|
 By mid-century, the greatest population concentration will be in neither China nor India but in sub-Saharan Africa. The region is expected to gain a billion inhabitants – from 800 million today to 1.8 billion in 2050. The urban population alone will triple from 300 million to over a billion in 2050.
The last decade has seen economic growth return to sub-Saharan Africa, attracting new partners and continuing to grow despite the effects of the economic crisis elsewhere in the world. Africa is of utmost importance for world food production, as well as for natural resources, especially forests and rare minerals. The Gulf of Guinea has great potential for oil production, which will be of strategic importance for global supply. The continent also represents a market of some 1 billion consumers that will have to eat, move and communicate. The demand for services is growing exponentially: by 2012 there will be 500 million mobile phone subscribers. At the same time the continent’s infrastructure is set to expand, opening up significant opportunities from harbours to dams and roads to an optic-fibre highway, altogether a potential market of €10 billion per year.
Will Africa be able to harness the power of its increasing population to boost its economic performance? If so, do the EU and the US acknowledge this? Are they preparing to adjust their relationships with the continent that for so long was a recipient of aid, not an emerging economic force? What is Africa’s place in the new multi-polar world, where North-South is no longer the only axis?
|