The World Has Always Underestimated Africa. That’s About to End

By Ramesh Jaura* – rjaura.substack.com

A continent reclaims its size — and its future.

For centuries, the world has looked at Africa through the wrong lens—sometimes literally. On the most common world map, the Mercator projection, Africa appears small, a marginal landmass dwarfed by Europe and North America. In reality, it is vast: larger than China, India, the United States and most of Europe combined.

Now the African Union is done with the distortion. By replacing the old colonial map with the Equal Earth projection, which shows continents at their true relative sizes, Africa is sending a message that extends far beyond geography: underestimate us at your own risk.

The Cartographic Coup

The Mercator map wasn’t designed to minimize Africa. It was designed in 1569 by Gerardus Mercator to aid navigation, preserving angles for sailors. But as European empires expanded, Mercator’s projection became their wallpaper. Europe was enlarged, the Global South shrunk. The distortion hardened into perception, and perception shaped policy.

Think of the millions of African students opening textbooks to see their continent shrunk. Think of international summits where maps on the wall make Europe look bigger than South America, and Greenland almost the size of Africa. Maps mould mental worlds.

By ditching Mercator, the AU isn’t just correcting cartography—it’s engaging in psychological warfare. It’s teaching its citizens, and the world, to see Africa as it really is: central, vast, consequential.

From Maps to Markets

But the new map is just one part of a larger realignment. The AU is also attempting to redraw the economic borders that colonialism carved into the continent.

The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) is a once-in-a-century project: 55 nations, 1.3 billion people, $3 trillion in GDP. Today, only 16 percent of African exports go to other African countries. In Europe, the figure is 70 percent. That imbalance was by design. Colonizers built railways from mines to ports, not across borders. It was easier for Nigeria to trade with London than with Ghana.

AfCFTA is Africa’s answer. By lowering tariffs, streamlining customs, and harmonizing rules of origin, it aims to stitch together a continental marketplace. The vision is clear: instead of shipping raw cocoa to Europe, Ghanaian processors sell chocolate directly to Kenyan supermarkets. Instead of importing cars from Japan, Nigerian assembly plants use South African parts. AfCFTA is about flipping the script from extraction to integration.

The challenges are real—weak infrastructure, protectionist instincts, bureaucratic inertia. But even partial success would be transformative. The World Bank estimates that AfCFTA could lift 30 million people out of extreme poverty by 2035.

And here’s the geopolitical zinger: if Africa manages to trade with itself as much as Asia does, the world’s entire trade system shifts.

Drones Over Kigali

Maps and markets are powerful. But if you really want to see the future, look up.

In Rwanda, drones crisscross the hills, delivering blood and vaccines to rural clinics in minutes instead of hours. In Ghana, drones deliver medical supplies. In Nigeria, engineers are building agricultural drones to help farmers monitor crops. Ethiopia and South Africa are developing domestic drone industries for surveillance and mapping.

These aren’t charity imports—they’re African innovations. In some cases, the drones are being built locally. The symbolism is irresistible: skies once dominated by European explorers carving up colonies are now filled with African-designed drones connecting Africans to each other.

And drones are just one example. M-Pesa in Kenya has turned mobile phones into banks. Nigerian fintech firms are attracting global investment. Morocco’s Noor solar complex is one of the largest in the world. Across Africa, young entrepreneurs are leapfrogging legacy systems, building not what the West built a century ago, but what the world will need tomorrow.

Shedding the Colonial Skin

Here’s the through-line:

– Equal Earth map → visual sovereignty.

– AfCFTA → economic sovereignty.

– Drones and digital innovation → technological sovereignty.

Each of these chips away at colonial legacies. Together, they form a continental project: Africa reclaiming its agency.

Of course, sceptics are quick to sneer. A map won’t pave roads. A trade agreement won’t enforce itself. Drones won’t solve poverty. All true. But symbols shape structures. For five centuries, a distorted map shrank Africa in the imagination of its own children. Now, a corrected map—and the policies and technologies it accompanies—are rewriting that imagination.

Global Stakes

This isn’t just about Africa. By 2050, one in four human beings will be African. The continent is sitting on the world’s youngest workforce and on minerals critical to the green energy transition. Ignore Africa, and you ignore the century’s defining stories.

And yet, too many in Washington, Brussels, and Beijing still treat Africa as a chessboard rather than a player. They’re stuck on the old Mercator map. But Africa is moving to a new one, and the consequences will ripple globally.

If AfCFTA succeeds, Europe’s old colonial trading routes will be bypassed. If African drones scale, Western aid models will look outdated. If Africa insists on being drawn to scale, the psychological dominance of the North will shrink.

Roadblocks and Momentum

None of this is guaranteed. AfCFTA faces protectionism, infrastructure deficits, and political rivalries. Drone programs risk being stifled by lack of funding. Equal Earth may never displace Mercator on Google Maps.

But momentum is real. And momentum matters. It turns symbolism into substance.

For centuries, Africa’s image was warped—on maps, in markets, in minds. That era is ending. With Equal Earth, AfCFTA, and technological breakthroughs, Africa is saying: we are not small, fragmented, or backward. We are central, integrated, and inventive.

Maps don’t just describe the world. They define it. And Africa just picked up the pen.

*Ramesh Jaura has worked as a professional journalist for nearly sixty years. His career includes roles as a freelancer, head of Inter Press Service, and Editor-in-Chief of International Press Syndicate and IDN-InDepthNews.