THIS WEEK

The size of our imagination: What the new world map should teach Africa about itself.

For centuries, Africa has appeared smaller than it really is. Not metaphorically, but literally. The Mercator projection, developed in 1569 and still familiar in classrooms and on many maps, distorts the relative size of landmasses as they move farther from the equator. One of its most striking effects is that Greenland can appear roughly comparable in size to Africa, although Africa is about fourteen times larger.

On September 4, 2026, the United Nations General Assembly voted 164–1, with six abstentions, for a resolution encouraging greater use of the Equal Earth projection, which more accurately represents the relative sizes of continents. Togo led the initiative as part of a broader African campaign to challenge distorted representations of the continent. The resolution is not legally binding, nor does it seek to eliminate the Mercator projection where it remains useful for navigation. Rather, it encourages governments, schools, international organisations and technology companies to use more proportionate maps where relative landmass matters.

At first glance, this is a story about cartography. I think it is about something much bigger.

Maps do more than tell us where places are. They influence how we understand the world and our place within it. Generations have grown up looking at a representation in which Africa appeared physically diminished. Togo’s Foreign Minister, Robert Dussey, captured the significance succinctly: “A fair world begins with a fair map.” But correcting the map raises another question that no cartographer can answer for us: Has Africa also learned to see itself as smaller than it really is?

The Equal Earth projection does not make Africa bigger. Africa was always that big. The correction simply allows representation to move closer to reality. Perhaps there is a lesson in that distinction for the continent itself.

I keep wondering what made Togo decide to challenge something the world had accepted for centuries. There is something instructive about questioning an image so familiar that most of us had stopped thinking of it as a choice at all. The sheer longevity of an idea can make challenging it seem unnecessary, even audacious. But longevity does not make an idea correct; sometimes it merely makes it familiar. I applaud Togo for championing that challenge. I would applaud Africa even more if we applied the same courage to other inherited assumptions about what we can produce, negotiate, invent, govern and ultimately become. Togo has gone further by announcing plans to change the maps used in its own school geography materials.

Africa is vast not only geographically. It possesses immense natural resources, agricultural potential, a young population, extraordinary cultural influence and resources increasingly important to the global economy. Yet the continent is still too often described, including sometimes by Africans themselves, primarily through the vocabulary of deficiency: poverty, debt, conflict, aid, instability and underdevelopment.

Those realities cannot be denied. But neither should they become the boundaries of our imagination.

As a Nigerian, I recognize this contradiction intimately. Nigeria possesses remarkable human and natural potential, globally influential music and culture, entrepreneurial energy and a population capable of extraordinary ingenuity. Yet our national conversation can become so consumed by what is not working that we risk underestimating the scale of what could work. Honest diagnosis is necessary, but a nation cannot optimize what it has been conditioned to underestimate.

This is why representation matters. When a continent repeatedly encounters itself through narratives of inadequacy, those narratives can gradually become expectations. Expectations influence ambition; ambition influences choices; and choices eventually shape outcomes. What we believe about ourselves can quietly determine what we attempt.

At OPTIMIZE Africa, I have consistently argued that sustainable development depends on the alignment of People, Purpose and Performance. Perhaps perception precedes all three. People rarely maximize capabilities they do not recognize. Nations struggle to pursue ambitious purposes when they underestimate their possibilities. Performance becomes constrained when expectations have already been lowered.

This is not an argument for replacing pessimism with empty optimism. Africa does not need flattering maps or comforting narratives. It needs accurate ones. We should confront corruption, inequality, weak institutions and poor governance while simultaneously recognizing our scale, capability and strategic importance. Maturity lies in holding both truths at once.

The UN vote therefore offers Africa more than a cartographic correction. It offers a metaphor. We should correct the map, certainly, but we must also interrogate the mental maps through which we understand ourselves. What else about Africa have we made smaller in our collective imagination: our talent, our markets, our intellectual capacity, our ability to innovate, our negotiating power, or our capacity to solve our own problems?

Perhaps one of Africa’s most consequential journeys will be the journey from underestimation to self-recognition.

The world map may finally begin to show Africa closer to its true size. The harder task belongs to us: to build an Africa whose confidence, ambition and performance are finally equal to its scale.

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“Optimize! Africa” is a weekly leadership column focused on the issues that shape Africa’s future through the lens of people, purpose, and performance. It explores themes such as leadership, workforce optimization, education, employability, organizational culture, governance, productivity, institutional effectiveness, and human capital development across the continent. The column’s initiator/author is Amara C. Ezediniru, Ph.D., a Nigerian workforce optimization strategist.