For some time now, one question keeps coming back—sometimes in passing, sometimes in the middle of a real debate. Which Africa do we want to build, and above all, who decides the story we tell about the continent’s future?

Behind the scenes at Betfrika, that question sparked a simple yet powerful idea. Rather than writing a text “about” Africa from one angle, we wanted to prepare an issue that starts from African voices themselves and embraces the diversity of perspectives.

Our next Betfrika Magazine issue is called The Africa Africans Want to Build, and it will be structured like an investigation. We will ask a direct question to very different profiles: if you had financial and decision-making power, what would you change, what would you build, what would you protect, and what would you stop?

We are not looking for “the” perfect answer. We want differences, nuances, and even contradictions to appear. The Africa a young person wants to build is not necessarily that of an adult already working, a mother, an entrepreneur, or a retiree who has seen several cycles of hope and disappointment. It is precisely this plurality that makes the reflection useful.

To prepare this issue, we are building one questionnaire, asked to everyone within the same frame, so we can compare priorities without biasing responses. The goal is simple: highlight what comes up often, what divides, what surprises, and what these differences say about the urgencies, values, and horizons of each generation and each life path.

We already expect strong themes. Some will focus on education—schools that make you want to learn, access to books, practical training, transmission that truly prepares people to create, work, and think. Others will talk about the economy, local production, jobs, solid agriculture, processing on site, and supply chains that allow people to make a decent living.

Other responses will point to governance, justice, transparency, and trust. How can we build a future if rules do not protect citizens, effort is not rewarded, and corruption breaks collective momentum? These topics come up often because they condition everything else.

And then there is culture—not as decoration but as a backbone. Languages, stories, arts, memory, pride, reappropriation: all elements that give cohesion, confidence, and a modernity that is chosen rather than copied, including recognition for creators as we explored in our article on artist status in Africa.

The magazine is coming soon. We will announce the publication date and how to access the issue as soon as everything is ready, on our site and our social channels. If you want to be informed first, subscribe to our newsletter. You will receive the official announcement and a preview of the table of contents as soon as we open.

With The Africa Africans Want to Build, we are not trying to give a lesson. We want to open a serious but accessible conversation. A conversation where we ask, without detours, what we would actually do if we had the power to act—and what we are ready to do right now, even without that power.