The Economist USA 03.28.2020

4 Special reportThe African century The EconomistMarch 28th 2020

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base. But that was dampened again from mid-2014, when com-

modity prices fell and African gdpgrowth slowed considerably.

This special report will argue that, in spite of these setbacks and

although many of the continent’s problems persist, social, eco-

nomic and political improvements since the cold war are gather-

ing pace. After centuries on the periphery, Africa is set to play a

much more important role in global affairs, the global economy

and the global imagination. Asia’s economic and population

booms may continue to dominate the first part of this century, but

Africa’s weight will grow in the second half.

Demography is a big part of it. Africa’s population will almost

certainly double by 2050, giving it more than a quarter of the

world’s total. That alone commands attention. But if accompanied

by matching growth in gdp, economies such as Nigeria could over-

take France or Germany in size (adjusted for purchasing power),

according to pwc, an accounting firm. That may not be as far-

fetched as it seems at first glance. The Centre for International De-

velopment at Harvard University forecasts that seven African

countries will be among the 15 to grow fastest until 2027. This will

be helped by improving education systems and the most ambi-

tious effort in the world to lower trade barriers in a continent-wide

free-trade area. It is not just the movement of goods that is spur-

ring prosperity, but also of people. Migration is likely to enrich and

democratise the continent with money, ideas and skills.

This report will argue that progress is not inevitable, nor will it

be evenly spread. Much will depend on whether governments con-

tinue to become more accountable. Since 2008 there has been an

erosion of some democratic gains won since the end of the cold

war. Yet the overall optimism is rooted in Africans’ own views of

the future. Whereas less than a quarter of German, Japanese and

British people think that their living conditions will improve over

the next 15 years, two-thirds of Kenyans, Nigerians and Senegalese

think life will get better, according to polling by ipsos. Africa’s new

generation is not just full of hope, but is slowly gaining the tools to

turn that hope into reality. 7

Mauritania Burkina

Faso

Mali

Gabon

Cameroon

Nigeria

TheGambia Senegal

Guinea-Bissau Guinea

Sierra

Leone

Liberia

Ivory

Coast

GhanaTo g o

SãoTomé&Príncipe Rwanda

Congo-Brazzaville

Niger

CAR

EquatorialGuinea

Chad

Libya Egypt

Tunisia

GDP,2018,%changeona yearearlier

Population

Selectedcountries,m

Algeria

Morocco

Western

Sahara

Cape

Verde

Kenya

Uganda

Tanzania

Botswana

South

Africa

Angola

Zimbabwe

Lesotho

Eswatini

Namibia

Mauritius

1,000km

Seychelles

Comoros

Ethiopia

Eritrea

D jibouti

Somalia

Congo

Madagascar

Mozambique

Malawi

Benin

Sudan

Zambia

South

Sudan

Burundi

0-6 2 4 6 8

Sources: IMF; World Bank; UN

Uganda

500km

Boom time

Kenya

South Africa

Congo

Egypt

Ethiopia

Nigeria

4003002001000

2018 2050 forecast

B

y 2050, nigeriais forecast to have 400m people, meaning it

will overtake the United States as the world’s third-most-pop-

ulous country. The starkness of this fact (its population is cur-

rently about 200m) illustrates the degree to which demography

will shape Africa’s future. Nigeria’s growth is part of an extraordi-

nary population surge across the continent, but there is controver-

sy about whether it will continue or can be reined in. The answer to

that question has serious economic and political implications.

Sub-Saharan Africa’s population is growing at 2.7% a year,

which is more than twice as fast as South Asia (1.2%) and Latin

America (0.9%). That means Africa is adding the population of

France (or Thailand) every two years. Although Asia’s population is

four times bigger, almost two children are born each year in Africa

for every three in Asia. Most experts agree that, if it continues at its

current growth rate, like Nigeria, Africa’s population will double

by 2050. That would be 2.5bn people, meaning more than a quarter

of the world’s people would be in Africa. Few question those fig-

ures because much of the growth is already baked into what de-

mographers term “population momentum”—that is, Africa has so

many women of childbearing age that even if most decided to have

fewer babies today, the population would keep expanding.

As a result, some doomsayers are dusting off the theories of

Thomas Malthus, who argued in 1798 that a growing human popu-

lation would starve because it would outstrip the supply of food.

Among these is Malcolm Potts, a professor at the University of Cal-

ifornia, Berkeley, who argued in a paper in 2013 that “the Sahel

could become the first part of planet Earth that suffers large-scale

starvation and escalating conflict as a growing human population

outruns diminishing natural resources.”

Yet demographic forecasts of coming decades diverge in a way

that could be crucial. The unexpects Africa’s population to double

again between 2050 and 2100, to 4.3bn people, or 39% of the

world’s total and that fertility rates (the average number of chil-

dren that women will have over their lives) will fall slowly. It reck-

ons that the rate, which has dropped to about 4.4 from 6.7 in 1980,

will take another 30 years to fall below three. But that underesti-

mates the impact of a big jump in the number of girls who are now

going to school across large parts of the continent, argues Wolf-

gang Lutz, a demographer at the International Institute for Applied

Systems Analysis near Vienna. It also highlights the urgency of

getting even more of them into school.

In the 1970s little more than half of children in sub-Saharan Af-

rica were enrolled in primary school. That share has shot up to al-

most 100%. The statistic is slightly misleading, since the percent-

age of children regularly attending schools is lower, though

improving. In Ethiopia, for instance, primary-school enrolment

has risen to 100% from 65% in 2003, though attendance only

stands at 61%. This matters because few things have a stronger in-

fluence over fertility rates than education. African women with no

formal education have, on average, six or more children. This falls

to about four for women who have finished primary school and to

about two for those who have finished secondary school.

There is, however, a 20-year lag between changes in education

and changes in fertility, so improvements in schooling since the

early 2000s are only beginning to be seen (see chart overleaf ). The

Sex and education

Africa’s population is growing fast, but will probably peak sooner

than most people expect

Demography