8 Special reportThe African century The EconomistMarch 28th 2020
21people living in African cities is growing by 3.6% a year, compared
with 2.4% in China and India. This rapid growth, a result of both a
still-high birth rate and migration, means that Africa’s cities have
to accommodate about 20m extra people each year. Theunreck-
ons that over the next decade, all ten of the world’s fastest-growing
cities will be in Africa. These include Dar es Salaam in Tanzania,
which will almost double to about 11m people.
Many of the benefits of the other two sorts of migration are also
seen when people move to cities. In Ghana three-quarters of peo-
ple who moved from villages to slums sent money to their families
back home. Almost nine-tenths thought their lives were better.
Africa is not only urbanising much more quickly than any other
continent, it is also doing so at a much lower level of wealth than
Asia or South America did. In other parts of the world the move-
ment of people to the cities has generally meant a move into more
productive jobs. But in Africa young people often end up hawking
vegetables or trinkets on the side of the road. This is because many
of the continent’s cities are so sprawling, with narrow jammed
roads and poor infrastructure, that people cannot easily get to jobs.
Nairobi, for instance, has one of the longest average commuting
times anywhere because 41% of people walk to work.
It also costs a lot to transport food to cities, which pushes up
prices and in turn forces up wages in factories, making it hard for
them to compete on global markets. In short, many have become
“consumption cities” with urban economies dominated by low-
value services and goods that are consumed locally, rather than
tradable goods or services. Better urban planning with denser
housing instead of sprawling slums, with wider roads and public
transport, would all go a long way to making cities more produc-
tive. So would reliable electricity: a study by the Centre for Global
Development in Washington, dc, found that one of the biggest ob-
stacles faced by Nigeria’s technology startups was frequent power
cuts. “You can’t code in the dark,” says the founder of one firm.
But some of the solutions to urban problems can also be found
in the countryside. A good place to start is by helping farmers be-
come more productive. That could reduce food costs in the cities,
making them more competitive for manufacturing. Higher in-
comes in villages could expand markets for goods made in the cit-
ies. Sometimes the path to industrialisation starts on the farm. 7O
n the hillsof central Kenya, almost lime-green with the
shimmer of tea bushes in the sunlight, farmers know all about
climate change. “The rainy season is not predictable,” says one.
“When it is supposed to rain it doesn’t, then it all comes at once.”
Climate change is an issue that will affect everyone on the planet.
For Africans its consequences will be particularly bitter: whereas
other regions were able to grow rich by burning coal and oil, Africa
will pay much of the human price without having enjoyed the
benefits. “Africa only represents 2% of global greenhouse-gas
emissions but it is the continent that is expected to suffer the most
from climate impacts,” says Mafalda Duarte, who runs the $8bn
Climate Investment Funds, established by the World Bank.
Although there are huge uncertainties as to the precise impacts
of climate change, with large error bars around temperature fore-casts, enough is known to say that global warming represents one
of the main threats to Africa’s prosperity. Parts of the continent are
already warming much more quickly than the average: tempera-
tures in southern Africa have increased by about twice the global
rate over the past 50 years. Even if the world were to cut emissions
enough to keep global warming below 1.5°C, heatwaves would in-
tensify in Africa and diseases such as malaria would spread to ar-
eas that are not currently affected. Farming would also be hit hard.
About 40% of the land now used to grow maize would no longer be
suitable for it. Overall, it is estimated that maize yields would fall
by 18-22%.
Africa is particularly vulnerable, in part because it is already
struggling to feed itself and it will have to vastly increase yields
and productivity if it is to put food on the plates of a fast-growing
population, even without climate change. The un’s Food and Agri-
culture Organisation reckons that by 2050 global food production
would have to rise by about 70% over its level of 2009 to meet de-
mand from a population that is growing in numbers and appetite.
Much of this new demand will be in Africa. Yet the continent al-
ready imports about $50bn-worth of food a year and that figure is
expected to more than double over the next five years. Self-suffi-
ciency is not Africa’s goal, but the fact that it spends more money
importing food than it does buying capital goods suggests it has
room for improvement.
Finding out why is not hard. Most farms are tiny, tilled by hand
and reliant on rain. More than half of Africa’s people make their
living from farming. Although its total harvest has climbed over
the past few decades, this is mainly because there are more people
farming more land. But in many places there is no spare land to
farm. Plots in Rwanda are so small (less than two acres) that you
could fit 250 of them onto the average American farm. And al-
though output per worker has improved by little more than halfFeeding another billion
Climate change and rural poverty mean Africa must get smarter
with its agricultureFood and climateHotter and drier