“Africa Creates. Africa Trades. Africa Must Own.”
On 30th July 2026, a high-level continental dialogue previewed the conversations that will define the 7th All-Africa Intellectual Property Summit and made a compelling case for why Nairobi, this November, is where Africa’s IP ownership story gets written next.
The Pre-summit dialogue served as a curtain-raiser for the 7th All-Africa Intellectual Property Summit (AAIPS). It was themed “Africa is Creating, Trading and Innovating: Is Africa Owning the Value?” and co-convened with the AfCFTA Secretariat and moderated by Sarah Mumbi Bisamunyu alongside co-moderators Mally Mbamalu and Dr. Anije George. The session brought together voices from both Anglophone and Francophone Africa for a candid, sometimes uncomfortable, conversation: Africa creates plenty, but who actually profits from it?
If you missed the dialogue, here are highlights of the discussions.
A Continent Rich in Ideas, Poor in Ownership
Delivering the keynote on “Building an African Ownership Economy: Intellectual Property as a Driver of Competitiveness,” Desiré Loumou, Head of the Intellectual Property Rights Division at the AfCFTA Secretariat, set the tone with a sobering statistic: Africa’s exports still rely on raw commodities for 60–80% of their total value. Meanwhile, the world’s knowledge and technology-intensive industries generate trillions in global trade value built on brands, patents, data and design rather than raw materials alone.
“Africa is increasingly recognizing intellectual property as a central instrument of economic transformation…the AFCFTA Protocol on intellectual property rights makes that direction very clear by seeking to establish harmonized rules and principles for the promotion, protection, cooperation, enforcement and commercialization of intellectual property rights in support of the objective of the AFCFTA”
Yet Mr. Loumou was clear that the tools to change this trajectory now exist. With the AfCFTA Protocol on Intellectual Property Rights adopting eight of its nine annexes, Africa has, for the first time, a continental IP framework capable of harmonizing rules across 55 member states. He pointed to the continent’s creative economy, valued at roughly $60 billion today, with the potential to reach $200 billion by 2030, as proof of what’s at stake, while noting that Africa’s share of global patent registrations sits at just 0.5%, with an ambition to reach 5% by 2050. It was clear from his address that the AfCFTA IP Protocol provides Africa with the potential framework to shift from being simply an IP consumer to becoming an identified IP producer and exporter.
His five-point roadmap: deepen IP awareness, strengthen institutions, connect IP to finance, align national laws with regional frameworks, and embed IP into development strategy became a recurring thread through the rest of the day.
In his words,
“Intellectual property is one of the most powerful tools we have for moving from dependency to self-determination, from consumption to production, and from production to ownership.” Desire Loumou
Chocolate, Sisal and the Cost of Being Nameless
Kenya’s Liz Lenjo, Chairperson of the Copyright Tribunal, brought the keynote’s big ideas down to the market stall and the factory floor in her presentation, “Made in Africa, Owned by Africa: Advancing Intellectual Property and Value Retention.”
Ms. Lenjo called for more technocrats in trade and IP if Africa is to build the right legislative and policy mechanisms. She further emphasized that industrial policy should not stop at factories. It should create design capacity, protect know-how, fund brand development and help firms register and enforce rights in destination markets.
Her examples painted a vivid picture of Africa’s IP ownership challenges. Ghana produces some of the world’s finest cocoa yet ask most people to name a Ghanaian chocolate brand, and the room goes quiet. Kenyan sisal is harvested locally, shipped to Italy, transformed into premium furniture, and sold back to African consumers at a steep markup with almost no one along that chain aware of its origin. Tea and coffee tell a similar story: the world knows “Kenyan tea” and “Ethiopian coffee” as commodities, rarely as brands.
Lenjo’s diagnosis: weak local labelling laws, “silent” transfers of designs and IP to foreign buyers, and a lack of technocrats embedded in trade ministries who actually understand IP.
“Africa gets wages and production margins. Another jurisdiction gets the trademark, consumer data, pricing power, licensing opportunities and long-term brand equity.”
Her proposed solution was practical: IP help desks for rural artisans, community trademarks that let cooperatives brand collectively, and dispute resolution mechanisms fast enough to match a product’s real shelf life (think 30 to 120 days, not years in court).
“IP has the shelf life of a banana. It only benefits from expedient and quick dispute resolution.”
Africa’s “Triple Lock” and a Lesson from Morocco
Cameroonian marketing strategist Metchum Tayou in her presentation, “Securing Africa’s Competitive Advantage: From Innovation and Creativity to Ownership and Commercialisation,” described what she called Africa’s “triple lock” on value capture: weak legal protection of intangible assets, a commercial lock caused by the absence of branding and storytelling, and a scale lock created by fragmented national markets and inconsistent standards across borders. In her words, “Africa is rich in creativity and innovation. The question is whether we are truly capturing the commercial value of our creations?“
She demonstrated that competitiveness is a relay race with protection passing the baton to value creation, which passes it to commercialization across the continent. On this, she called upon Africans to move from looking at IP as a legal asset to an economic asset.
Her example of Cameroon’s prized Penja pepper protected by a geographical indication, yet still without a national brand behind it, illustrated how legal protection alone doesn’t guarantee economic return. She pointed to Morocco’s national and territorial artisanal labelling system as a model worth replicating continent-wide, and posed a provocative question to the room: why do Africa’s biggest sporting and financial gatherings such as AFCON and the African Development Bank’s annual meetings so rarely carry the sponsorship of African brands? Protection, she argued, must be paired with valorization and distribution, or it remains a certificate with no commercial life.
Africa’s Innovation Paradox
Closing the presentations, Menna-t-Allah El-Kotamy, Director of IP and Public Health at the Egyptian Intellectual Property Authority, reframed the entire debate around what she called Africa’s innovation paradox: the continent’s scientific output is growing at roughly 8.7% a year, and R&D investment by about 6.6% annually, yet only a small fraction of that innovation ever becomes an investable, scalable business. She stated that, “The continent is producing ideas at an accelerating pace, but the pathway from invention to investment and from investment to commercialization remains fragmented”.
She invited participants to consider IP as an economic infrastructure, not simply as a legal framework and not as a regulatory system. She argued that IP is too often treated as the final legal formality after innovation happens, when it should be a strategic foundation from day one as the mechanism that gives investors the confidence to fund an idea in the first place. She laid out four pillars for building investment-ready innovation ecosystems: investor capacity, commercialization support, regional collaboration and policy alignment, and six priorities she hopes will shape discussions in Nairobi, from stronger tech-transfer capacity to the deliberate inclusion of women and young innovators.
Her presentation was not shy about Africa’s innovation problems. Although she stressed that Africa holds enormous innovation and creativity capabilities with young people creating more than ever, she emphasized that Africa’s challenge is not simply increasing innovation efforts but rather “enabling innovation to generate sustainable economic value”.
In her words,
Commercialization is a collective process; it requires an integrated approach that connects research, industry, finance, and IP.
The All Africa IP Summit finds its foundation in Africans; we believe that everyone is part of the solution to making IP work for Africans. Participants shared and raised key questions about what institutional framework-building means for the informal sector, for example, creators transacting over social media platforms like WhatsApp with no formal contracts. Discussions further questioned whether the continental protocol should lead national IP reforms, or whether reforms will follow it, a question sharpened by the cautionary tale of a fragmented top-down approach elsewhere on the continent. The webinar explored Africa’s creative industry and the challenge of value-leakage, plus how this can be addressed. These discussions set the pace for what will be covered in detail with representation from several African countries at the All Africa IP Summit 7th Edition in Nairobi.
Ls. Liz Lenjo clearly addressed the value leakage in the creative industry, explaining that value leakage appears when origin, authorship, and ownership disappear between the factory floor and the final consumer. She raised key questions for the participants to ponder: How do we prepare our artisans and creatives for exports? How do we prepare them to carry their identity from the local level to the international level?
This Pre-Summit was, by design, only the opening move. The 7th All-Africa Intellectual Property Summit takes place 11–13 November 2026 in Nairobi, Kenya, bringing together policymakers, government leaders, IP offices, investors, creators and businesses from across Africa and beyond not just to talk about IP, but to build the practical frameworks that let Africa keep what it creates.
Some of the key questions we are carrying with us to the main event in November:
How do we create value for Africa’s outputs? How do we attract investment? How do we commercialize innovation, and how do we strengthen competitiveness? How do we improve people’s lives through IP and innovation?
Click here to access the Pre-Summit Recording
Beyond the core conference sessions, delegates can expect rich networking opportunities, exhibitions, and the prestigious All Africa IP Awards and gala night, celebrating the individuals and organizations driving IP forward across the continent.
Early bird registration is open now at 50% off. Secure your seat for $200 instead of the standard $400, before the offer closes on 16th August 2026.
👉 Register and explore sponsorship opportunities here…….
Africa creates. Africa trades. Nairobi is where we decide, together, how Africa owns.
Karibuni Nairobi 2026!