: a reflection for social work and development

Africa, your soil shaped futures beyond your hand
Yet your voice remains too seldom named
Harambee calls, Ubuntu waits
To guide justice through open gates

When social work and development workers visit Africa for conferences, they must remember the continent’s layered history and its present realities. Africa was once valued for slaves and territory. The challenge is that centuries of forced labour and colonisation including Chritianisation and Islamisation fractured societies, dispossessed communities, and created structural inequalities that still shape social work and development practice. Ubuntu calls us to recognise that justice, reciprocity, and community must guide how we engage.

Africa is still valued for tourism. The challenge is that much of this wealth benefits outsiders, leaving local communities marginalised. Harambee reminds us that collective action and shared responsibility should shape how resources are used and who benefits.

Africa has fed the Western world with social workers, students, and skilled labour. The challenge is brain and energy drain and under-recognition of African expertise. Ubuntu teaches that true knowledge exchange respects the community and ensures that local skills and wisdom are valued, not simply exported.

Africa provided rubber, minerals, and other resources to fuel development elsewhere. The challenge is that external extraction often bypassed local needs. Applying harambee in social work and development encourages collaboration that ensures local communities gain equitable benefits from their own resources.

UN laws were not made for Africa. The challenge is that international frameworks often ignore African realities, creating dependency rather than empowerment. Indigenous knowledge systems, philosophies, and practices, Ubuntu, ujamaa, sankofa, and harambee, offer alternative ways to shape social work and social development that centre justice, community, and reciprocity.

Even though, Africa has no power at the United Nations. The challenge is under-representation in global decision-making. Ubuntu highlights the importance of recognising shared humanity and ensuring African voices inform policies that affect them, while harambee stresses working collectively to reclaim influence and equity on the world stage.

Africa’s knowledge was colonised. The challenge is reclaiming African wisdom to inform practice, research, and teaching. Social work guided by Ubuntu through harambee can foreground indigenous philosophies in global discourse, demonstrating that African knowledge is not supplementary—it is central.

Africa is also the continent where women, children, and vulnerable populations continue to face systemic exclusion, where climate change disproportionately affects livelihoods, and where inequality persists despite abundant human and natural resources. The challenge is addressing these interlinked crises with locally led, culturally grounded, and equitable solutions.

When visiting Africa, social work and development workers should approach with humility. They must listen before acting, learn before leading, and ensure that their engagement promotes justice, reciprocity, and community wellbeing. By valuing Ubuntu and practicing harambee, visitors can contribute to building sustainable shared futures while recognising the knowledge, labour, and resilience Africa brings to the world.