The African Century

[Blue_Tires]

Africa is the largest place on Earth it’s possible to ignore. It won’t be forever.

Africa is in the news again, and as is so often the case, the reason is tragic. The drowning deaths of hundreds of migrants attempting to cross the Mediterranean has put the plight of tens of thousands who make that hazardous crossing on the map, and forced European leaders to debate how best to respond to a burgeoning influx. But this tragedy is already slipping off the front pages, and if the past is any prologue, Africa will soon sink into obscurity again.

Africa is the largest place on earth that it is possible, most of the time, to ignore. It won’t be forever. The journalistic cliché is that, as the 20th was the American century, the 21st will be the Chinese. But there is a plausible case to be made that, within a few short decades, we’ll be talking instead about the African century.

The reason is simple arithmetic. Demographically, Africa is expanding at a rate unmatched by any other remotely comparable region. Of the 25 countries with the highest total fertility rates, all but two (Afghanistan and East Timor) are African—and included in that list are some of Africa’s largest and most populous countries, such as Nigeria, Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. According to the UN’s population projections, Africa’s population will triple between 2000 and 2050, going from roughly 800 million to roughly 2.4 billion. It will then nearly double between 2050 and 2100, to 4.2 billion. At the end of the century, Africa is projected to have nearly as many people as all of Asia, and roughly as many as the entire world did in 1980. Nearly two out of every five people on earth in 2100 will be African.

Africa is also rapidly urbanizing. Until quite recently, the continent was relatively sparsely populated—and still is compared to Europe, China or India. Of the 25 densest countries with a population of over 1 million, only three are in Africa; of the 25 least-dense countries with a population of over 1 million, 12 are in Africa. Africa’s historically low urbanization rate has meant poorer integration into the global economy. All of this is changing or has already changed to the point where Africa will not be as isolated in future decades as it was in the past. And an Africa of mostly middle-income countries integrated into the world economy would have an enormous impact.


http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/05/africa-will-dominate-the-next-century-117611.html#.VUpiNqTD9zl