Are you surprised? Me too.
I was fascinated to read a recent article in the Economist about Africa as a booming economic hub. Most people, including myself, are aware that despite pockets of wealth in places like Nairobi or Cape Town the vast majority of the African continent is unbelievably poor. But despite this terrible poverty actually there is a huge energy and growth happening in many African economies at the very moment when the rest of the world is slowing down.
“Over the past decade six of the world’s ten fastest-growing countries were African. In eight of the past ten years, Africa has grown faster than East Asia, including Japan. Even allowing for the knock-on effect of the northern hemisphere’s slowdown, the IMF expects Africa to grow by 6% this year and nearly 6% in 2012, about the same as Asia.” The Economist revealed.
This fact is hugely surprising and at the same time hugely heartening. Much of this growth came from population increases and the resulting increase in manpower and labour. Fertility rates have not fallen in Africa as in the rest of the world and half the increase in world population over the next 40 years will stem from Africa. Another reason for the growth are the incredible natural resources that can be found in Africa, mainly minerals as copper and gold from mining and of course, oil. These natural resources mean that some African nations should really be as wealthy as most western nations but due to corruption and war many countries have been held back in their economic development.
However we should not forget despite all this optimism that life for many Africans is still terribly hard, many surviving on an income of less than two dollars a day. Average lifespans in some countries is under 50 and the usual problems of famine due to drought continue. Climate change is making this even worse and food production has actually been falling in many places.
However there are more reasons for optimism. There is a burgeoning middle class across Africa and the countries that are currently booming; China, Brazil and India for example, are investing heavily in Africa. This unexpected economic growth also comes from the developing manufacturing and service economies that are just beginning to start up in many Africa countries.
Africa’s appetite for technology is boosting growth. It has more than 600m mobile-phone users which is much more than either America or Europe. Distances involved in travelling are huge and the state of infrastructure in many places is very poor so the mobile phone and internet have been a godsend for communications and business. Currently around a tenth of Africa’s land mass is covered by mobile-internet services, something quite remarkable. We at Real Africa benefit tremendously from this technology as it helps us to maintain our strong bonds with our local teams based in far flung offices in Tanzania, Botswana, Namibia or Uganda. We can chat to our tour managers on Skype face to face despite being thousands of miles apart.
Productivity has increased to 3% a year which is more than most western nations including the United States. Many of the long running civil wars are over, health and education are improving albeit slowly and many nations are seeing their first extended period of political stability since the end of colonialism.
We in the west can help secure this boom by opening up more trading links and helping develop these fragile new economies. Fairer trading conditions are vital as is supporting education and training. Most importantly there should be more transparency and fairness so that western nations do not get rich quick on the back of African’s hard work and natural resources as has happened in the Congo and other African nations with oil and mineral deposits.
