Africa whose population totals 953 million people, distributed in fifty four countries, has recorded an average economic activity of 5 percent in the last two years. Africans are divided not only by the boundaries of nation states but also ethnic identities, class distinctions, urban and rural experiences, geographic barriers, and vast distances. The colonial partition of Africa started in 1830 based on arguments that Africans neither had history prior to direct contact with Europe nor development of their own. Consequently, it was a continent of ‘grown up children’.

Findings prove that hundreds of years before Africans came into contact with the white people, the African genius’ knowledge in the field of science and technology was highly developed, in some cases to levels not currently developed in the West. Great advances had been made in metallurgy, astronomy, astrology, mathematics, agriculture, navigation, medicine, writing, architecture and engineering. For example, one of the earliest forms of literacy in the world, the hieroglyphic writing of ancient Egypt, was invented by Africans about 3000 B.C. These ancient accounts give a vivid and intimate picture of the great African civilization during its (approximately) three millennia of existence. South of Egypt, the Kushitic civilization in the ancient city of Meroe had its own form of writing five centuries or more before the birth of Christ. In neighboring Ethiopia, Ge’ez, the classical language of ancient Axum, was being expressed in written form by the fourth century A.D.