Production, Not Protest: Why Global Respect Is Earned Through Value Creation

A Policy Reflection for Africa’s Emerging Generation

Across Africa, there is widespread frustration about how the continent is perceived and treated in global affairs. Many young Africans correctly observe that their countries are often excluded from serious decision-making, spoken to rather than listened to, and approached as aid recipients rather than partners.

Raw material exporters can be substituted. Technology owners cannot.

Williams O. Omodunefe

This frustration is justified. However, understanding why this dynamic persists requires moving beyond moral arguments and examining the structural logic of the global system.

Global respect is not allocated based on history, population size, or ethical claims. It is allocated based on value creation and indispensability.

How the Global System Allocates Respect

In international relations, respect functions less as a moral judgment and more as a strategic response. States pay attention to actors whose absence would disrupt trade, security, finance, or technology flows.

Countries that are respected tend to share three characteristics:

1. They produce goods or systems others depend on
   
   

2. They control or influence critical value chains
   
   

3. They possess bargaining leverage independent of goodwill
   
   

This explains why countries with vastly different political systems, democratic or authoritarian, can command similar levels of global attention. Respect is not ideological; it is functional.

Africa’s Structural Position in the Global Economy

Africa’s marginalization is not primarily cultural or racial. It is economic and structural.

Most African economies occupy the lowest positions in global value chains:

• Exporting raw materials
  
  

• Importing finished goods
  
  

• Consuming external technologies
  
  

• Relying on external financing
  
  

This position creates replaceability. Replaceable actors are rarely taken seriously.

Raw material exporters can be substituted. Technology owners cannot.

Why Aid Does Not Translate Into Influence

Foreign aid, while often necessary for humanitarian reasons, does not build negotiating power. Over time, excessive reliance on aid reshapes how states are perceived:

• From equal actors to managed entities
  
  

• From partners to projects
  
  

• From decision-makers to policy-takers
  
  

Aid flows create obligations, not leverage. Influence flows in the opposite direction, from those who provide value to those who need it.

For African youth, this distinction matters. Advocacy without production does not alter power relations.

The Limits of Historical Argumentation

Colonial exploitation is a historical fact. Its effects are measurable and persistent. However, history alone does not determine contemporary power.

Several regions that experienced severe devastation and external domination, East Asia in particular, restructured their economies around manufacturing, technology transfer, and institutional discipline. As their productive capacity grew, so did their diplomatic weight.

The lesson is not that history is irrelevant, but that history does not substitute for strategy.

Why Respect Cannot Be Demanded

Respect is a consequence, not a request.

States that:

• Build infrastructure others rely on
  
  

• Produce technologies others integrate into daily life
  
  

• Create platforms others must participate in
  
  

do not campaign for respect. They are consulted by default.

Africa’s challenge is not visibility; it is relevance at scale.

The Role of African Youth

Africa’s youth population is frequently described as a “demographic advantage.” Demography alone, however, is not power.

Youth become an advantage only when they are:

• Technically skilled
  
  

• Institutionally disciplined
  
  

• Oriented toward production rather than consumption
  
  

• Integrated into manufacturing, engineering, research, and systems-building
  
  

Entertainment and sports, while valuable culturally, do not anchor national power unless they are tied to locally owned platforms, intellectual property, and capital structures.

Being globally visible is not the same as being globally influential.

A Strategic Reframing

The question African youth should be asking is not:

“Why are we not respected?”

But rather:

“What are we building that others cannot ignore?”

Respect will not come from moral appeals, online outrage, or symbolic representation. It will emerge when African societies consistently produce goods, systems, and ideas that shape outcomes beyond their borders.

Conclusion

Global respect follows production.
Influence follows indispensability.
Authority follows contribution.

Africa’s future standing will be determined less by how loudly it speaks, and more by what it builds and controls.

For African youth, this is not a condemnation, it is an invitation to reposition themselves from commentators on the global system to participants in its construction.