Africa redraws its place on the map

NAIROBI — How big is Africa? The answer can differ strikingly from one world map to another.

The question has taken on new weight since Sept 4, when the United Nations General Assembly adopted a "Correct the Map" resolution by 164 votes to 1, with 6 abstentions. The measure encourages greater use, where appropriate, of map projections that more accurately reflect the relative sizes of the world's regions.

Proposed by Togo and endorsed by the African Union, the initiative has been described by analysts as both a rare display of the continent speaking with one voice and a measure of Africa's growing ability to place its own concerns on the international agenda.

On the Mercator projection, Africa — roughly 14 times the size of Greenland — can appear barely larger than the island because the projection inflates regions at high latitudes.

The UN resolution cited the Equal Earth projection, which depicts the continents' relative sizes more faithfully while keeping the map readable. The AU had endorsed its use earlier.

A more accurate representation of Africa's size would better convey the continent's significance in demography, economics and geopolitics, said Lemmy Nyongesa Mulaku, a scholar of international affairs at the University of Nairobi.

Togo plans to consult AU member states and supporters in other regions over the next six months to promote wider adoption of maps based on the Equal Earth projection.

Education is a key arena for the change, said Leon-Marie Nkolo Ndjodo, an associate professor at the University of Yaounde I in Cameroon. African countries need to review teaching content in history, geography, philosophy and economics, as well as strategic, geopolitical and security studies, so that young people grow up with an accurate picture of the continent's geography.

More active role

For analysts, the resolution means more than international support for a mapping initiative. It also reflects African countries' growing effort to voice common concerns collectively and play a more active role in shaping the global agenda.

"For many years, African countries were often seen mainly as responding to agendas set elsewhere. What we are seeing more and more now is Africa trying to put its own concerns on the international agenda and speak with a stronger collective voice," said Benjamin Mgana, chief editor of foreign news at The Guardian newspaper in Tanzania.

"African countries want greater representation in international institutions, a stronger voice in global decision-making and more space to tell their own stories instead of always being described by others," Mgana said.

This, he believes, points to a broader reassessment across parts of the Global South of systems, institutions and narratives inherited from the past, and a demand for an international order that better matches today's realities.

Starting with a map, Africa is out to change both how the world sees it and how it speaks for itself on the world stage. As Gideon Keter, a former member of Kenya's Parliament, put it: "Our size must finally match our voice, our potential must match our ambition, and our ambition must be matched by action."

XINHUA