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Yesterday, Prime Minister Theresa May visited Lagos, Nigeria – the city of my birth – as part of an ambitious three-day trade visit to Africa. Many have welcomed her pledge to invest £4 billion into African economies, in the hopes that the UK will become the G7’s number one investor in Africa by 2022. As an African, I yet again find the generally one-dimensional depictions of the vast, sprawling, diverse and beautiful continent troubling. Narratives focus around – on one hand – its poverty and corruption; and on the other the assumption of unbridled joy despite having very little; painting yet again a simplistic African story. As the late great writer Chinua Achebe once said: “People go to Africa and confirm what they already have in their heads and so they fail to see what is there in front of them.” Yet perhaps what’s also worth reflecting on is the language of self-confessed “self-interest” included in the prime minister’s speech in Cape Town on Tuesday, and her hope that the billions pledged will prove to be a win-win for the UK and African nations in a post-Brexit world. This is of course the foundation of much of global economics. Adam Smith in his Wealth of Nations describes how it is self-interest which is the “invisible hand” that provides mutual benefit in a competitive market economy. Alongside that, however, with the history and legacies of slavery and colonialism in our not-so-distant past, I think it’s important to pay special attention to the power dynamics when talking about Africa’s relationship with the global north. While self-interest may be important in our economics, imagine how different our world could be if each of us in our own lives acted not out of self-interest but “in humility”, as the writer of Philippians says. Valuing others above ourselves, not looking to our own interests but each of us to the interests of others. If we did so, perhaps we could go some way towards improving the devastating effects of climate change, global wealth inequality, human trafficking and gender-based violence. This then raises the question: how can we give to others despite the prospect of not getting anything in return? Thinkers over the ages have described just how difficult no-strings-attached giving is to achieve. French sociologist Marcel Mauss, in his 1923 work The Gift, argues that giving always requires reciprocal exchange and that it can never be truly selfless. There are unwritten rules about what the benefactor requires from the recipient. Though it may seem impossible, the concept of individual self-interest goes against the open-hearted, selfless and generous imperatives of the New Testament. Although I would confess to often failing at being any of these things, I still believe these principles are worth striving for every day.