Over the past decade, a new wave of entrepreneurs has reinvigorated Africa’s cultural landscape. These visionary entrepreneurs, who represent some of the continent’s best talent in professions ranging from architecture to finance, are creating new models for preserving and showcasing art, history and culture. From Lagos to Luanda, they are building local museums, archives, libraries, artistic spaces and cultural centers. Earlier this year I launched a network with 25 of them and saw with my own eyes how they are redefining what the cultural sector can look like and what it can accomplish in Africa.

While cultural institutions in Africa are making great strides, their contributions are largely overlooked in the global debate on the restitution of African cultural heritage. In recent weeks, several museums in Europe and the United States have announced their decision to return items from their collections or remove them from the exhibition. Others shared plans for establishing institutional partnerships in Africa, which often lack financial commitments or clear results. As these institutions grapple with their history and practices, there is an opportunity to learn from their African peers. Rather than engaging with the African cultural sector through a singular prism, what if the world sees it as a source of innovation and education?

When the Moroccan Museum of Contemporary African Art Al-Maaden (MACAAL) opened its doors in 2016, it had a big challenge to overcome: develop a local audience. As one of the country’s first museums dedicated to contemporary art, the MACAAL team had to find a way to transcend class barriers in order to attract a diverse group of Moroccans to the museum. Their solution was a new public program inspired by the Moroccan tradition of sharing a meal of couscous every Friday.

On Friday, MACAAL began inviting local taxi drivers to its space for a couscous breakfast. Taxi drivers quickly started bringing family members, friends and people from all walks of life, from tourists to construction workers. The ripple effects of this tradition have transformed the museum from an exclusive space for the elites into one that bridges social and economic divisions. At a time when many Western museums face challenges in accommodating diverse audiences, African museums like MACAAL can provide a useful model for other institutions seeking to accomplish the same.

One of the persistent challenges in a museum in the United States where I worked was the low number of visitors, especially students. Across the Atlantic in the Republic of Benin, a partnership with local schools developed by the Museum of African Art of the Zinsou Foundation, offers insightful lessons. In 2008, the museum hosted an exhibition by legendary Malian photographer, Malick Sidibe, which attracted over a million visitors. Most of these visitors were young people. To achieve this from its inception, the museum has developed strategies to allow young people from different backgrounds to access the museum.

Through a local partnership with a private school and an oil and gas company, the museum offers free bus rides to students who cannot afford to travel to visit the museum. The museum also calls on popular musicians from Benin, engaging them in a communication campaign aimed at young people. Museum staff regularly travel off-site to visit local communities rather than waiting for visitors to pass through its doors. And, before each exhibition opening, the museum hosts an event for school teachers, ensuring that they are served on an equal basis alongside patrons and art collectors. With only a small fraction of the budget of many well-established museums, the Zinsou Foundation’s model of partnership and community engagement is exemplary.

The general narrative of African cultural institutions tends to present them as needing the know-how and best practices of the West. One story that is less told is how African institutions like the Zambia Women’s History Museum take the initiative to share their expertise and knowledge globally. In 2010, the museum’s co-founders, Samba Yonga and Mulenga Kapwepwe, visited the National Museums of World Culture in Sweden where they found missing and incorrect data on Zambian cultural objects held in the collections.

Yonga and Kapwepwe subsequently led a joint collaboration with colleagues in Sweden. This collaboration resulted in the development of a digital heritage platform that provides open access to data on Zambian cultural artefacts that were acquired during the colonial period and are currently kept in Swedish museums. As part of this project, the Women’s History Museum visited local knowledge keepers and elders in communities across Zambia. These engagements have enabled the people of Zambia to examine some of their earliest artifacts and shed light on the meaning and historical significance of these collections. For Swedish museums, this represents an opportunity to broaden their learning and professional skills in analysis, documentation and storytelling. In order to fill gaps in research and scholarship of global museum collections, African-led collaborations like this one are vital.

Recently, I had the opportunity to meet Paul Ninson, a pioneering entrepreneur and photographer, who is building the Dikan Center, the first library and photographic archive in Ghana. By skillfully crafting an online fundraising campaign, Ninson managed to raise a million dollars last month and raise 30,000 photographic books to establish the Dikan Center, which is scheduled to physically open in 2022. Paul’s Incredible Story of building an institution during a global pandemic demonstrates some of the exciting approaches African cultural entrepreneurs are employing despite limited access to resources.

Every day, as my work with cultural institutions across Africa continues to grow, I am excited by the opportunity we have to amplify their contributions and build a community of partners committed to supporting this work. As more and more Western institutions move towards returning cultural goods to Africa, I hope there will be less symbolic gestures and more transformation in the way the world understands and engages with it. African cultural institutions.