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| Author(s): | Julius Bosire |
| Organisation: | None |
What will Africa be like in 2050?” This was one of the critical debates at the 5th African Economic Conference held in Tunis recently.
Despite the challenges that are likely to bog down the continent, regional integration and individual country visions were identified as the horses the continent will ride to prosperity.
From 2010 to 2050, it is envisaged that overall economic growth for the continent will decline by about three per cent per annum due to the impact of climate change on agriculture.
The ratio of domestic to imported prices for agricultural products will fall in North America and the European Union, but will substantially rise in Africa, due to low production.
Resources for some of the countries will be exhausted by 2050 but those without will make new discoveries.
By then, Africa will have switched from agriculture to other sectors while China and India will be replaced as a source of labour intensive manufacturing. Conflicts will also diminish.
Country-based responses to the challenges of 2050 include investing in cities, managing migration, transforming agriculture and managing the resource curse while collective responses will include deepening regional integration and boosting market access.
Kenya, for instance, got a new Constitution recently, which, according to Central Bank Governor Prof Njuguna Ndung’u, promises sound financial management that will propel the country’s economic growth.
Africa Development Bank (AfDB) chief economist, Prof Mthuli Ncube, explains that Africa will face a much-transformed world by 2050, and that it must adapt much faster to global change than it has over the past 50 years, when it lagged behind other regions such as Asia.
A research by scholars has picked 2050 as the year for Africa’s attainment of high levels of development.
Prof Ndung’u explained that there are three stories of Africa which had not been told clearly: – the continent’s failure which includes lack of institutions especially those of governance; the continent’s growth like Africa microstability and emerging financial institutions; and, the future story.
He explained that African countries need to focus on infrastructure development, build energy sources and improve their learning institutions.
Vision 2050 drivers
AfDB and the French Agency for Development are jointly undertaking a study on Africa’s long-term prospects, in particular until 2050, dubbed “Africa Vision 2050.”
The objective of Africa Vision 2050 is to anticipate the future changes and explore the possibilities and prospects for Africa by determining the possible paths, defining the constraints and identifying the likely scenarios.
“The utility of Africa Vision 2050 has to lie in clearly setting out how a number of today’s and tomorrow’s discussion of ‘drivers of change’ define the opportunities and constraints that countries will face as they look towards the longer term,” Prof Ncube said.
Regional integration infrastructure programmes and infrastructure financing are key drivers of the realisation of the vision 2050 for Africa.
John Page, a senior fellow in charge of global economy and development at Brookings Institution, a Washington DC-based think tank, noted that the global drivers of change include the structural change in markets, new technologies and innovations and changing rules of the game.
Climate change, natural resources management, energy, delayed demographic transition, the burden of Aids and land tenure systems among the critical areas that African countries need to address in order to become a better developed continent by 2050.
According to the research by Brookings Institution, African cities, even in 2050, will be small and if the countries succeed there will be a need for much of their populations to be in coastal mega cities.
As such, countries must be prepared for greatly increased migration due to climate change, with the majority of the immigrants remaining in the continent causing demographic imbalances combined with large income gaps leading to yet strong immigration pressures towards industrialised countries.
The most critical issues that will come with Africa’s increased population are urbanisation and the increased threat of HIV. HIV and Aids are seen as the greatest burdens of disease, coming second after malaria and are envisaged to cause death 10 times more than war.
Drivers of change
Prof Ncube puts “drivers of change” underlying the study into three categories: Human, physical and global.
Under the human drivers of change, Africa’s population is predicted to grow to between two billion and 2.2 billion by 2050.
Three key challenges are envisaged: urbanisation — as more than half of African countries would see their urban populations increase times by between three and five times between 2010 and 2050; burden of disease — where HIV/Aids is the second major cause of mortality after malaria, and causes ten times more deaths than war; and conflicts — as most of the world’s conflicts remain on the continent, causing severe social hardship and loss of development opportunities.
On the continent’s physical endowments, the study notes that Africa faces several challenges. These include: Climate change — the impact of global warming on Africa will be more pronounced than other regions; land tenure and access to land — land already is very limited in North Africa, and the shortage of water in many areas pose a threat; natural resources — with Africa facing the challenge of how to make natural resources a blessing rather than a curse; energy — how to improve access to energy in terms of cost and improved security.
Prof Ncube explained that African countries must respond in a systematic manner in order to address these challenges.
Regarding the global drivers for change, the key challenges are preventing marginalisation in global markets especially in global manufacturing trade; and technological and industrial development — how the continent will benefit from opportunities to boost the manufacturing sector.
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