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On 4 Dec 2011, at 23:50, Cornelius Hamelberg <corneliushamelberg@gmail.com> wrote:
> Africa rising
>
> http://www.economist.com/node/21541015
>
> The hopeful continent
>
> Africa rising
>
> After decades of slow growth, Africa has a real chance to follow in
> the footsteps of Asia
> Dec 3rd 2011 | from the print edition
>
>
> THE shops are stacked six feet high with goods, the streets outside
> are jammed with customers and salespeople are sweating profusely under
> the onslaught. But this is not a high street during the Christmas-
> shopping season in the rich world. It is the Onitsha market in
> southern Nigeria, every day of the year. Many call it the world's
> biggest. Up to 3m people go there daily to buy rice and soap,
> computers and construction equipment. It is a hub for traders from the
> Gulf of Guinea, a region blighted by corruption, piracy, poverty and
> disease but also home to millions of highly motivated entrepreneurs
> and increasingly prosperous consumers.
>
> 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 commodities boom is partly responsible. In 2000-08 around a
> quarter of Africa's growth came from higher revenues from natural
> resources. Favourable demography is another cause. With fertility
> rates crashing in Asia and Latin America, half of the increase in
> population over the next 40 years will be in Africa. But the growth
> also has a lot to do with the manufacturing and service economies that
> African countries are beginning to develop. The big question is
> whether Africa can keep that up if demand for commodities drops.
> Copper, gold, oil—and a pinch of salt
>
> Optimism about Africa needs to be taken in fairly small doses, for
> things are still exceedingly bleak in much of the continent. Most
> Africans live on less than two dollars a day. Food production per
> person has slumped since independence in the 1960s. The average
> lifespan in some countries is under 50. Drought and famine persist.
> The climate is worsening, with deforestation and desertification still
> on the march.
>
> Some countries praised for their breakneck economic growth, such as
> Angola and Equatorial Guinea, are oil-sodden kleptocracies. Some that
> have begun to get economic development right, such as Rwanda and
> Ethiopia, have become politically noxious. Congo, now undergoing a
> shoddy election, still looks barely governable and hideously corrupt.
> Zimbabwe is a scar on the conscience of the rest of southern Africa.
> South Africa, which used to be a model for the continent, is tainted
> with corruption; and within the ruling African National Congress there
> is talk of nationalising land and mines (see article).
>
> Yet against that depressingly familiar backdrop, some fundamental
> numbers are moving in the right direction (see article). Africa now
> has a fast-growing middle class: according to the World Bank, around
> 60m Africans have an income of $3,000 a year, and 100m will in 2015.
> The rate of foreign investment has soared around tenfold in the past
> decade.
> China's arrival has improved Africa's infrastructure and boosted its
> manufacturing sector. Other non-Western countries, from Brazil and
> Turkey to Malaysia and India, are following its lead. Africa could
> break into the global market for light manufacturing and services such
> as call centres. Cross-border commerce, long suppressed by political
> rivalry, is growing, as tariffs fall and barriers to trade are
> dismantled.
>
> Africa's enthusiasm for technology is boosting growth. It has more
> than 600m mobile-phone users—more than America or Europe. Since roads
> are generally dreadful, advances in communications, with mobile
> banking and telephonic agro-info, have been a huge boon. Around a
> tenth of Africa's land mass is covered by mobile-internet services—a
> higher proportion than in India. The health of many millions of
> Africans has also improved, thanks in part to the wider distribution
> of mosquito nets and the gradual easing of the ravages of HIV/AIDS.
> Skills are improving: productivity is growing by nearly 3% a year,
> compared with 2.3% in America.
>
> All this is happening partly because Africa is at last getting a taste
> of peace and decent government. For three decades after African
> countries threw off their colonial shackles, not a single one (bar the
> Indian Ocean island of Mauritius) peacefully ousted a government or
> president at the ballot box. But since Benin set the mainland trend in
> 1991, it has happened more than 30 times—far more often than in the
> Arab world.
>
> Population trends could enhance these promising developments. A bulge
> of better-educated young people of working age is entering the job
> market and birth rates are beginning to decline. As the proportion of
> working-age people to dependents rises, growth should get a boost.
> Asia enjoyed such a "demographic dividend", which began three decades
> ago and is now tailing off. In Africa it is just starting.
>
> Having a lot of young adults is good for any country if its economy is
> thriving, but if jobs are in short supply it can lead to frustration
> and violence. Whether Africa's demography brings a dividend or
> disaster is largely up to its governments.
>
> More trade than aid
>
> Africa still needs deep reform. Governments should make it easier to
> start businesses and cut some taxes and collect honestly the ones they
> impose. Land needs to be taken out of communal ownership and title
> handed over to individual farmers so that they can get credit and
> expand. And, most of all, politicians need to keep their noses out of
> the trough and to leave power when their voters tell them to.
>
> Western governments should open up to trade rather than just dish out
> aid. America's African Growth and Opportunity Act, which lowered
> tariff barriers for many goods, is a good start, but it needs to be
> widened and copied by other nations. Foreign investors should sign the
> Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, which would let
> Africans see what foreign companies pay for licences to exploit
> natural resources. African governments should insist on total openness
> in the deals they strike with foreign companies and governments.
>
> Autocracy, corruption and strife will not disappear overnight. But at
> a dark time for the world economy, Africa's progress is a reminder of
> the transformative promise of growth.
>
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