How Africa can use its traditional knowledge to make progress | Chika Ezeanya-Esiobu 

This is by far the best TED talk by an African. She highlights perhaps the greatest challenges our generation faces going into this century.

Hi Chika, this is Uloma ABSU your room mate when you were a Public Administration student and made it to the best student as per your GPA upon graduation. By the way, I read Sociology Proud of you girl.

Young African warriors are listening. Thank you.

This is why the great philosopher Bob Marley meant when he said: "Emancipate yourself from mental slavery". Look at everything we do as a people from a mainstream perspective, our system of governance, education, religion, marriage, language, judicial etc none of these are our traditional models or remote variations of them. It might surprise some of you that there are Ghanaians born and raised in Ghana who has parents that forbid them from learning and speaking the local languages because speaking your own language in inferior and speaking English makes you smart etc. This is the mindset that is truly holding us back. Even Chinese food and other cultural restaurants in the US, adapt to the US culture, I mean they don't really sell traditional Chinese food in the Chinese restaurants. Similarly, McDonald's in China does not serve the same menu they serve in the US I believe. That's what we should be doing, adapt and evolve instead of blindly following what the colonial masters left us, or our problems will never get solved. This was a great TED talk video, hopefully, the next generation are paying attention.

It's like taking a bat to someone's head. EVERY WORD she said and how she said it hit me really heard. I am thankful for her existence, her research, and her speech. Definitely an eye opener.

Thank you sister, It was an extraordinary African speech. I firmly believe in the greatness of Africa. I love our continent.

I am a watching this because of the grade 8 module activity... Search for Chika Ezeanya-Esiobu's speech, " How Africa Can Use Its Traditional Knowledge to Make Progress". Pay attention to the stance and behavior of the speaker, then explain why the stance and behavior of the speaker is effective or not.. I didn't expect, this is so interesting.. I'm from Philippines by the way👍👍👍💕

This is a Great approach. We as Africa can provide solutions to our problems by advancing our traditional skills in Agriculture, Engineering, Medicine, Governance etc, we already have traditional methods that have been tried and tested. its a wake up call to all of us.

African land-area specific traditional farming knowledge is relevant today. This talk is decolonising farming. Beautiful

I have never looked at our education system this way. This is eye opening. A should be for Africa or something!

Wow. Goosebumps. Tears. What A Woman. This needs to go viral. Thank you Chika. May God Bless You Richly.

i was born and raised in Kampala Uganda. i still live there. in nursery school we are taught about alphabets using European items what hit me most as a toddler was when y was for yacht. wtf it looked weird like those yachts of sailing competitions. fast forward to secondary school we are taught European and north American geography. we studied Canadian prairies and the Rhine region for 2 years and also European history like world war 1 and 2. we are landlocked country but we studied fishing in the Atlantic. 2 years of something i will never do. and then am expected to compete with someone who was actually studying about his country. we were taught the ADVANTAGES of coming EUROPEAN MISSIONARIES!!!!. not what was good about our own technology. the major reason we are so poor is we are playing catch up with western civilization. the only reason we failing to advance is we trying to copy systems that aren't ours. but people in the west sit and think anything other than theirs is wrong. they say we are lazy and greedy people but they force us to implement their laws. Belgium cut off aid because Uganda was sentencing homosexuals to prison without knowing they were sending convicted pedophiles . people get only a piece of the iceberg and make blunt comments and stupid conclusions . the worst part is people like these create fear in the west. they see someone who says their might be a better way as enemies of their civilization

She is right 100%

The fact that this type of vital information gets 46K views while WizKid videos gets 100 million views is part of why we're where we are

The first and most bending symbol of the slave master is that cross, the sooner we realize what gate that crossed opened the sooner we can close that gate and move forward in purity of spirit.

Jealous pundits hate this video. They hate to see anything good about Africa. Thumbs up to the African lady thumbs up.

This is quite very well spoken. Every country has their unique qualities to offer to the world. If we blindly follow the standardized global curriculum, we will very soon squander the qualities and skills we received. So is the case with INDIA. We had golden knowledge once (eg. AYURVEDA), but colonial rule murdered those 1000s of year's knowledge pretty ruthlessly.

Amazing ,I'm truly appreciative to have find this video on RU-vid.This women not only that she's extremely beautiful and smart but she's also a source of inspiration of what could be done in Africa and as an African myself it makes me happy that Africa contains such smart people for his future.

Wao, this is brilliant! True daughter of our land. I am inspired and so proud of what we are; A people pregnant with civilization...we must revisit our roots.

What a wonderful presentation! She has a perspective that offers insights on a wide range of subjects. Thanks, TED!

The best way for Africa is the oldest way the traditional way. A spectacular speech.

Powerful. Thank you Chika Ezeanya-Esiobu.

Taking notes.. Why is mpesa so successful and has ended up inspiring the cash app to be adopted in the rest of the world? It was an original idea as a solution to the need of a Kenyan to have quick access to money, no Western/eastern anything, provided our solution to our problem and what a success it is!

Amazing and insightful...She's awesome

I wonder why I am just hearing of this lady, wow, this is amazing,Africa needs more of this depth and knowledge.

i pray your quest goes above and beyond and becomes the basis for changing the curriculum and belief in our systems that have already been working and needs to be implemented.

My kindda lady. I wouldn't have articulated this any better

The comments on this video are disgusting, i think that she is strong willed and can provoke a change that is needed in Africa. It is great to see such a positive person speak.

This is an excellent talk! She makes such important points about valuing traditional knowledge and about the harms of western and colonial practices. Thank you for posting this and to Chika Ezeanya-Esiobu for sharing her knowledge and experiences so passionately. TED Talks: PLEASE list what country and what people your speakers are from not just the continent of Africa! As part of valuing indigenous people and knowledge, we must acknowledge that there is great diversity in the entire continent of Africa. This is an important part of undoing racism, colonialism, and the harms of capitalism.

We have “traditionally” built roads, diversion channels , and constructed dams , and drilled for water in Awdal, Somalia . All without the help of gov. & or nonprofit/ngo’s . All it took was an African diaspora to come home and do the work the gov should have decades ago. The process isn’t easy but knowing you did the work that was needed for the people outweighs everything else. Sometimes our leaders aren’t really leaders, they’re just scapegoats for the board of directors of this planet. True Happiness is all over Africa, you just need a sense of humor to recognize it.

Together! Truth will prosper if we want it to

I read this book by Dr. George Ayyitte of Ghana; Applied Economics For Africa, and the book changed my perspective on African Economics. Africa has always been a free market based economy and if we are to progress, we must revert back to those free market principles.

Fantastic presentation. Worthy of a standing ovation

Very good talk and so true! It has been an unforgivable arrogance to try and pretend that the colonists knew better than what local peoples have developed over many generations. We need many more people like you!

The great great grandchildren of Mungo Park the owners of A is for Apple. This got to me. 😢 😭

Great video! I think she is absolutely right!

Very nice... Thanks for the information, challenge and proactivity in researching originally Afrikan concepts in Agriculture

Who need apple, when u have mango trees,coconut trees,corn field and almonds trees outside ur house. 😂😂😂🇱🇷

thank you madam. you are blessing to us.

africa is a great continent, filled with wonderful people

Best TED talk I have watched so far. Thank you Chika.

She is such a beautiful Woman, smart and confident

The hateful comments on this video disgust me. You all are so certain that Africa’s failure to capitalize on all of the international assistance they’ve received is their own fault, and the West is the only answer to them, despite the millions and millions we’ve spent and countless programs we’ve implemented trying to develop their countries ourselves, which have yielded disappointingly little success. We can’t even solve our own comparatively minuscule political, economic, or educational problems here-we haven’t made any substantial progress with those for decades; yet we think our greater level of development qualifies us to tell them what to do in order to solve their problems in a climate that is totally foreign to us. Our assistance is important for them, but trying to implement systems there that can only work under ideal circumstances, not understanding the realities that might not allow them to succeed because we are outsiders, is a waste of our time and money. We need to stop fueling so much money into programs that have been shown to fail time and time again-because of corruption, ineptitude, and idealism, and start coming up with new approaches that show a better understanding of the people and the social structure there, and more thoughtful and practical problem-solving than we’ve had to offer them in the past.

Beautiful. Thank you for the reminder. It is in our hands

All I want is a woman like this by my side.

did you guys in the comments watch the actual video?

What is up with the comment section... Truly scary. I thought this was a great insight and hoped to find the same mindset among people having watched her talk...

Boy oh boy did I need this

I cannot appreciate this girl enough!!!

This right here is Gold👑😁

this is amazing, motivating and eye opening

Indeed, education should always be localized. There is no one-size-fits-all system.

We can unlearn looking down on ourselves.

NNE GOD BLESS YOU

Amazing episode, food for the mind and heart !!!

The big elephant in the room, which we constantly fail to face is the very use of foreign language. When and if we ever get ready to really use traditional knowledge, then we will revert to indigenous languages. As long as English remains the formal language of education, then A is and remains for Apple and E for England.

I thought it was a pretty great speech, and very informative. I am honestly surprised to hear that education their is still so rooted in a European way, of course teaching a child the letters of the alphabet trough items/objects/animals they have little to no knowledge of what so ever is just plain silly.

That was TREMENDOUS... Thank you 🌕 💞

I am Proud of you, Chika. Though you speak english i feel the strong igbotic flavour in your words. I am feeling poetic right now. Maybe i will right a poem. I have always felt this itch to spread the Nigerian Story. We need more Nigerian content home and abroad. We are actually the best. Funniest country every. Maybe our problem largely has to do with finding ourselves i mean culturally. Thank you for the wonderful IDEA. keep sharing.

We are truly free once we learn to get from underneath the slavemaster symbol though... it's one of the things that was tortured into our ancestors.

A very interesting and useful talk.

maintained the Afrikan accent great! seems to have wide knowledge of various Afrikan countries history great fully Afrikan name..great I've learnt about Tasa irrigation system and Gachacha judicial system.. kudos...may the research on Afrikan methods of operations in every sector start reigning. spread this knowledge please on the ground. Thanks

Crop yield is not the only measure of agricultural performance. Avoiding flood and wind erosion are necessary to preserve depth of top soil. During the dustbowl years they learned that preserving root structures and contour farming were simple ways of preventing top soil erosion. The method she proposes may yield more crops in a season, but what are the long term consequences to the top soil to dig those deep holes. I would be curious. Maybe it is a technique worth a case study on a small plot. How are the holes dug, with expensive labor? are the additional yields worth the labor to dig the holes? We cannot adopt a drastic new method of industrial farming unless we know for certain. Perhaps it worked well when the population of South Africa was in the thousands. It is now in the tens of millions.

Wakanda Forever!

Asante sana.

Nigerian are presently practising democratic systems that the average Nigerian do not understand. twenty years of democracy and the country is poorer than the brutal regime of the military era. Nigerian should consider infusing western and eastern system of governments, with its traditional system of government to create a hybrid political system that can work for the country

Great lecture

Amazing ❤❤❤

Beautiful.

Wow, this was inspiring!

Great and inspiring

Fantastic speech

Awesome talk

Preach sister preach

I would want to have her contact for more information about conservation

At the time I was a Christian way I saw wizards every night so much I was insane since I came out of those idiots I sleep so well. I thank the ancestors for enlightening me.

So good!!!

Amazing TED talk. I agree with the fact that the curriculum content in most African countries needs to change. Sad however that she never mentioned her country Nigeria, or the city she grew up in, but we know the country and city where she got her PhD.

Motivational presentation.

SUPER POWER BY 2020

Anyone knows how to spell the agricultural technique she was speaking about?

Wow!!!

It must be India which is that challenging. I uphold India for promoting their culture alongside modernity!!!

Read a book called Religion Exposed: Corruption, Deceit, & the Spirits Responsible. You will learn EVERYTHING this world ever tried to hide from you.

My fear in all these is the fact that there isnt much time left for Africa. Our elders who know most of these indigenous ideas are dying and we're left with only what research fellows from the west have written down concerning our own way of life. And this will only be written according to their own narrative. Ours is getting lost. We don't even have people going in to bring these age proven methods into the lamp light. Everyone is going in for more paying research topics. So thank God for you Sister. Ride on. Hopefully we'll catch up and surpass.

I think Africans see themselves as inferior but it doesn't really bother them until they live abroad for awhile or learn more about their history and start questioning things like mungo park, and A is for apple when they're other local fruits n plants that are more relatable

TRUTH ON TRUTH ON TRUTH!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wakanda forever

Intriguing but insightful...

OH WOW!

Profound.

TED is the greatest source of stand UP comedy

Some of these evil comments are coming from evil nasty trolls and people filled with hatred. Think, why are they here?

When did the TED comments become overrun by privileged, "enlightened" bros, who seem scared when facts are presented that doesn't correspond with their narrow worldview?

A for Akara

oh yes

Here come the haters....

❤❤❤❤❤❤

I have never like the term "developing countries" it's so deeming.

yeah naaaaah!!!