Africa on the upswing
Friday, July 9, 2010 at 12:03AM 
WSJ story of McKinsey & Company report released 24 June in Johannesburg concerning Africa’s burgeoning economic growth. The report (“Lions on the Move”) states that “global businesses cannot afford to ignore the potential,” in part because it’s much more widespread than popularly realized.
Some factoids: the continent now has more mobiles than the US (316m), Africa’s billion people spend more ($860B in 2008) than India’s 1.2B, and Africa grew twice as fast in the 00s than in the 80s and 90s. Only Asia and Africa grew through the Great Recession.
China’s role is recognized in infrastructure development: its investments in that sector now outpace those of the World Bank.
Most important one to remember: the average annual number of conflicts in which 1k or more die in a year declined from just under 5 in the 1990s to 2.6 in the 00s (basically cut in half). Again, my one regret from “The Pentagon’s New Map” was my undue pessimism on Africa.
Also impressive: the non-resource-blessed countries grew almost as fast as the resource-heavy ones (4.6% annually in the 00s compared to 5.4%). Inflation also dropped across the continent from an average of 22% in the 90s to 8% in the 00s. FDI shot up from $8b in 2000 to $62B in 2008. The demographics, despite AIDS, are decent: by 2040 Africa will have 1.1B working-age people—more than either India or Africa.
The great Achilles heel long term? Poor education systems, but here again I suspect the Chinese and Indians will move in, because both know how to teach at that socio-economic range.
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