The Best You Can Have (Or Leave Behind) Is Investing in Humanity.

By George Omagbemi Sylvester | Published by saharaweeklyng.com

“Why building people is the highest-return legacy we can leave.”

There are fortunes you can spend and fortunes you can hoard. There are mansions that crumble and trusts that dissolve. But there is a single kind of investment that never truly depreciates: the investment in people. When we plant knowledge, health, opportunity and dignity in human beings, we fertilize futures for individuals, families, communities and whole nations. Put bluntly: MONEY spent on people compounds into safer streets, healthier economies, stronger democracies and a more humane world.

This is not SENTIMENTALISM. It is economics, ethics and hard evidence braided into one unarguable truth: human-capital investments deliver some of the most consistent (and measurable) returns of any expenditure a society can make. For instance, decades of global data show that each additional year of schooling raises an individual’s hourly earnings by roughly 9-10 percent; a return that lifts households and powers economies.

Education is the foundational example because it proves the principle in plain sight. Nelson Mandela understood this when he declared that “education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” That sentence is not merely rhetorical; it is a blueprint: equipped with learning, people can imagine alternatives, challenge injustice and build markets; and their children inherit that possibility.

Though education is only one axis of human investment. Health is another. The World Health Organization and allied studies show that well-targeted health spending can produce huge economic benefits and in some analyses returning as much as 40% growth effects over a five-year horizon by increasing productivity, reducing catastrophic household spending and preventing economic disruption. Put differently: vaccinating, treating and preventing disease is an investment that pays in lives saved and incomes protected.

Philosophy and policy converge here. Nobel laureate Amartya Sen framed development not as GDP alone but as expanding people’s capabilities but the real freedoms they need to be the authors of their lives. Economic growth that ignores human development is hollow; real prosperity is built when people’s freedoms, education and health are improved together. Investing in humanity is therefore not a charitable aside to development but it is the engine of sustainable development itself.

That engine runs on choices. Governments choose budgets, donors choose causes, business leaders choose hiring and training policies and citizens choose whether to care for the neighbor’s child as well as their own. When Muhammad Yunus, a pioneer of microfinance, speaks of doing business that serves human needs (not just profit) he is speaking to the same ethic: human-centred investment creates resilience and dignity and also it transforms poverty from a permanent condition into a solvable problem.

Why is the return on human investment so reliable? Because people are both producers and consumers. Educated, healthy people innovate; they create businesses, adopt new technologies, pay taxes and participate in civic life. When a child completes another year of schooling, the entire household’s earning potential shifts upward; when immunization coverage expands, communities avoid medical shocks that can bury families in debt. These ripple effects multiply across generations. The sums are not abstract: they reflect better lives and measurable economic growth.

The moral argument is inseparable from the pragmatic one. Investing in human beings is an investment in justice. When we prioritize education for girls, health for the poorest, vocational training for displaced youth and dignity for the marginalized, we reduce inequality, social fracture and societies that hold together are also safer and more prosperous. That is why development thinkers and frontline practitioners keep returning to the same prescription: spend on people first.

How should societies translate that prescription into practice? Policy must follow evidence. A few high-impact priorities should guide any serious investment in humanity:

Universal basic health coverage and early childhood interventions. Preventive care, maternal and child health, and vaccinations deliver outsized returns by protecting human capital before it is lost. WHO technical and investment analyses show that targeted interventions for mothers and young children produce wide-ranging economic and social benefits.

Universal access to quality schooling and to post-school technical and tertiary opportunities. The lifetime returns to an extra year of schooling are well-documented; tertiary education can return even higher income gains, particularly in regions where advanced skills are scarce. Investment must be matched to quality, relevance and equity so that marginalised students truly benefit.

Support for social enterprises and microfinance that unlock local entrepreneurship. In contexts of extreme poverty, access to small credit and support for social businesses empowers people to transform survival strategies into sustainable livelihoods. Muhammad Yunus’s work illustrates the catalytic effect of enabling entrepreneurial agency rather than merely dispensing charity.

Lifelong learning and labour-market alignment. The economy changes fast; investing in adult reskilling and apprenticeships keeps workers relevant and prevents entire communities from being left behind. This is not charity, it is smart risk management for societies facing technological disruption.

Civic and moral education that binds communities. Human investment must produce citizens capable of empathy, critical thought and cooperation. Without social cohesion, the material returns on education and health can be eroded by corruption, conflict or mistrust.

There are myths to dispel. Investing in people is not merely an expense that drains public coffers; it is a productive capital allocation. It does not require an either/or choice between infrastructure and people: real infrastructure (roads, energy, internet) amplifies the payoff of human investments. Nor is investment in humanity naively idealistic; it is the clearest route to durable economic gain.

The practical finance follows. Budgets should be rebalanced to reflect these long-term returns. Donors and private investors should treat education, health and human-centred enterprises as assets, not subsidies. Businesses should internalize social returns by training workers and sourcing locally. And civil society must hold institutions accountable when short-term politics underfunds long-term human capital.

Finally, legacy matters. Wealth that dies with a person but leaves no change in other lives is fragile. The best estate is one that seeds scholarships, hospitals, schools and enterprises; structures that outlast any single lifespan. The greatest tribute we can make to our children is not a house full of consumer goods but a world where those children can live healthy, educated, capable lives.

If you want a tidy summation to hang above a lifetime of action: invest in a human and you invest in a future; invest in many humans and you change history. The evidence, the ethics and the experience of giants is from Mandela’s insistence on education to Amartya Sen’s capability framework and Yunus’s social business model and all point to the same verdict. When we place our capital and our conscience on human beings, the returns are measured not only in currency but in lives realized, dignity restored and futures unlocked.

Let every policy, donation and personal choice be weighed by this standard: WILL THIS INVESTMENT MAKE PEOPLE FREER, HEALTHIER, WISER OR MORE CAPABLE? If the answer is YES, then you are not merely spending, You are building. And that, in the ledger of human history, is wealth that never depreciates.

George Omagbemi Sylvester is the author. Published by saharaweeklyng.com.