Africa in Transition

Introduction

The bustling city of Accra, the capital of Ghana, is also home to the secretariat of the new African Continental Free Trade Area. Africa has aspirations for a more resilient future driven by free trade, greater tech investment and political and economic coordination. But climate change, food security and fragile governance pose formidable challenges. (Getty Images/Anadolu Agency/Christian Thompson)

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Overview

Nigerian banking entrepreneur and investor Tony Elumelu and his entourage jetted into California in May on the way to Stanford University's business school, an institution synonymous with Silicon Valley and global success. There, Elumelu joined the View From the Top speaker series, whose luminaries this year include Nobel Peace laureate Malala Yousafzai and Google Chief Executive Sundar Pichai.1

While a prominent African visiting the United States once might have talked about debt woes, grinding poverty or civil wars, Elumelu promoted what he calls “Africapitalism” to drive economic and social change in Africa, by Africans. Since 2015, Elumelu has gained attention for giving $5,000 in seed capital and management training to each of almost 16,000 young entrepreneurs across Africa through his foundation.2

“At times there's this entitlement mentality that people have,” Elumelu said at the Stanford event. “‘We should be helped. We should be supported. We should be developed.’ Well, for Christ's sake, it can't be like that forever. We need to help ourselves, too.”3

Nigerian singer CKay performs at The O2 Arena in London in December 2021. His popularity — he landed at No. 1 in the first Billboard U.S. Afrobeats Songs chart in late March — is another sign of Africa's transition toward a more assertive and influential region. (Getty Images/WireImage/Joseph Okpako)

From business suites to the halls of political power, sub-Saharan Africa is in transition beyond its tumultuous independence era. Its 48 nations and peoples increasingly define their own political and economic trajectories, rally around common goals and rely less on foreign aid and outsiders' agendas. This shift heralds the arrival of a more assertive and influential Africa drawing on increasing human and economic strengths and reaping the benefits of declining poverty.4

Integration of Africa's economies is a crucial step. The African Continental Free Trade Area, which began operating in 2021, seeks to introduce more efficient trade practices to expand commerce among 54 African countries. Merchandise exports within the continent totaled $70 billion in 2019, just 14.4 percent of total exports from Africa — which are dominated by raw or “primary” commodities such as crude oil and copper.5

The World Bank said the changes could boost trade within Africa by more than 81 percent.6

From Nairobi to Dakar, increasing investment spotlights progress, from energy projects to housing. While the COVID-19 crisis interrupted foreign direct investment (FDI) growth, “the region's high potential and investment needs will accelerate FDI inflows, especially if the investment climate continues to improve,” United Nations analysts said last year.7

Leaders and investors have prioritized connecting and powering Africa as the continent rapidly urbanizes. Almost half of the $29 billion in announced new projects or expansions in 2020 were in the energy and information and communication industries. African tech startups, mainly in Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa, pulled in $2.1 billion from investors in 2021, three times the amount in 2020.8

In another sign of transition, African pop culture is spreading. Nigerian singer CKay landed his global hit “Love Nwantiti (Ah Ah Ah)” at No. 1 in the first Billboard U.S. Afrobeats Songs chart in late March, with nearly 5 million streams in a single week.9

U.S. entertainment giants are backing movies and television shows created by African talent. In South Africa alone, Netflix has spent more than 2 billion rand — around $125 million — on productions during the past five years. Disney is teaming up with animators from six African countries to create an Africa-themed science fiction and fantasy series.10

Conversations about Africa's future often turn to China, which has shaped the continent's economy and politics for two decades. Between 2015 and 2019, China, Britain and France added to their positions as the top investors in Africa, while the cumulative investment from the United States declined.11

Over the course of a lifetime, an African in his or her 70s has seen the continent move from rule by European powers to fledgling independence, jarred by coups, famines and debt-laden impoverishment — and now toward an era of renewal, creativity and improving living standards. While war, increasing terror attacks by jihadists, hunger and arbitrary rule persist in Africa, these are no longer the dominant strands of the narrative.

Ethiopia, the poorest country in the world in the mid-1980s, exemplifies the transition. The second most populous nation in Africa cut its poverty rate almost in half from 2000 to 2016 through social spending targeted at the poor and backed by international aid. While engaged in a war with rebels in the northern Tigray region since the end of 2020, Ethiopia has managed to advance its plans for building an internet economy. It is also expanding renewable energy in part by generating electricity from Africa's largest dam. China is helping to develop wind power sites.12

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) singled out Ethiopia while raising its economic growth forecast for sub-Saharan Africa. “Ethiopia is driving the large upward revision for non-resource-intensive countries — its economy fared better than expected despite multiple shocks (pandemic, conflict, and locust infestation),” the IMF said.”13

Africa's transition is compelling the United States, France, China, Britain and other powers with entrenched interests on the continent to lean toward what they call partnerships and away from policies perceived by Africans as outdated and patronizing.

“African leaders are tired of being treated as helpless and hopeless, and now they're saying judge us by our results and how we take responsibility,” says Mark Green, who previously served as U.S. ambassador to Tanzania and as administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and is now president of the Wilson Center, a policy institute in Washington.

European Council President Charles Michel pledged at a summit in February that the European Union (EU) would reshape its relationship with Africa in the 2020s. Michel said the EU would accelerate delivery of COVID-19 vaccines and invest 150 billion euros (about $150 billion) in energy, transport, health care and job creation. The chair of the African Union (AU), Senegalese President Macky Sall, welcomed the strategy. The future relationship “will be based on mutual respect, solidarity and finally, listening to each other because often we were not listened to,” Sall said.14

Africa wields increasing global influence. Former Nigerian Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala heads the World Trade Organization. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, a former Ethiopian health minister and foreign minister, is steering the World Health Organization (WHO) through the pandemic.

Nevertheless, nations in sub-Saharan Africa joined other developing economies across the globe in accepting international help in 2020 amid the economic disruptions of the pandemic, which slashed tax revenue and erased millions of jobs. Nigeria, South Africa, Ghana and other nations took $25.9 billion in emergency loans from the IMF.16

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Yet, today's great promise is limited by weak institutions, wobbly political will in nations distracted by internal strife and uneven fulfillment of strategic promises, all of which may confound joint action. To achieve lasting change, the governments and peoples of Africa must overcome a legacy of dependence and disappointments.

COVID-19 exposed gaps in public health and government finances. Difficulties among African countries in obtaining vaccines symbolized the reliance on foreign largesse that leaders vow must be swept away to strengthen Africa's freedom of action.

“[W]e must learn from this experience,” African Development Bank President Akinwumi Adesina said in a speech to the AU in February. “Africa can no longer outsource the security of the lives of its 1.4 billion people to the benevolence of others.”15 The African Development Bank, based in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire, finances projects across Africa.

The crisis pushed more than 26 million Africans into extreme poverty, halting income gains during the previous decade. Between 2010 and 2019, the proportion of people in sub-Saharan Africa living on $1.90 a day or less — the measure of extreme poverty set by the World Bank — had fallen from 40.6 percent to 34.4 percent.17

Adding to the economic hits from the pandemic, Russia's invasion of Ukraine seriously disrupted grain and fertilizer supplies, threatening to deepen hunger on the continent. That is an unwelcome shock as Africa copes with the effects of an erratic climate on food security. For example, Sudan is teetering on the edge of a hunger catastrophe, after the disrupted grain deliveries exacerbated the effects of years-long drought.18

Even so, predictions of a health system collapse during the COVID-19 crisis proved wrong, even as the pandemic spread across Africa. The coronavirus infected up to 65 percent of Africans by September 2021, almost 100 times the official tally, WHO said after a review of 151 studies. However, confirmed deaths in Africa remain less than 10 percent of the toll in Europe or the Americas.19

“Africa has had milder COVID-19 cases compared with other parts of the world because there is a comparatively smaller proportion of people with risk factors such as diabetes, hypertension and other chronic diseases that are associated with more severe cases and deaths,” WHO said. “Africa's youthful population is also a protective factor.”20

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A youth boom is only beginning to shake the culture, economy and politics of 21st century Africa. In one sign of this trend, Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema attributed his victory margin of almost 1 million votes in 2021 to the turnout of young voters.21

“Young people are demanding a different kind of Africa,” with higher expectations for good governance, says Makila James, former U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for East Africa and the Sudans who is now senior adviser at the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington. “What happened in Zambia is a bellwether and should be paid attention to, given the youth-driven landslide.”

Throughout the rest of this century, sub-Saharan Africa will have the world's largest share of population under 25 years old and will account for about 52 percent of the world's projected population increase through 2050.22

Africa is rebounding from the pandemic, with East Africa taking the lead. The decision in March to bring the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) into the East African Community trade and political bloc is a major step for African integration. This bloc now stretches from the Indian Ocean to the Atlantic.23

As policymakers, diplomats, business leaders and citizens study Africa's future, here are some of the questions they are considering:

Can Africans take collective action to accelerate sustainable development?

The pandemic arose as the African Union was pursuing a major goal for accelerating economic growth and social development: stepping up trade within Africa by reducing tariffs, customs delays and paperwork. The African Continental Free Trade Area began to operate on Jan. 1, 2021, overseen by a secretariat in Accra, Ghana.

Green, who as head of USAID ran an agency that invests billions of dollars in African development, says he is impressed with the continent's progress so far on free trade and regional integration. The moves convince him that Africa can come together to accelerate its development journey.

“It is undeniable that we are starting to see real progress,” Green says.

The free trade initiative is part of the AU's Agenda 2063, which lists seven “aspirations” and 15 flagship projects meant to carry the continent toward the centennial of its original political forum, the Organization of African Unity, founded in 1963. Among the aspirations are an integrated continent united in the pursuit of peace, security and prosperity; good governance, democracy, respect for human rights and the rule of law; and becoming a “strong and influential global partner.”24

A tweet from the African Union promotes the aspirations of its Agenda 2063 that include boosting free trade within Africa and creating structures for good governance, democracy and respect for human rights. (African Union Twitter/Screenshot)

A review of Agenda 2063's progress by the African Union Commission and the African Union Development Agency gave lowest marks to inclusive economic growth because of high unemployment and the drop in gross domestic product (GDP) per capita between 2019 and 2021. Africa also fell short of its 2021 target of increasing total tax revenue as a percentage of GDP “to ensure that Africa takes full ownership of her development efforts,” the AU analysis said.25

Besides the free trade area, the AU's projects include a pan-African online university, a high-speed rail network, a single passport to promote free movement among countries, a campaign to end violent conflict and a plan to shift from exporting raw commodities to using those resources for production and consumption in Africa.26

For businesses selling across borders in Africa, streamlining trade depends on coordinated action across countries. In a survey of businesses in East Africa by a U.N. agency, 55 percent of respondents cited “low political will” among governments as their top concern in implementing the free trade accord.27

A joint study of the pace of sustainable development in Africa, conducted by the AU, the U.N. Economic Commission for Africa, the African Development Bank and the U.N. Development Programme, said leaders face a “herculean” task in reorienting their countries toward the Agenda 2063 as well as the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals for 2030. The 17 U.N. sustainable development goals involve health, climate action, peace and justice, quality education, clean water and gender equality. Africa is “only halfway” toward achieving them by 2030, according to the study.28

Rising debt, increased hunger and COVID-19 disruptions are complicating the task. “It is not an exaggeration to say that the current constellation of factors is potentially the greatest challenge confronting Africa since the independence era that began in the 1960s,” the study's authors said.29

Eleven of the 19 countries worldwide categorized as “severely vulnerable” because of their international debt load are in sub-Saharan Africa, a U.N. Development Programme study in 2021 said. China's share of external public debt in 2019 in developing countries ranged from about 30 percent in Ethiopia and Zambia to more than 60 percent in the Republic of Congo. Collective action on these issues requires popular support, said Nardos Bekele-Thomas of Ethiopia, who in May became the first woman to lead the African Union Development Agency, which seeks to support the Agenda 2063 goals through pilot projects and information-sharing. “Agenda 2063 needs to become an agenda of the people of Africa — one that is owned by all,” she said.30

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As Africa refocuses on its long-term agenda, three countries that usually steer the continent's course are distracted by domestic crises.

Ethiopia remains at war in Tigray as the international community presses for a steady flow of food and medicine to populations caught in the conflict. Nigeria, the most populous African nation, is dealing with the displacement of around 3 million people due to terrorism and clashes between farmers and herders.31

And South Africa, long one of the continent's most stable and economically prosperous countries, is trying to recover after COVID-19 inflicted deep economic losses and 101,000 deaths. Floods around the port city of Durban in April triggered by the most intense one-day rainfall in South Africa in more than 35 years added to the country's misery. The disaster killed at least 435 people and destroyed or damaged nearly 15,400 houses, affecting more than 128,000 residents.32

In his State of the Nation speech in February, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said a fire that destroyed the National Assembly building symbolized the country's plight after the devastation of the pandemic and looting in 2021, in which more than 300 people died. Ramaphosa said South Africa's “present situation — of deep poverty, unemployment and inequality — is unacceptable and unsustainable.”33

African leaders also face a daunting electricity deficit. Around 600 million people lack reliable access to power because lines do not reach them or generating capacity falls short.34

Power plants are being built across Africa, often by Chinese companies, symbolizing China's powerful role in Africa's integrated development.35

Spring flooding this year caused extensive damage and killed at least 435 people in Durban, South Africa, adding to the country's difficulties. COVID-19 has inflicted deep economic losses and 101,000 deaths on South Africa. (Getty Images/Gallo Images/Darren Stewart)

In December 2021, China released the “China-Africa Cooperation Vision 2035,” which pledges $60 billion more in investment and joint efforts in agriculture, manufacturing, infrastructure, environmental protection and the digital economy. The plan outlines a “green growth model” featuring cooperation in renewable energy and responses to climate change. Under Vision 2035, China said it “actively participates” in development of the continental free trade area and seeks “more sustainable finance cooperation” with continental financial institutions.36

The scale of China's plans, along with U.S. efforts to ramp up investment via the Prosper Africa initiative and similar drives by Japan, Turkey, Britain and other countries, raises questions about Africa's own role and how it will mediate outside pressures. Prosper Africa, begun under President Donald Trump and scaled up under President Biden, aims to expand American trade and investment through U.S. government financing and market entry support.

“Amid the current escalating competition for markets and influence in Africa among the major powers, Africa's collective agency needs to be reassessed,” said John Stremlau, visiting professor of international relations at the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa. “This is true for each of the eight AU affiliated regional economic communities too. Can Africans devise practical ways to entice all major powers to support the African Continental Free Trade Area?”37

Has COVID-19 changed the long-term trajectory of Africa's progress?

The pandemic exposed vulnerabilities in public health services across Africa, from the training of medical personnel to the availability of testing and vaccines. However, creation of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) by the African Union in 2017 proved fortuitous.

The Africa CDC, led until May by former U.S. CDC scientist John Nkengasong, a native of Cameroon, helped African governments coordinate the response and focus on longer-term priorities. (President Biden tapped Nkengasong to become his administration's global AIDS coordinator and the U.S. Senate confirmed the nomination on May 6.)

To confront COVID-19, Africa turned to labs, testing, surveillance, data collection and distribution networks that had been developed with U.S. funding for fighting AIDS, under a program created by President George W. Bush.38

Africa recorded 173,674 COVID deaths as of July 6, the lowest totals of any world region, according to World Health Organization data.39

But the pandemic awakened Africans to the need for an “Afrocentric” public health system able to provide medications, supplies and expertise without relying on foreign sources, says Josephat Kakoma, a Zambian health policy expert and a global health leadership fellow at the Africa CDC.

“One of the challenges in public health on this continent is that we are so dependent on foreign money,” Kakoma says. “So, we are pushing this idea of mobilizing domestic resources. That's about money but also about efficiency.”

Shortages of COVID-19 vaccines gave rise to the term “vaccine apartheid,” to dramatize the disparity with Europe and the United States. Only 19 percent of Africans are fully vaccinated; so far no African country has vaccinated more than 70 percent of its population. Yet as the pandemic eases, almost 30 percent of available doses are unused, the Africa CDC said. South Africa is cutting back a vaccine campaign because of public apathy stoked by anti-vax social media messaging.40

Even so, to guard against future shortages, the African Development Bank will finance two or three vaccine manufacturing projects each year for the next five years.41

Meanwhile, a persistent “brain drain” plagues Africa's health workforce, says Ama Fenny, a health economist at the University of Ghana and a member of the AU's COVID-19 task force.

“We do have shortages, but governments are unable to pay workers who have the skills to fill the gaps,” Fenny says. “So, you have a situation where nurses have been trained but have no jobs.” As a result, she says, “There is a gradual exodus of health workers to other continents.”

Effects of the pandemic may reverberate for years. Economic output losses in 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic amounted to almost 12 percent of sub-Saharan Africa's GDP, the IMF said. As a result, per capita incomes in many countries will not return to precrisis levels before 2025. Researchers predict an increase in Africa's “indirect mortality,” measured as deaths from preventable diseases, especially among children, that will occur by 2030 as a result of long-term effects of the pandemic, including lower income and reduced access to clean water, food and sanitation.42

School closures during the pandemic affected about 250 million children. A World Bank analysis of household surveys in Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Malawi, Mali, Nigeria and Uganda found that “negative impacts of the pandemic have been substantial” because of reduced contacts with teachers, fewer learning activities and less access to mobile technology.43

Yet a McKinsey & Co. study said that between Feb. 16, 2020, and Jan. 31, 2022, schools in sub-Saharan Africa were fully open for more weeks than in any other world region. “As a result, the pandemic's impact on learning was relatively muted,” although effective remote learning posed a challenge, the study said.44

The crisis reduced foreign investment in sub-Saharan Africa by 12 percent in 2020 compared to 2019, dropping to $30 billion.45 For governments, the need for stopgap IMF funding revealed shortcomings.

Adesina, the development bank leader, has advocated for an emergency funding mechanism to cushion against future shocks. He also seeks a change in the charter of the African Development Fund, so it can leverage $25 billion in equity to raise money in international capital markets.46

While Africa struggled on many fronts, the internet economy ironically got a major push from COVID-19 lockdowns. For schools, offices and consumers, the imperative to shift work and spending online coincided with improved internet access. Africa's international bandwidth, measured in terabits per second, rose 11-fold from 2015 to 2021, and the number of Africans using the internet more than doubled in the same period to 360 million.47

Ethiopian entrepreneur Addis Alemayehou says the pandemic helped “in getting our government and private sector to think tech and use it much more effectively, given Zoom became the norm.”

High-speed undersea internet connections such as Google's Equiano cable, named after a Nigerian writer of the 1700s, linked Europe with West Africa in 2022, rapidly expanding the continent's internet capabilities. Internet growth paralleled the surge in mobile phones: Total mobile cellular subscriptions in Africa surpassed Europe's tally in 2019 and reached 908 million in 2021.48

Mobile money transfer systems such as M-Pesa, invented in Kenya, became more popular as the handling of cash declined. In March 2020, the Central Bank of Kenya boosted daily transaction limits and cut fees to encourage digital spending. Since then, Kenya's monthly transaction volume across 68.7 million mobile money accounts has more than doubled to 663.5 billion Kenya shillings, around $5.8 billion.49

At the onset of the pandemic, most African countries also used cash transfers and other social safety net support to target vulnerable households and workers, an approach that the World Bank recommends be scaled up using digital payments.

“The COVID-19 pandemic may well turn out to be a turning point in the way social protection is delivered, with a rapid transition toward deployment of digital tools and novel data in the pursuit of offering social protection for all,” the bank said. That can help to address “more frequent and consequential shocks, especially caused by climate change.”50

Terence McCulley, former U.S. ambassador to Cote d'Ivoire, Mali and Nigeria and now a senior expert at the U.S. Institute of Peace, says Africa's rebound from COVID-19 has been surprisingly strong, reflecting the ability of economies and individuals to cope with adversity.

“Women, in particular, find ways to provide for their families and pay fees and buy books and school uniforms for their children,” McCulley says. “The emergence from COVID is a symbol of that resilience, and so impressive across the continent.”

Will climate change thwart sub-Saharan Africa's quest for food security?

Sub-Saharan farmers who endured a months-long infestation of desert locusts in 2020 and 2021 are confronting an even tougher long-term threat: erratic and extreme weather that could thwart efforts to boost harvests as the continent's population soars.51

“The picture is quite scary when you look at the increasing frequency and severity of droughts, and not just droughts but also floods and even tropical cyclones,” says Malvern Chirume, chief underwriting officer for African Risk Capacity Limited in Johannesburg, which insures 15 African governments against climate impacts. “Also, something not often talked about, extreme heat, which can make some areas uninhabitable.”

With its dependence on agriculture, which employs about half of the workforce, Africa is vulnerable on two fronts: producing sufficient food and protecting livelihoods in rural areas.

Sub-Saharan Africa posted real agricultural growth rates of 4.3 percent a year from 2000 to 2018, about double the rate from 1980 through the 1990s. Rising private investment and domestic food demand helped to drive the increase.52

Agricultural growth in the region since 2000 has largely depended on an increase in planted area rather than in productivity. To keep up with population growth, African farms must become more productive even as climate risks mount.53

Acute food insecurity grips areas of sub-Saharan Africa, driven by weather-related disasters, said an analysis supported by USAID, the European Union and the World Food Programme, a U.N. agency based in Rome. Five of the 10 countries with the highest number of people in hunger “crisis” or worse in 2021 were in the region: Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Nigeria, South Sudan and Sudan — totaling almost 74 million people. The 2022 forecast is worse, with populations in Kenya, Niger and Somalia adding 14 million people to the African tally.54

Malawi, Mali and Senegal are among the governments that use climate insurance payouts to get cash to vulnerable people, distribute food parcels and buy feed for livestock, Chirume says. Satellite data and ground surveys measure rainfall and moisture in the soil to determine when drought conditions are bearing down, triggering the insurance.

A man stands next to a dead cow on April 7 in an Ethiopian village in an area that has seen little rain in 18 months. Erratic and extreme weather in some parts of sub-Saharan Africa — coupled with interrupted grain imports due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine — threatens to increase hunger in some of the region's 48 countries. (AFP/Getty Images/Eduardo Soteras)

“If there's a drought, food security is affected, which means nutrition is affected and other negative effects, such as the withdrawal of children from schools,” Chirume says.

A study that compared weight, height and age data for 192,000 children in 30 sub-Saharan African countries with corresponding location-specific temperature data and forecasts, projected “substantial increases” in malnutrition. Wasting — low weight for height — could climb 37 percent in West Africa and 25 percent in central and eastern Africa by 2100, the study found.55

The Wilson Center's Green says he worries that climate change is forcing migration and sharpening competition for arable land. “These growing trends can present a lot of challenges to stability and economic development,” he says.

Climate pressures offer an opportunity for developed economies to step in and share advanced technology for water security and effective approaches for food security, he says.

Typically, Africans who seek to migrate to other continents head to Europe, risking their lives to cross the Mediterranean Sea. But droughts and other climate-induced pressures are driving a potentially record-breaking number of African migrants to attempt a journey to the U.S. southern border this year, Bloomberg reported. Originating from countries stretching from Senegal to Somalia, more than 4,500 Africans crossed the Colombia-Panama border from January through April.56

“This seems to be an age of shocks,” says Murithi Mutiga, Africa director of the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based research and advocacy organization focused on conflict prevention. “You have had the pandemic, locust infestation, war in Ukraine and now climate is perhaps the leading cause of displacement across the continent, for instance in Somalia and South Sudan.”

Africa is scoring some wins against climate threats to food security. Through its agriculture technologies program, the African Development Bank financed 45,000 metric tons of heat-tolerant wheat seeds for Ethiopian farmers in 2018. Bank president Adesina said Ethiopia has scaled up production of this wheat to the point of self-sufficiency and will begin exporting the grain next year.57

While the increasing availability of better seed and fertilizer is boosting farm productivity, “gains get reversed super-fast” when climate volatility strikes an area, says Vanessa Adams, vice president of strategic partnerships for the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, based in Nairobi. The alliance has worked with 25 million smallholder farmers in 11 countries to boost them into profit-making businesses using technology, know-how, market access and financing.58

Adams points to stark differences in Kenya's agricultural terrain. “There are areas where we have commercial farmers, high productivity, food processors, poultry farms, dairy farms, cooperatives buying from farmers, markets thriving, digital applications,” she says. “Then you go to northern Kenya, and you see barren areas and malnutrition.”

Because of sub-Saharan Africa's dependence on rain-fed agriculture, climate challenges make investments in adaptation “of paramount importance,” the IMF said in a regional economic analysis.59

One largely untapped resource lies just beneath the surface in Africa: The continent may have more than 100 times as much water underground as it has from rainfall, according to a 2022 U.N. study of global water supplies.60

“As climate change continues to affect precipitation patterns, causing increasing pressure on the existing surface water resources, groundwater offers the buffering capacity to protect against these uncertainties and provide a more reliable water supply,” said the study's authors. But due to a lack of investment and hydrology expertise, only about 5 percent of African farmland is irrigated.61

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Background

Empire and Independence

Before the intrusion of Europeans, Africa was home to organized kingdoms and empires and great trading networks across the planet's second-largest continent. From Egypt along the Nile River to Aksum in northern Ethiopia to the Ghana Empire (based in today's Mali and Mauritania) and the later Muslim empires of Mali and Songhai in West Africa, Africans projected economic and political influence.62

Migrations spanning about 3,000 years brought Bantu-speaking peoples from an area near present-day Nigeria into central and southern Africa, introducing farming, villages and the use of iron and displacing scattered hunter-gatherers.63 Yet outsiders knew little of the breadth and sophistication of these societies.

While European explorers had ventured around Africa by the 1400s, laying the groundwork for coastal commerce and trading of enslaved people for the Americas, extensive European forays into the continent began only in the mid-1800s. Christian missionaries such as Scotland's David Livingstone pushed deeper into Africa and wrote about the lands and peoples encountered along the way. Explorers including Henry Stanley became exploiters of African riches and labor.64

From trading beachheads in western and southern Africa and control over Zanzibar, an archipelago off today's mainland Tanzania, Britain expanded into the continent, establishing colonies in West and East Africa. A key issue was the international slave trade, which the British Navy cracked down on starting in 1807 following Britain's banning of commerce in humans held in bondage. Between 1640 and 1807 British ships had transported an estimated 3.1 million enslaved Africans to British colonies in the Caribbean, mainland North America, South America, and elsewhere, yet only 2.7 million survived the passage. Even after 1807, thousands of Britons continued to hold enslaved people on Caribbean plantations. The Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 freed 800,000 Africans held by 46,000 British citizens and compensated the owners in the largest financial bailout until the rescue of banks in 2009.65

As the Ottoman Empire faltered in the 1800s, France seized Algiers from the Turks in 1830 and Tunisia in 1880. In sub-Saharan Africa, France used Senegal as the base for expansion eastward into the Chad Basin and pursued a “civilizing” policy intended to turn African elites into French citizens and officials.66

European Colonialism

In late 1884, German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck invited European powers to Berlin, where they negotiated and mapped claims over African territory. Belgium, Britain, France, Germany and Portugal apportioned the continent — without input from Africans. While colonization took years, by 1900 European states had claimed about 90 percent of Africa.67

Almost half of the political frontiers were lines or arcs of circles drawn through cultural terrain; the boundaries ran through 190 cultural groups and enclosed hundreds of cultures without a common heritage.68 In Kenya, the borders changed six times after the British declaration of the East Africa Protectorate in 1895.

European powers meet at a conference in Berlin in 1884, where they divided the African continent into colonies without input from Africans. By 1900, European states claimed about 90 percent of Africa. (Getty Images/Universal Images Group/Photo12/Contributor)

“None of the country's borders matched local languages, communities or physical geography; Kenya was an artificial creation, delineated by the British for their purposes, lumping together neighbours, enemies and some communities that had previously had no contact whatsoever,” historian Charles Hornsby wrote.69

An African victory over European ambitions came in March 1896 when Italian forces attempted to invade Ethiopia. In the Battle of Adwa, Emperor Menelik II's army routed the disorganized Italians. Menelik's victory preserved Ethiopia's independence and gave Africans under European rule hope for eventual liberation.70

Among the first expressions of organized advocacy for Africa was the Pan-African Conference in 1900. Delegates, including the Black American sociologist W.E.B. DuBois and a representative of Emperor Menelik, gathered in London to call for the just development of the continent and an end to forced labor and racism. Those issues sharpened as the world learned about Belgian King Leopold II's brutal exploitation of workers in the Belgian Congo for ivory, rubber and other riches.71

The upheavals of the First World War led to formation of the League of Nations, created to preserve the peace. Collective security appealed to Ethiopia's ruler, Haile Selassie, later crowned emperor, who sought to shore up his country's vulnerable position in Africa amid colonial domination. Ethiopia gained entry to the League in 1923.72

When League member Italy attacked Ethiopia in 1935 with sophisticated weapons that included nerve agents sprayed from warplanes, Selassie went before the body to demand help — and got almost none. “Should it happen that a strong government finds it may with impunity destroy a weak people, then the hour strikes for that weak people to appeal to the League of Nations to give its judgment in all freedom,” the emperor said. “God and history will remember your judgment.”73

The Second World War, much of it fought in North Africa and Europe against Nazi tyranny, stoked opposition to colonial rule. More than 1 million African soldiers fought for the colonial powers against Germany and Japan.74

In 1941, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill issued the Atlantic Charter, a declaration intended to define Allied war aims that backed self-government. Churchill, an inveterate supporter of British imperialism, feared that the charter would encourage opponents of colonialism.75 At the Brazzaville Conference of 1944 in colonial French Equatorial Africa, France's resistance leader, General Charles de Gaulle, supported wider rights for Africans under French rule, while rejecting independence.

In South Africa, white rule over Black Africans hardened with the apartheid policy established by the National Party in 1948 and defined in subsequent laws enforcing rigid racial separation.76

As late as 1953, an international report on “British Central Africa” — today's Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe — referred to “native reserves allotted to the Africans” and described how European economic priorities outweighed efforts to offer Africans a role in governance.77

With African political activism rising along with postwar U.S. influence, pressure mounted on Britain and France to give up their colonies. In 1957, Britain granted independence to Ghana. Nigeria followed in 1960 and Kenya in 1963. For France, 1960 was the year of independence for Cameroon; Central African Republic; Chad; Dahomey (now Benin); Gabon; Cote d'Ivoire; Madagascar; Mali; Mauritania; Niger; Republic of Congo; Senegal; Togo and Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso).78

The British royal standard is lowered and the flag of Ghana is raised in 1957 in Accra, signaling the end of Great Britain's rule over the West African country. Starting in the late 1950s, 53 African countries and territories gained independence from European colonial powers, with the last one — Rhodesia (now called Zimbabwe) — winning liberation in 1980 after a 15-year civil war. (Getty Images/Bettmann/Contributor)

The start of Africa's independence era coincided with the presidency of John F. Kennedy, who took a great interest in Africa amid the Cold War rivalry with the Soviet Union. Kennedy supported Africa's fledgling nations through his creations: the Peace Corps, which dispatched young Americans around the world to help developing nations, and the U.S. Agency for International Development, which provided technical and financial support to improve health, education and agriculture in those nations.79

Instability in the newly independent Congo topped Kennedy's African priorities as the mineral-rich Katanga province attempted to secede in 1961. “Overshadowing everything was the prospect that Soviet meddling in the chaos might lead to a Russian base in the heart of Africa,” Kennedy aide Arthur Schlesinger Jr. wrote later in a memoir. The collapse of a separatist movement in Katanga averted a great-power confrontation.80

In August 1960, President Dwight Eisenhower had secretly ordered the CIA to eliminate Congo's Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, whom Washington regarded as a communist threat similar to Cuban leader Fidel Castro. Lumumba's capture by Joseph Mobutu, the CIA's chosen successor, and subsequent execution, established Mobutu as a reliable Cold War ally of the United States.81

By 1963, 32 African nations had secured independence. These countries came together in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, under the leadership of Selassie, to form the Organization of African Unity. The OAU sought to strengthen African solidarity and cooperation and rid Africa of colonialism and apartheid.82

Collapse and Catastrophe

Nigeria's emergence from British rule as Africa's most populous nation raised hopes for African progress. Yet ethnic tensions erupted in 1966, and the Igbos of eastern Nigeria, a region producing rising oil revenue, tried to break away as Biafra. As Nigerian forces choked off the enclave, mass starvation ensued, prompting an international relief effort. Biafra surrendered in 1970.83

Political upheaval became the hallmark of Africa in the 1970s and 1980s. Coups were responsible for nearly half of the leadership changes in sub-Saharan Africa in the 1970s and '80s. The toppling of governments reflected deep underlying social and economic turmoil. Battles between liberation movements and Portuguese forces in Angola and Mozambique in southern Africa and Guinea-Bissau on the western coast became proxy wars between the United States and the Soviet Union and its ally Cuba.84

Weak economies linked to inefficient state policies at odds with market forces drove the accumulation of debt and rising poverty. In 1970, one in 10 of the world's people living below the poverty line were in Africa; by 2000, the African share reached four in 10.85

Unchecked thievery by leaders and their cronies impoverished nations. In Zaire, as Congo was known from 1971 to 1997, Mobutu seized foreign-owned businesses in 1973 including cocoa and rubber plantations, ranches and factories. He built a $100 million palace and transferred hundreds of millions of dollars into accounts abroad.86

The OAU, through its Coordinating Committee for the Liberation of Africa, focused on politics. The committee supported arms and training for movements against South Africa's apartheid government, white-ruled Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and Portugal, which ruled Angola and Mozambique into the 1970s.87

An indelible event of the 1980s began with a major region-wide drought in 1984 and 1985 and coincided with intensified fighting between Ethiopia's communist government and a growing insurgency. The failure of the harvest in northern Ethiopia and the refusal of the government to supply timely food aid set off a massive famine. Exposed in a BBC television report, the Ethiopian tragedy galvanized a global response.88

Reset and Challenges

The idea that Africa should pursue economic integration, free trade and higher living standards is not new. African governments and populations have been calling for such reform for more than 30 years.

As the Soviet Union and allied communist governments in Europe collapsed in the late 1980s and early '90s, transforming politics and the global economy, African leaders assessed their position. In 1990, they issued the “Declaration on the Political and Socio-Economic Situation in Africa and the Fundamental Changes Taking Place in the World,” setting the stage for turning the OAU into the African Union in 2002.89

The leaders noted Africa's “precarious” socioeconomic situation, burdened by debt, declining per capita income and deteriorating infrastructure, and “the real threat of marginalization of our continent” as the world rapidly changed. Africa should pivot toward economic integration, popular participation in politics and the resolution of conflicts, the leaders said. These goals should be pursued “with greater determination to be masters of our destiny.”90

The Abuja Treaty of 1991 established the African Economic Community, a framework to advance economic integration, free trade and higher living standards.

South Africa's release of anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela from prison in 1990, leading to the end of apartheid and his election as president in 1994, helped to set Africa on a new course. Yet the narrative of a more stable Africa was shattered in Rwanda the same year Mandela was elected. Up to 800,000 people died during a three-month long ethnic massacre of the Tutsi minority by the majority Hutus.91

Anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela campaigns for president in Durban, South Africa, in 1994, four years after he was released from prison. His release led to the end of the country's institutionalized racial segregation system known as apartheid, imposed in 1948. (Getty Images/Tom Stoddart Archive/Contributor)

The Second Congo War, often described as an African world war, began in the DRC in 1998 and pitted Uganda and Rwanda, along with allied armed groups, against Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe, which backed DRC President Laurent Kabila. Burundi, Chad and Sudan played lesser roles. Congo's mineral riches and diamonds featured as rich prizes in the conflict, which formally ended in 2003 after South African mediation. The conflict persisted in eastern DRC for years afterward. By 2007, the war and its aftermath had killed as many as 5.4 million people, making it the deadliest conflict since the Second World War.92

Sub-Saharan Africa soon faced a deadly AIDS epidemic. By 2002, AIDS was the leading cause of death in the region, where a swath of countries extending from eastern to southern Africa accounted for most HIV infections worldwide.93 Bush and his successors in the White House mounted a major U.S. intervention to prevent and treat AIDS and stabilize these countries and others worldwide burdened by AIDS. To date, the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, has spent nearly $100 billion worldwide, with interventions focused in 21 sub-Saharan African countries.94

Africa's other epidemic, of crushing debt, also drew support. The Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative, launched by the IMF and the World Bank in 1996, and a related effort offered about $80 billion in debt relief to 33 African countries, freeing up money for social services in the first decade of the 21st century.95

The early years of the new century also featured the rise of China as an economic force on the continent, as a buyer of African minerals and other commodities and a builder of African infrastructure — usually financed by loans. In 2009, China became Africa's largest trading partner. China's growth contributed to a 12-year commodities boom in Africa as prices rose for oil, gold, copper, iron ore and other raw materials.96

Ethnic rivalries still flared up. In Kenya, a contested 2007 presidential election led to attacks and counterattacks between the Luo and Kikuyu communities backing rival candidates, along with shootings by police. More than 1,100 people died and 350,000 fled their homes.97

In Somalia, the AU formed a U.N.-backed peacekeeping mission in 2007, initially with forces from Burundi and Uganda, later joined by Djibouti, Ethiopia and Kenya. The mission, supported by the United States, worked to stabilize the country, suppress Islamist Shabab militants and create conditions for improved security and governance.

Among the deadliest outbreaks of violence linked to al-Shabab were an attack in 2013 on Nairobi's upscale Westgate Mall, killing 67 shoppers, and a massacre in 2015 at Kenya's Garissa University that killed 148.98

Six decades after the independence era began, historians are revising their view of the period. British academic Susan Williams investigated the CIA's role in undermining African independence leaders. Nigerian historian Max Siollun explored how the British created long-term tension in Nigeria by exploiting ethnic and religious identity.99

In a speech to students in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, in 2017, French President Emmanuel Macron proposed a break with the paternalism of the past. “France will no longer invest solely in order to conduct government-to-government transactions with no benefits for local people,” Macron said. “It will no longer invest and allow major groups sometimes to take part in organized corruption.”100

In the new century, technology outpaced politics in propelling African integration and economic change as a communication revolution reached even remote villages. Between 2005 and 2020, the number of Africans with a mobile phone subscription climbed 10-fold and the number using the internet expanded 20-fold.101

The death of Kenneth Kaunda in June 2021 at age 97 symbolized the end of sub-Saharan Africa's post-colonial span. Kaunda had challenged British domination as a young activist, led Zambia to independence in 1964 and supported liberation movements, including Mandela's quest to defeat apartheid. Kaunda also had turned Zambia into a one-party state and reigned over its economic failure before bowing to multiparty democracy and free markets as the Cold War ended.102

Two months after Kaunda's death, young Zambian voters ousted the incumbent president and elected business executive Hakainde Hichilema by a landslide, signaling the arrival of a new African generation demanding accountability from their leaders.103

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Current Situation

Food Exports

As fighting rages in eastern Ukraine, African leaders are trying to prevent the war from triggering a hunger crisis far from the battlefield, in Africa's cities and villages.

Senegal's President Sall and African Union Commission Chairman Moussa Faki Mahamat met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi on the Black Sea in early June, seeking the lifting of a blockade on grain and fertilizer. Afterward, Sall said Putin expressed a willingness to enable exports of Ukrainian cereals and to ensure the export of Russian wheat and fertilizer. The ultimate outcome of the talks remains uncertain.104

Senegalese President Macky Sall, left, who also chairs the African Union, meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin on June 3. Sall was seeking to lift Russia's blockade on Ukrainian grain and fertilizer, which threatens to create a hunger crisis in some African regions. (AFP/Getty Images/Sputnik/Mikhail Klimentyev)

The AU's diplomacy advances efforts by African leaders to get ahead of the crisis, an example of their attempt to take coordinated action on continental priorities. African Development Bank President Adesina, a former Nigerian agriculture minister, is pursuing a $1.5 billion emergency plan to help African farmers produce 38 million tons of food including maize and wheat. Russia and Ukraine are the major exporters of those commodities to Africa. Because of the war in Ukraine, Africa faces a fertilizer shortage and a possible 20 percent decline in food output, the bank said.105

The grain supply disruption along with increases in energy prices could interfere with Africa's recovery from COVID-19. If the war goes on, the number of Africans pushed into extreme poverty could reach 1.8 million in 2022 and 2.1 million in 2023, the bank said. Hardest hit would be West African countries, along with Ethiopia, Niger and Sudan.106

Regional Integration Advances

The food import crisis arises as Africa is clearing roadblocks to trade integration. In March the Democratic Republic of Congo joined the East African Community (EAC), established in 1967 and based in Arusha, Tanzania. The EAC sets rules for trade relations and operates a court and legislative assembly.107

The EAC rates highest among Africa's regional economic groupings, with room for improvement, in an assessment of trade flows, production, infrastructure, movement of capital and free movement of people, according to the regional integration index compiled by the African Development Bank, U.N. Economic Commission for Africa and African Union Commission. Among the EAC's member countries, only Kenya scores as a “high performer” on trade integration.108

Analyst Roselyne Omondi at the Horn International Institute for Strategic Studies in Nairobi said the DRC's mineral riches, farmland and Congo Basin rainforest offer an incentive for other EAC members to strengthen integration. “To leverage the additional resources that DRC brings to the EAC table for the accelerated socio-economic development that the bloc absolutely needs to sustain its peace and security, EAC member states are best advised to embrace DRC wholeheartedly,” Omondi said.109

With a land area four times bigger than EAC member Kenya and an estimated population of 108 million — almost as large as the combined population of Kenya and Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of Congo has scaled up the geopolitical and market potential of the regional bloc.110

“If you're going to connect the continent, you've got to start by connecting the neighboring countries,” says James, the former U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for East Africa and the Sudans.

While noting that the DRC's entry into the EAC supports the AU's integration agenda, Salvator Nkeshimana, coordinator of the East Africa desk in the AU Commission's Political Affairs, Peace and Security Department, says the East African Community is also taking on economic and security challenges. For instance, he says, the DRC lacks national roads and railways, an impediment to commerce with neighbors.

In addition, the eastern DRC is plagued by rekindled hostilities between the Congolese army and the March 23 Movement, or M23, and another armed group, the Allied Democratic Forces, which weigh on the region's stability, Nkeshimana says. DRC President Felix Tshisekedi has accused Rwanda of supporting M23, which the Rwandan government denies. Economic spoils figure in the insurgencies: Evidence suggests that rebels including M23 control supply chains for the trafficking of gold, diamonds and coltan, a mineral used in electronics, from mining areas of Congo into Uganda and Rwanda.111

“The security situation in the Great Lakes region remains fragile,” U.N. envoy Huang Xia, a former Chinese ambassador in Africa, told The East African newspaper. A positive step is the agreement among Burundi, the DRC, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda to deploy a regional force to the eastern DRC, he said.112

In an editorial in June, The East African suggested that the timing of M23's resurgence could be aimed at the westward expansion of the EAC. “Above all, there was the hope that Kinshasa's entry into the EAC would actually help to bring peace and order to the restive but endowed east” of the DRC. “The current war drums only puncture that optimism,” the newspaper said.113

In West Africa, regional integration is being shaped by three factors: Nigeria's capacity to lead, France's declining influence and the spread of terrorism by two groups — Boko Haram in Nigeria and jihadists of Islamic State in the Greater Sahara, or ISIS, who moved to West Africa in 2015 after being defeated in Iraq.

“If regional integration is to succeed, Nigeria as the largest economy in Africa needs to be a full participant in that,” says Terence McCulley, former U.S. ambassador to Nigeria and chairman of the U.S.-Nigeria Council, which facilitates trade and investment. “You can argue that is how Nigeria can diversify its economy, as a framework to grow the economy and create jobs.”

While oil accounts for half of Nigerian government revenue, production of crude fell to a two-decade low in 2021 due to “inefficiencies and insecurity,” the World Bank said. Meanwhile, agriculture, telecommunications and financial services helped Nigeria's economy expand 3.6 percent in 2021, surpassing population growth for the first time since 2015.114

Nigeria faces deepening rural poverty driven by its soaring population. An African research institute said the total number of poor in Nigeria could peak at about 120 million by 2038 as the population doubles to more than 400 million by 2050.115

Nigeria “is crucial for regional stability and faster poverty reduction in West Africa,” the Institute for Security Studies, a South African think tank, said. “Concrete steps therefore need to be taken to overcome Nigeria's monumental developmental challenges.”116

West Africa's fortunes also turn on France's changing role. Popular sentiment against French influence is rising across its former colonies, fueled in part by the failure of a French military expedition to defeat jihadists in the Sahel during the past 10 years. Social media activism is trying to drive French diplomats and businesses out.117

French soldiers, part of France's anti-jihadist military force in the Sahel region, board a transport plane at a base in Timbuktu, Mali, in December. France is abandoning its 10-year-long anti-terrorist campaign there after its failure to defeat the jihadists sparked anti-French sentiment in the region. (AFP/Getty Images/Thomas Coex)

“There's an extraordinary anti-French sentiment across the region, particularly in Mali,” along with popular infatuation with Russia as a possible savior, says Leonardo Villalón, an African studies professor at the University of Florida and editor of the Oxford Handbook of the African Sahel.

The Sahel — a semi-arid transition zone between the Sahara Desert and the tropical savannas to the south — encompasses 10 countries: Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, The Gambia, Guinea, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria and Senegal.118

Russian mercenaries linked to the Kremlin joined government soldiers in executing hundreds of captives in a central Mali town during a hunt for ISIS militants in March, The New York Times reported, citing local witnesses, Malian politicians and foreign diplomats.119

Villalón says Islamists in the Sahel are imposing rigid rules on social behavior that can create stability in communities. “These jihadi groups are not going away,” he says. “They're going to have to be dealt with. They have some popular support because sometimes they provide more security than the security forces.”

France intends to disengage from another unpopular intervention: de facto control over the monetary policies of French-speaking African nations through a common currency, the CFA franc. In 2027, a new currency called the eco is set to debut within the Economic Community of West African States, or ECOWAS, with reduced French involvement.120

Security Threats from Sahel

In Washington, the Biden administration plans to help five coastal West African countries including Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire resist the spillover of the conflict with ISIS in the north. The initiative is an offshoot of the Global Fragility Act, a law enacted in 2019 that aims to promote stability and prevent conflict. The policy will layer development, diplomatic and security initiatives coordinated with civil society over 10 years.121

President Biden said in April that the United States seeks to foster “locally led, locally owned solutions” ranging from “mitigating the spread of extremist ideologies” and “cultivating greater trust between security forces and citizens” to guarding against destabilizing climate change threats.122

Threats to stability of the Sahel region have risen after five coups since 2021 — in Burkina Faso, Chad, Guinea, Mali and Sudan.

“What we've witnessed in the Sahel is a fairly frightening collapse in governance,” says Mutiga, the Africa director of the International Crisis Group. Elites in capitals are not providing services, and jihadis and other militants are filling that void, he says. A “coordinated surge in investment” can improve livelihoods for young people whose disillusion gives rise to the toppling of governments, he says.

At a June 4 meeting in Ghana, African leaders pressured Burkina Faso, Guinea and Mali to produce timetables for a return to civilian rule. Former Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan is serving as ECOWAS mediator with Mali, offering an easing of sanctions as benchmarks for a transition back to civilian government are met.123

In northeastern Africa, aid to improve food security, health and nutrition in Somalia comes amid a low-intensity conflict with Islamist Shabab fighters. A five-nation African Union force is securing the country. In an election in May, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud was chosen as Somalia's president, and Biden ordered U.S. soldiers back into Somalia — after Trump withdrew them in December 2020 — for training and guidance of Somali forces.124

As a humanitarian truce holds in Ethiopia, the rebel Tigrayan leadership and the government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed have agreed to hold peace talks, possibly with Kenyan involvement. The extent of Tigrayan autonomy in the north, including the retention of military capabilities, is likely to be at issue.125

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Outlook

Urbanization

In the next decade, urbanization may benefit efforts to integrate Africa. City clusters are emerging as integration catalysts, such as Ibadan and Lagos in Nigeria, linked to Accra in Ghana and Abidjan in Cote d'Ivoire, and the Kenyan cities Nairobi and Kisumu tied to Kampala in Uganda next door.126

The African Continental Free Trade Area “offers cities an opportunity to develop their economies by strengthening international economic links with each other and at the same time to become the pillars of regional integration,” said an African study of urbanization trends.127

Yet the benefits of urban growth may be exaggerated if there is little investment in small enterprises and links to farming and sustainable resources, says Shuaib Lwasa, a Ugandan urban geographer. “National political systems and regimes are agents of the globalized development agenda, so it is easy to claim development progress with flyovers in a city or new pieces of infrastructure that hypothetically less than 20 percent benefit from, let alone use,” Lwasa says.

Young Africans living in those cities will be more closely tied to the global media and consumer marketplace, with broad implications for the continent's future.

“I feel Africa will be a major consumer of products and services and one of the few places on Earth with a rising consumer base,” says Ethiopian entrepreneur Addis Alemayehou, chairman of the Kazana Group in Addis Ababa, which owns communication, marketing and financial technology companies. “That will change the narrative of Africa as one of aid to one of business opportunity. We see it happening already, with major Western tech funds now putting more resources in the African tech startup scene.”

Global tech companies are preparing for expansion. Google is opening its first product development hub in Africa, in Nairobi, for smartphone applications and improved internet infrastructure, as part of a $1 billion investment in sub-Saharan Africa during the next five years.128

Meanwhile, climate change is rising on Africa's agenda. African policymakers will press industrialized countries for concrete financial support to cope with the effects of a warming planet and to develop natural gas for the continent's future energy mix. That push will intensify at the next U.N. Conference of the Parties on climate change, known as COP 27, hosted by Egypt in November.

“We look forward to seeing carbon financing,” funding to Africa from industrialized countries in exchange for absorbing greenhouse gas emissions by preserving forests and taking other environment-friendly steps, said Vera Songwe, executive secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, at a meeting of finance ministers in Dakar, Senegal, in May. “We also want to advocate that Africa can fall [back] on gas as we transition to sustainable energy. This will transform our economies through industrialization.”129

As Europe reduces its reliance on Russian gas due to the Ukraine conflict, Africa will fill part of that supply gap, said Rystad Energy, a Norwegian research and consulting firm. Between now and 2027, natural gas projects are scheduled to start in Angola, Congo, Mauritania and Mozambique. Plans call for an offshore gas pipeline running from Nigeria to Morocco and another, stretching across the Sahara Desert, linking North Africa and West Africa. By the late 2030s, Africa could reach peak gas output equal to about 75 percent of Russia's expected production this year.130

While African governments push ahead with regional integration and the free trade area, the future of the African Union also is in play.

Rwanda's President Paul Kagame is leading a reform effort aimed at focusing priorities and strengthening connections to African citizens. Nigeria will take on a bigger role after one of its diplomats was elected head of the new Political Affairs, Peace and Security Department of the AU Commission.131

Yet sub-Saharan Africa's ability to cope with global shocks, from food price inflation to climate impacts, and to reduce the cost of conflict at home, may determine how well it can seize emerging opportunities, according to an IMF analysis. For instance, the rate of lost economic output due to escalating conflict has almost doubled compared to the trend of the past 30 years. And COVID-19 battered a regional economy that already was struggling to create employment.

“Looking ahead, policymakers will need to navigate exceptional uncertainty with fewer policy options and little room for error,” the IMF said.132

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Pro/Con

Can African nations advance a unified strategy for effective development on the continent?

Pro Moussa Faki Mahamat Chair, African Union Commission. Excerpted from Message of the Chairperson of the African Union Commission on the occasion of the celebration of Africa Day, May 25, 2022 Africa has become the collateral victim of a distant conflict, that between Russia and Ukraine. By profoundly upsetting the fragile global geopolitical and geostrategic balance, it has also cast a harsh light on the structural fragility of our economies. The most emblematic sign of these fragilities is the food crisis, following the climatic disorders [and] the health crisis of COVID-19. [The food crisis is] amplified today by the conflict in Ukraine. This crisis is characterized by a shrinking world supply of agricultural products and a soaring inflation of food prices. So, what to do in the face of all these challenges? The African Union reacted rationally through a series of actions and [initiatives] … determining the mechanisms of action to attain the desired objectives. There is, for example, the courageous institutional reform of the African Union undertaken since 2016 and whose aim is to improve the governance of the institution and make it a key player in multilateralism. Then there is the African Continental Free Trade Area, which entered into force in 2021, making Africa the largest common market in the world and accelerating continental integration. It reinforces the measures taken in terms of free movement of persons and goods. Determination and solidarity were clearly demonstrated in the face of the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. The strong mobilization of African leaders and the effective coordination provided by the African Union in the continental response are testimony to the ability of Africa to face the challenges in a united and resolute manner. In a short period of time, less than two years, some of our member states have succeeded in setting up COVID-19 vaccine production plants on their territories. In response to the food and nutrition crisis, which has obvious consequences for the health of the peoples, the African Union has taken a number of initiatives, the most important of which is the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP). In addition, it has symbolically decided to dedicate the year 2022 “to building resilience in food and nutrition security on the African Continent: strengthening agri-food systems and health and social production systems to accelerate socioeconomic and human capital development.” The African Union Commission has also worked to address, as far as its resources allowed, concerns about health, education, infrastructure, energy, science and research, the sectors whose promotion and realization are necessary conditions for the development of Africa. The results have not always matched our ambitions, but we are on the right path.

Con Adekeye Adebajo Senior Research Fellow, Centre for the Advancement of Scholarship, University of Pretoria, South Africa. Written for CQ Researcher, July 2022 Africa, a diverse continent of 54 countries and 1.3 billion people with a gross domestic product of $2.7 trillion, has made some progress — particularly in the area of literacy — in socioeconomic development since independence. Much, however, remains to be done. Without security, Africa's development goals cannot be achieved. Conflicts still proliferate across the Sahel, the Horn of Africa and the Great Lakes, exacerbated by climate change; an external debt of $417 billion; a COVID-19 crisis in which only 19,1 percent of Africans are fully vaccinated; and a growing food crisis resulting from Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The continent currently accounts for just 3 percent of global economic output, while intraregional trade is only 16 percent. The African Union's quixotic Agenda 2063 seeks to eradicate poverty in two decades, ensure food security, build a Pan-African high-speed rail network and increase continental trade to 50 percent by 2045. With 16 land-locked countries and many microstates, regional integration is essential for development. The main vehicle for such integration has been the African Continental Free Trade Area launched by the African Union (AU) in 2018. It focuses on the facilitation of trade; infrastructure; establishing a common market for goods, services, and investment; and ensuring free movement of persons. But Adebayo Adedeji, who helped set up regional bodies throughout Africa as head of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, had sensibly urged the continent to prioritize indigenous economic inputs, reduce overreliance on export earnings and ensure popular participation in the development process. Unlike the African Continental Free Trade Area, his vision of an African common market was built around Africa's subregional organizations. However, outside of West and East Africa, the free movement of people remains illusory, as most security-obsessed African governments remain hostile to intra-African migration. There is also a lack of convergence of African economies, many of them competitive exporters of raw materials rather than complementary exchangers of diverse goods. Road, rail and port infrastructure remains poor. Rules of origin are often restrictive, while nontariff barriers are widespread. African regional bodies have launched praiseworthy interventions in Liberia, Burundi and Somalia to try to stem conflicts over the last three decades. But these bodies lack adequate funding and logistics. Africans must strengthen their regional capacity and work closely with the U.N., which currently has 85 percent of its peacekeepers deployed in Africa. The AU's 25,000-strong African Standby Force — first announced in 2003 — must be urgently established, and governance norms observed, if Africa is to manage its own conflicts. Only then can the continent start to promote effective socioeconomic development.

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Discussion Questions

Here are some issues to think about regarding sub-Saharan Africa:

• Why is the reduction of trade barriers among African nations a key goal for promoting economic development?

• Why do many African leaders call for less reliance on outside aid? How realistic do you think this is?

• What role is China playing in sub-Saharan Africa? Why has this role generated controversy?

• How did African nations respond to the challenge of the COVID-19 pandemic? How successful have they been? What effects did the pandemic have on Africa's economic and social development?

• How has the conflict in Ukraine affected sub-Saharan Africa?

• How does the share of the sub-Saharan African population that is age 25 or younger compare with that of the rest of the world? What impact is this likely to have on the region's development?

• What is the impact of climate change on Africa's agriculture and food security, and how are African nations trying to cope with it?

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Short Features

Africans Campaign for More Transparency in Public Spending

Kenya's signature transport project is a Chinese-built cargo and passenger train service, which opened in 2017, rolling from Nairobi to Mombasa on the Indian Ocean coast on a 298-mile rail line that replaced a century-old track built during British colonial rule.

Constructed at a cost of $3.8 billion, the Standard Gauge Railway received $3.2 billion of its financing from China's Export-Import Bank.1

One of Kenya's then-new trains, carrying President Uhuru Kenyatta, pulls into a railway station in 2017 during its inaugural run. The Chinese-built railway from Mombasa to Nairobi is intended to cement Kenya's role as the gateway to East Africa, but details about the financing of its $3.8 billion cost have been blocked from public scrutiny. (AFP/Getty Images/Tony Karumba)

When a coalition of unions, businesses and civil society groups, called Okoa Mombasa, sought details of the financing deal in 2019, the Kenyan government refused to comply with their requests under the country's 2016 access-to-information law, the groups said.2 The coalition sued the government — and won. In a May 13 ruling, the High Court in Mombasa said the government should turn over agreements related to the project.3

In a June appeal of the ruling, the government argued that the contract details should be shielded from disclosure on national security grounds.4

“The government cannot spend hundreds of billions of our shillings in the shadows, without scrutiny,” Okoa Mombasa and the Nairobi-based watchdog group Institute for Social Accountability said in a statement after the ruling. “We have a right to see those documents. We have a right to participate in our own governance.”5

In sub-Saharan Africa, public procurement is often shrouded in secrecy, even as government debt piles up to pay for capital spending such as roads, railways and airports, as well as supplies for health care and other public services. Beyond contracts, even routine matters of government performance in delivering services are frequently off limits to taxpayers.

This tight hold over information and lack of accountability affect the quality of decisions, harming development outcomes and shortchanging the value the public receives for the money spent, says Fletcher Tembo, an Africa governance specialist from Malawi. Tembo directed Making All Voices Count, a public-private collaboration that worked in seven African countries to promote the use of citizen-focused technology to expand transparency.

Simply requesting public information from a bureaucrat can turn into an ordeal for citizens. “The person they will be asking will be asking a lot of questions, as if he's doing a favor, not complying with a right,” Tembo says.

Nevertheless, transparency and accountability are getting government attention, even though bureaucrats are resisting. The Africa Freedom of Information Centre says it has helped to increase the number of African countries with access-to-information laws from 15 in 2016 to 25 today. Ghana passed a right-to-information law in 2019 and is integrating the measure into its national development planning.6

Exposing government shortcomings or malfeasance in Africa can draw indifference — or trouble. In a 34-nation survey by Afrobarometer, a Ghana-based independent polling organization that questioned 45,832 Africans between 2016 and 2018, only 22 percent said local officials “often” or “always” listen to citizens' voices. And when incidents of corruption arise, two-thirds of respondents said Africans risk retaliation “or other negative consequences” for calling it out. In only one country — The Gambia — did a majority say they could report corruption without fear.7

Journalists also face difficulties. Only five African countries — Burkina Faso, Ghana, Namibia, Sierra Leone and South Africa — are rated as “satisfactory” by the Global Press Freedom Index produced by Reporters Without Borders, a Paris-based group that advocates for press freedoms worldwide. All other countries in Africa fall into the “problematic” or “difficult” category, or, in Egypt and Eritrea, the bottom-tier “very serious.”8

“Despite a wave of liberalisation in the 1990s, there are still, too often, cases of arbitrary censorship, especially on the internet, with occasional network shutdowns in some countries, arrests of journalists and violent attacks,” Reporters Without Borders said in its 2022 review.9

For decades, opaque deals and bribery involving African governments and foreign mining and oil companies have robbed the public of billions of dollars that could pay for education, health care and other services to reduce poverty and drive economic growth, as detailed by author Tom Burgis in a 2016 book.10

The world's green-energy transition may present fresh challenges for the transparency of mining revenue and operations. Wind turbines and electric-vehicle batteries require minerals abundant in Africa, including copper, lithium, nickel, bauxite, cobalt and manganese.11

“Corruption risks could become elevated in Ghana with the soaring demand for critical minerals to power the energy transition,” said a report for the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), a Norway-based campaign that advocates for greater transparency on taxes, royalties and ownership agreements between governments and the mining and oil industries.

“While most of the critical minerals in Ghana are likely to be mined and extracted at an industrial scale for it to benefit from economies of scale, it could nonetheless drive a new boom or rush for licenses by both large and small scale miners who are hitherto unqualified to hold such licenses,” the report said. The government should broaden disclosure of who is getting new contracts involving critical minerals, the EITI report recommended.12

Programs such as EITI “can work as levers even where political will is weak” to combat corruption, said a lessons-learned study funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development examining the efficacy of 90 anti-corruption programs in sub-Saharan Africa.13

— Edward DeMarco

[1] Ian Gorecki, “Kenya's Standard Gauge Railway: The Promise and Risks of Rail Megaprojects,” Africa Up Close, Wilson Center, Sept. 24, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/2jvyyxsm.

[2] “Show us the Contracts: Court orders government to release SGR documents in response to Okoa Mombasa petition,” Okoa Mombasa, May 16, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/4dkt8xkt.

[3] Brian Otieno, “Publish SGR contract or face mass action, lobbies tell state,” The Star, May 31, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/4afuvda2.

[4] Carlos Mureithi, “Kenya is refusing to release the loan contracts for its Chinese-built railway,” Quartz Africa, Jan. 20, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/yz2pbwzv; “Notice of appeal and application for stay of judgment,” Government of Kenya, May 13, 2022, and June 15, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/4juafrzm.

[5] “Government should heed court judgment and immediately release SGR contracts,” Okoa Mombasa and the Institute for Social Accountability, May 30, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/426p3unu.

[6] “Right to Information,” Africa Freedom of Information Centre, https://tinyurl.com/yckbtwys; “National Medium-Term Development Policy Framework: 2022-2025,” National Development Planning Commission, Republic of Ghana, 2021, pp. 133-135, https://tinyurl.com/44cczrj9.

[7] Carolyn Logan, Joseph Asunka and E. Gyimah-Boadi, “When Africans speak out, are their governments listening?” Afrobarometer, Dec. 6, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/ycerjk4s.

[8] “RSF's 2022 World Press Freedom Index: a new era of polarisation,” Reporters Without Borders, May 3, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/3khyjw7n.

[9] Ibid.

[10] Tom Burgis, The Looting Machine: Warlords, Oligarchs, Corporations, Smugglers and the Theft of Africa's Wealth (2016).

[11] “The Role of Critical Minerals in Clean Energy Transitions,” International Energy Agency, May 2021, p. 6, https://tinyurl.com/6r728b8h.

[12] Theophilus Acheampong, “GHEITI Report: The Energy Transition and Critical Minerals in Ghana,” Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, May 2022, https://tinyurl.com/3m78evm4.

[13] “USAID Anti-Corruption Program Efficacy in Sub-Saharan Africa,” U.S. Agency for International Development, Aug. 3, 2018, pp. 1-3, https://tinyurl.com/3a5hf7vy.

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As Africa Grows Younger, Job Creation Is Key

Among the most cited narratives of Africa's transition is the predicted boom in young people, bringing with it rising demand for employment.

“This is a continent of young people — energized, innovative, hungry for jobs and opportunity,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in Nigeria in November 2021 in a speech on “building a 21st century partnership” with Africa. By 2025, Blinken said, more than half of Africa's population will be under age 25. (By contrast, the share of China's population under 25 in 2020 was around 28 percent.)14

During the next two decades, the working-age population in sub-Saharan Africa will increase by about 20 million people each year, former U.S. Agency for International Development chief economist Louise Fox and colleague Dhruv Gandhi said in a study for the Brookings Institution in Washington.15

Economists and policymakers are trying to figure out where the next generation will find work. African farms are becoming more productive and need fewer workers, the internet economy is reshaping markets and cities are attracting more young people from villages.

While enthusiasm for mobile phone applications and the online economy runs high, the tech sector will employ only a fraction of young Africans. “The majority of youth in Africa are not going to be coders,” says Fox, noting that the information and technology industry in the United States employs only about 7 percent of the workforce. Likewise, tech advances in agriculture, such as mobile-phone apps for weather data and crop-disease analysis or drones for surveying fields, may have limits.16

“Everybody is excited about digital agriculture, but my answer is: African farmers aren't even using fertilizer,” Fox says.

Tanzanian girls study together after class in Dar es Salaam on Oct. 23, 2021. Africa's large cohort of young people — about half the total population is under age 25 — is key to a modern, tech-driven future, but a more efficient economy means fewer jobs. Some say steps are needed to improve skills and reduce fertility rates, including outlawing child marriage. (Getty Images/Xinhua/Herman Emmanuel)

Across Africa, agriculture employed 50.5 percent of the workforce in 2020, a decline from 53.5 percent in 2011, according to the United Nations' International Labour Organization (ILO). In eastern, central and western Africa, farming is the main employment sector, while in southern Africa employment is concentrated in services.17

Youth joblessness is pervasive in South Africa. Only 2.5 million of the 10.2 million South Africans ages 15 to 24 are working or in the job market. The rest have dropped out of the labor force.

“The main reason for being inactive is discouragement … they have lost hope of finding a job that suits their skills or in the area they reside,” the South African government said in its June labor force survey.18

As many as 95 percent of young workers in Africa are engaged in “informal” work, which the ILO describes as “employment arrangements that do not provide individuals with legal or social protection.” This includes workers in unregistered businesses and contributing family members.19

In response, skills-building programs have proliferated. The African Development Bank's Jobs for Youth in Africa Strategy aims to create 25 million jobs and give 50 million young people “hard and soft skills” for the job market and entrepreneurship by 2025. The Mastercard Foundation's Young Africa Works initiative seeks to improve education and vocational training, along with technology, to help 30 million youth find “dignified and fulfilling” employment by 2030.20

Yet analysts say improving skills may not be enough.

“Any strategy to increase good quality youth employment requires attention to the basics: macroeconomic and political stability and adequate infrastructure,” the ILO said in a 2020 report. “It cannot rely solely on supply-side measures aimed exclusively at enhancing the skills of the young workforce. Without the basic conditions for quality employment creation and growth, more highly skilled young people will not find a market for their talents.”21

Tony Elumelu, a Nigerian entrepreneur and investor, said the electricity deficit in Africa is linked to youth joblessness and “youth restiveness” across countries. “The reason some embrace extremism is attributable to this,” he said in a talk at Stanford University in May. “In fact, governments' ability to fight extremism is limited by this. So, at times you see communities with large spaces that do not feel the impact of government or society because of no access to electricity.”22

While African governments examine such barriers, the African Development Bank is exploring the creation of “youth entrepreneurship investment banks” to boost financing for startups. “They will be first-rate financial institutions run by the youth for the youth,” the bank's president, Akinwumi Adesina, told African leaders.23

Government policy shifts also could boost prospects for Africa's youth.

Fox says African governments should take three steps to reduce fertility rates and thus ease the buildup of employment demand: First, outlaw child marriage, which also would enable more girls to go to school; second, show leadership, as Ethiopia has done by adopting the policy goal of a maximum fertility rate of four children; and third, provide wider access to reproductive health services for women and couples.

The aspirations of Africa's young people deserve attention, Fox says. “I'm tired of people saying that youth are the problem. Youth are not an instrument of development. Youth are people.”

— Edward DeMarco

[14] “The United States and Africa: Building a 21st Century Partnership,” U.S. Department of State, Nov. 19, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/2ac6v8s2; “Population distribution by five-year age group in China 2020,” Statista, Dec. 7, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/2suy6rbh.

[15] Louise Fox and Dhruv Gandhi, “Youth employment in sub-Saharan Africa: Progress and prospects,” Africa Growth Initiative at Brookings Institution, March 2021, p. 7, https://tinyurl.com/3a6wfnbz.

[16] “Digital innovations are bringing youth back to agriculture,” Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Aug. 20, 2018, https://tinyurl.com/s264xfhu.

[17] “Report on employment in Africa (Re-Africa): Tackling the youth employment challenge,” International Labour Organization, 2020, pp. 1-2, https://tinyurl.com/yhskeb38.

[18] “South Africa's Youth Continues to Bear the Burden of Unemployment,” Statistics South Africa, Republic of South Africa, June 1, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/yjsz8kat.

[19] “Report on employment in Africa,” op. cit., p. 28.

[20] “What is the Jobs for Youth in Africa Strategy?” African Development Bank, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/2ymjfphw; “Young Africa Works Strategy,” Mastercard Foundation, https://tinyurl.com/26j3f4ev.

[21] “Report on employment in Africa,” op. cit., pp. 31-32.

[22] “Tony Elumelu, founder of The Tony Elumelu Foundation,” interviewed at Stanford Graduate School of Business, YouTube, May 5, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/2dzt4d5x.

[23] “Mobilizing Financing for Africa's Accelerated Economic Recovery, Development and Integration,” Speech by Akinwumi Adesina, president of the African Development Bank, to the African Union, Feb. 5, 2022, p. 39, https://tinyurl.com/yc24wmfp.

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Bibliography

Books

Burgis, Tom, The Looting Machine: Warlords, Oligarchs, Corporations, Smugglers, and the Theft of Africa's Wealth, PublicAffairs, 2015. A Financial Times correspondent in Africa uncovers how transnational elites, from mining companies to lawyers to African power brokers, plunder impoverished countries suffering from the “resource curse” of abundant oil, gold, minerals and other extractive riches.

Cooper, Frederick, Africa since 1940: The Past of the Present, Second Edition, Cambridge University Press, 2019. A U.S. historian and professor at New York University chooses World War II as a more meaningful starting point for understanding contemporary Africa, rather than the independence era two decades later. (This is the flagship title of the New Approaches to African History book series.)

Karbo, Tony, and Tim Murithi, eds., The African Union: Autocracy, Diplomacy and Peacebuilding in Africa, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2018. Two academics based in South Africa guide readers through the African Union's evolution, governance framework, regional integration and international relations, most notably with China.

Meredith, Martin , The Fate of Africa: A History of Fifty Years of Independence, PublicAffairs, 2005. A journalist and historian details the unfulfilled promise of the first decades of African independence in failed governance, kleptocratic leaders and the turbulence of the Cold War.

Villalón, Leonardo A., ed., The Oxford Handbook of the African Sahel, Oxford University Press, 2021. An interdisciplinary collection of essays on various political, environmental and cultural changes in the complex African region between the Sahara Desert and the tropical savannas to the south, focusing on Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Senegal.

Williams, Susan, White Malice: The CIA and the Covert Recolonization of Africa, Public Affairs, 2021. A British academic investigates how U.S. covert action during the Cold War reconstituted colonial-style influence over several African nations after Britain, France and Belgium relinquished direct rule.

Articles

Peltier, Elian, Mady Camara and Christiaan Triebert, “‘The Killings Didn't Stop.’ In Mali, a Massacre With a Russian Footprint,” The New York Times, June 1, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/yc32usmy. Reporters delve into Russia's expanding unofficial role in the brutal fight against suspected Islamist militants in Mali, as seen in five days of killing by a paramilitary force in a small town.

Rosen, Armin, “The Origins of War in the DRC,” The Atlantic, June 26, 2013, https://tinyurl.com/2e6ztj4k. An exploration of why the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo is such a persistent source of conflict and human misery and so obscure to the world's attention. The rugged region is a place “where it's possible to witness how war can become systemic and normal,” the writer observes.

Rosenthal, Jonathan , “Africa is changing so rapidly, it is becoming hard to ignore,” The Economist, March 26, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/2jehnd4p. As Africa sees improvements in economics, politics and society, it will play a bigger role in world affairs, especially in the second half of the century, and expand its influence in the global economy and “the global imagination,” the publication argues.

Sguazzin, Antony, Katarina Hoije and Maya Averbuch, “Rich Nations' Toxic Habits Bring African Refugees to Their Doors,” Bloomberg, June 1, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/2p8yp6xw. A look at how climate change impacts, such as drought, are sending a rising number of African migrants on a long journey to the Americas in an attempt to reach the U.S. southern border.

Westcott, Nicholas, “Shared fortunes: Why Britain, the European Union, and Africa need one another,” European Council on Foreign Relations, April 22, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/r6xzruny. An expert on Africa argues that geopolitical changes dictate that the United Kingdom pay more attention to the continent where it once imposed colonial rule.

Reports and Studies

“Africa's Urbanisation Dynamics 2022 — The economic power of Africa's cities,” Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the United Nations and African Development Bank, April 26, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/wnwhfzex. A data-driven look at one of Africa's highest priorities: how to harness the economic potential of cities as urban areas lead population growth in the next 30 years.

“Economic Development in Africa Report 2021: Reaping the potential benefits of the African Continental Free Trade Area for inclusive growth,” United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/yckw98st. An examination of how expanded intra-African trade can improve social equality across the income spectrum, creating more balanced and durable economic growth.

“Regional Economic Outlook, Sub-Saharan Africa: A New Shock and Little Room to Maneuver,” International Monetary Fund, April 2022, https://tinyurl.com/2spun7p6. Economists look at the risks to growth as sub-Saharan African economies try to emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic, ranging from rising debt and inflation to the food security impact of Russia's war in Ukraine.

“Report on employment in Africa (Re-Africa): Tackling the youth employment challenge,” International Labour Organization, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/yhskeb38. A comprehensive look at the jobs problem for youth in Africa through the lens of employment trends, larger economic issues and the training and education needs of younger workers.

Englebert, Pierre, and Rida Lyammouri, “Sahel: Moving beyond military containment policy report,” Atlantic Council, February 2022, https://tinyurl.com/243nxd6d. This study examines how countries in the Sahel can move beyond failed military interventions and rebuild on the basis of historical legacies, including Islam, “rather than trying to mimic ill-fitting Western models.”

Jayne, T.S. , et al., “Agricultural Productivity Growth, Resilience, and Economic Transformation in Sub-Saharan Africa: Implications for USAID,” Board for International Food and Agricultural Development, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/y5uhhwkj. A study examines evidence on the importance of boosting agricultural productivity to meet Africa's escalating food needs and highlights successes in Ghana and Ethiopia.

Yeboua, Kouassi, Jakkie Cilliers and Alize Le Roux, “Nigeria in 2050: major player in the global economy or poverty capital?” Institute for Security Studies, March 2022, https://tinyurl.com/3k4ee93j. Three researchers for a South African think tank probe whether Africa's most populous nation can overcome the challenges to socioeconomic progress or will be defined by them.

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The Next Step

Climate Change

Hoch, Jannis, Niko Wanders and Sophie de Bruin, “We built an algorithm to predict how climate change will affect future conflict in the Horn of Africa: here's what we found,” The Conversation, July 6, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/bdzxbfr7. European researchers created a new machine learning model to predict how armed conflict in Africa could be affected by climate change through 2050.

Kuwonu, Franck , “Africa's chief climate negotiator: We must have tangible and actionable climate decisions for a successful COP27,” Africa Renewal, United Nations, June 10, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/4bdz57s4. An African delegate to the United Nations climate change conference explains the continent's priorities and strategies on the issue.

Simon, Julia , “War in Ukraine is driving demand for Africa's natural gas. That's controversial,” NPR, June 29, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/7e2zt4x2. African investments in natural gas are growing, even as the United Nations warns that doing so is incompatible with the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

COVID-19

Acharya, Bhargav, “South Africa's Afrigen partners with U.S. on mRNA vaccine research,” Reuters, July 8, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/2p8h9txx. A South African lab will collaborate with the United States to produce mRNA vaccines against COVID-19 and other diseases.

Cohen, Jon, “New head of U.S. aid program for HIV/AIDS vows to refocus attention on the other, ‘silent’ pandemic,” Science, July 5, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/5dbzcrv4. The leader of the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) says COVID-19 has seriously harmed the efforts to stop the spread of HIV in Africa.

Miridzhanian, Anait, and James Macharia Chege, “Africa CDC says it has signed MOU with Pfizer for COVID pill,” Reuters, July 7, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/2n4zr9x5. Africa's top public health agency said it signed a memorandum of understanding with Pfizer for its countries to receive supplies of the Paxlovid pill to treat COVID-19.

Debt

“Uganda Can Rein in Debt by Managing its Public Investments Better,” Modern Diplomacy, July 2, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/44h4ur45. A new report proposes Uganda should accelerate its vaccination efforts and should cautiously tighten monetary supply in order to reduce its debt.

Munemo, Jonathan, “Triple punch of shocks threatens to upend debt sustainability and recovery in Africa,” The Conversation, June 22, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/rtjxrv42. Rising interest rates, higher food and fuel prices and the economic aftermath of COVID will exacerbate the strain on African governments' finances.

Mwaniki, Charles, “Kenya stares at expensive debt as Eurobond yields hit 17pc,” Business Daily Africa, July 6, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/6zjmuees. Kenya's debt bonds traded higher as the country faced a large yearly deficit and the country's debt rose to a new high.

Young People

Cavince, Adhere, “Why Young People Hold Future Of China-Africa Ties,” Capital News, June 27, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/3bc8ms86. Most young Africans have positive feelings toward China, according to a new survey.

Cheeseman, Nic, “Why Africa's youth is not saving democracy,” The Africa Report, July 8, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/3vttpe38. Africa's burgeoning youth population is not necessarily a check on some countries' slide into authoritarianism.

Green, Mark, “Over Half of African Young Adults Are Likely to Consider Leaving Their Native Country,” Wilson Center, July 5, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/y7tz3yd2. Lack of opportunities is driving youth migration out of African countries.

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Contacts

African Development Bank
Ave. Joseph Anoma, 01 BP 1387, Abidjan 01, Côte d'Ivoire
+255-272-026-3900
afdb.org
Africa's largest economic development institution, and a source of economic studies about the continent; controlled by African and non-African shareholder countries, including the United States.

African Union Commission
P.O. Box 3243, Roosevelt St., W21K19, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
+251-11-551-77-00
au.int/en/commission
The executive and administrative arm of the African Union, overseeing the day-to-day affairs of Africa's political forum for 55 countries, including issues of peace and security, economic development and women and youth.

Center for Strategic and International Studies
Africa Program, 1616 Rhode Island Ave., N.W., Washington, DC 20036
202-887-0200
csis.org/regions/Africa
A leading public policy institute in Washington that focuses on issues in different world regions, such as a dedicated focus on African politics and development, and hosts visiting African leaders.

East African Community
EAC Close, Afrika Mashariki Road, P.O. Box 1096, Arusha, Tanzania
+255-27-216-2100
eac.int
A political and economic cooperation and integration forum among Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Economic Community of West African States
114 Yakubu Gowon Crescent, Asokoro, 900103, Abuja, Nigeria
ecowas.int
A regional forum involving 15 countries, including Ghana, Nigeria and Senegal, that promotes economic integration and political stability in West Africa.

United Nations Economic Commission for Africa
Menelik II Ave., P.O. Box 3001, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
+251-11-544-5000
uneca.org
Promotes the social and economic development of African countries and fosters regional integration.

U.S. Agency for International Development
Bureau for Africa, Ronald Reagan Building, 1300 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W., Washington, DC 20004
202-712-0000
usaid.gov/who-we-are/organization/bureaus/bureau-africa
Oversees American development assistance to sub-Saharan Africa through country offices, known as “missions,” and eight regional teams, working in health, education, agriculture, democratic governance and humanitarian relief.

U.S. Institute of Peace
2301 Constitution Ave., N.W., Washington, DC 20037
202-457-1700
usip.org
A congressionally mandated research and training institute focused on issues of conflict and peacebuilding, whose experts include former U.S. diplomats specializing in African affairs.

U.S. Mission to The African Union
Entoto St., P.O. Box #1014, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
+251-11-130-7001
usau.usmission.gov
American diplomatic team, led by an ambassador, dedicated to relations with the African Union to strengthen democratic institutions, peace and security and sustainable economic development.

Wilson Center
One Woodrow Wilson Plaza, 1300 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W., Washington, DC 20004
202-691-4000
wilsoncenter.org
A policy institute that, among other activities, conducts research and organizes forums on trade, investment and peacebuilding in Africa, along with an internship program to train African policy specialists.

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Footnotes

[1] “View From the Top,” Stanford University Graduate School of Business, https://tinyurl.com/bdhpjctr.

[2] “Apply Now for $5000 in the 2022 Tony Elumelu Foundation Entrepreneurship Programme,” The Tony Elumelu Foundation, Jan. 1, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/ehfnr4sc.

[3] “Tony Elumelu, Founder of The Tony Elumelu Foundation,” interview at Stanford Graduate School of Business, YouTube, May 5, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/2dzt4d5x.

[4] “2020 Africa Sustainable Development Report: Towards Recovery and Sustainable Development in the Decade of Action,” African Union, African Development Bank, United Nations Economic Commission for Africa and U.N. Development Program, 2022, p. 36, https://tinyurl.com/33usfbbu.

[5] “Economic Development in Africa Report 2021: Reaping the Potential Benefits of the African Continental Free Trade Area for Inclusive Growth,” United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, 2021, p. 39, https://tinyurl.com/3xsar9tx.

[6] “The African Continental Free Trade Area: Economic and Distributional Effects,” World Bank, July 27, 2020, p. 4, https://tinyurl.com/3325j5cs.

[7] “World Investment Report 2021: Investing in Sustainable Recovery,” United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, 2021, p. 18, https://tinyurl.com/2s3av8be.

[8] Ibid., p. 39; Tom Jackson, “African Tech Startup Funding Passes $1bn in First 2 Months of 2022,” Disrupt Africa, March 3, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/bdm99356.

[9] Gabriel Myers Hansen, “Nigerians Dominate Billboard US Afrobeats Songs Chart,” Music in Africa, March 30, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/mr3rnjjx.

[10] “Netflix commits over R900 million to South Africa's film and TV industry,” BusinessTech, March 24, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/bdhx2c98; Christopher Vourlias, “Disney Taps Top African Toon Talents for Animated Anthology ‘Kizazi Moto,’” Variety, June 17, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/34ezmpt9.

[11] Howard W. French, China's Second Continent: How a Million Migrants Are Building a New Empire in Africa (2014); “World Investment Report 2021,” op. cit., p. 38.

[12] “World Development Report 1986,” World Bank, Table 1: Basic Indicators, p. 180, https://tinyurl.com/2p86p3u5; “Ethiopia's Progress Towards Eradicating Poverty,” UNDP Ethiopia, April 2018, https://tinyurl.com/y443ky9p; “Safaricom Sets Up First Data Centre in Ethiopia,” Business Daily Africa, Feb. 23, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/5ee8yk3c; and “Interview: China Plays Rising Role in Ethiopia's Renewable Energy Dev't: Official,” Xinhua, April 13, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/2s37bv8d.

[13] “Regional Economic Outlook, Sub-Saharan Africa: A New Shock and Little Room to Maneuver,” International Monetary Fund, April 2022, p. 4, https://tinyurl.com/5n7hsfhh.

[14] “Sixth European Union-African Union Summit: A Joint Vision for 2030,” European Council, Feb. 18. 2022, https://tinyurl.com/ymyt8952; “Europe and Africa Are Redesigning Their Relationship ‘Based on Mutual Trust,’” Euronews, Feb. 22, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/5n7wmdue.

[15] “Speech by Dr. Akinwumi A. Adesina President, African Development Bank Group at the Thirty-Fifth Ordinary Session of the Assembly of the African Union Addis Ababa, 5-6 February 2022,” African Development Bank Group, Feb. 5, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/47ufwtk4.

[16] “Regional Economic Outlook, Sub-Saharan Africa,” op. cit.; “Covid-19 Financial Assistance and Debt Service Relief,” International Monetary Fund, March 2022, https://tinyurl.com/47dhapf2.

[17] “2020 African Sustainable Development Report: Towards Recovery and Sustainable Development in the Decade of Action,” African Union, African Development Bank, United Nations Economic Commission for Africa and UN Development Program, 2022, p. 36, https://tinyurl.com/3wysjcsx.

[18] Noha Elhennaway, “UN agency: Third of Sudan's population faces hunger crisis,” The Associated Press, June 16, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/ms3vdu6w/.

[19] “Over Two-Thirds of Africans Exposed to Virus Which Causes COVID-19: WHO Study,” World Health Organization, April 7, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/2p9258zx; “WHO Coronavirus (COVID-19) Dashboard,” accessed July 6, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/bdh68ysx.

[20] “Over Two-Thirds of Africans Exposed to Virus Which Causes COVID-19: WHO Study,” ibid.

[21] “Speech by His Excellency, President Hakainde Hichilema During the Ceremonial Opening of the 1st Session of the 13th National Assembly,” National Assembly of Zambia, Sept. 10, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/3pmnbk9w.

[22] “World Population Prospects 2019,” United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/2bhbepej.

[23] “Regional Economic Outlook,” op. cit., p. 28; “The Democratic Republic of the Congo Joins EAC as Its 7th Member,” East African Community, March 29, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/34n46bsu.

[24] “Second Continental Report on the Implementation of Agenda 2063,” African Union Commission and African Union Development Agency, February 2022, https://tinyurl.com/4mytnaft.

[25] Ibid., p. 2.

[26] Ibid., pp. 52-62.

[27] “Survey Report: Perception of the East African Community Private Sector on the African Continental Free Trade Area,” United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/4545zupx.

[28] “2020 Africa Sustainable Development Report,” op. cit.

[29] Ibid., p. 12.

[30] Lars Jensen, “Sovereign Debt Vulnerabilities in Developing Economies: Which Countries Are Vulnerable and How Much Debt Is at Risk?” UN Development Program, March 2021, Table 5, p. 20 and Figure 12, p. 23, https://tinyurl.com/yvwnh6yw; “New CEO of African Union Development Agency-NEPAD Assumes Office on 1 May,” Africa Renewal, United Nations, May 2022, https://tinyurl.com/5n82hb8v.

[31] “Ethiopia: Guterres Welcomes Tigray Humanitarian Ceasefire Agreement,” UN News, March 25, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/mv64d24m; “Buhari Highlights Dangerous ‘Humanitarian Crisis’ in Nigeria, Donates $3m to AU Agency,” The Whistler Nigeria, May 27, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/4y4thpzv.

[32] “South Africa Situation,” World Health Organization, accessed July 6, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/4wdvs7mp; “Emergency Appeal, Operational Strategy, South Africa — KwaZulu-Natal Floods,” International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, April 2022, p. 3, https://tinyurl.com/bdhja3my.

[33] “President Cyril Ramaphosa: 2022 State of the Nation Address,” Republic of South Africa, Feb. 10, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/2yf388ct.

[34] “Africa may not meet target on energy, says new UN Economic Commission for Africa report,” Africa Renewal, United Nations, July 7, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/2p92u9bh.

[35] “China continues to build much-needed power capacity in Africa,” Power Technology, Jan. 24, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/35jp38fa.

[36] “China-Africa Cooperation Vision 2035,” China Ministry of Commerce, Dec. 10, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/4vez3e2r.

[37] John Stremlau, “How Africa can respond to the seismic changes in the world: lessons from history,” The Conversation, April 30, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/mpepr8kt.

[38] Angeli Achrekar and Peter Sands, “Fighting AIDS and COVID-19 Depend on a Firm Foundation,” The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, Jan. 31, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/vney6chc.

[39] “WHO Coronavirus (COVID-19) Dashboard,” op. cit.

[40] “Heavy Debt Burdens, Vaccine Apartheid, Growing Inequality Thwarting Pandemic Recovery in Developing Countries, Economic and Social Council Partnerships Forum Hears,” United Nations Economic and Social Council, Feb. 2, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/44cs3d3v; “COVID-19 Vaccination Portal,” Africa CDC, https://africacdc.org/covid-19-vaccination/; and Antony Sguazzin and Janice Kew, “S. Africa Cuts Back Citizen Vaccine Drive Amid Citizen Apathy,” Bloomberg, May 10, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/2w7zusf3.

[41] “A New Frontier for African Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Industry,” African Development Bank, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/2p96pyz9.

[42] “Regional Economic Outlook, Sub-Saharan Africa,” IMF, April 2021, p. 3, https://tinyurl.com/bdep2d3e.

[43] “2020 Africa Sustainable Development Report,” op. cit., p. 28; “Impact of Covid-19 on Learning: Evidence From Six Sub-Saharan African Countries,” World Bank, May 2021, https://tinyurl.com/ryx9zup3.

[44] “How Covid-19 caused a global learning crisis,” McKinsey & Co., April 4, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/4djpmftv.

[45] “World Investment Report 2021,” U.N. Conference on Trade and Development, pp. 18 and 41, https://tinyurl.com/2s3av8be.

[46] “Mobilizing Financing for Africa's Accelerated Economic Recovery, Development and Integration,” op. cit.

[47] “Global and Regional ICT Data, Key ICT Indicators, by BDT Region,” International Telecommunication Union, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/yckvh5m7.

[48] “Introducing Equiano, a Subsea Cable From Portugal to South Africa,” Google, June 28, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/ubnmknkv.

[49] “Emergency Measures to Facilitate Mobile Money Transactions,” Central Bank of Kenya, March 16, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/2p8thhnv; “Mobile Payments,” Central Bank of Kenya, April 2022, https://tinyurl.com/2rm4z5jc.

[50] “Boosting Resilience: The Future of Social Protection in Africa,” Africa's Pulse, World Bank, April 2022, https://tinyurl.com/mtx9p2kp.

[51] “Desert Locust Upsurge: Progress Report on the Response in the Greater Horn of Africa and Yemen, January to April 2021,” Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/2p8asmf8.

[52] T. S. Jayne et al., “Agricultural Productivity Growth, Resilience and Economic Transformation in Sub-Saharan Africa: Implications for USAID,” Board for International Food and Agricultural Development, 2021, pp. 46-47, https://tinyurl.com/2r47keha.

[53] Ibid., p. 8.

[54] “2022 Global Report on Food Crises,” Global Network for Food Security and Food Security Information Network, 2022, p. 7, https://tinyurl.com/mryzsewd.

[55] Rachel E. Baker and Jesse Anttila-Hughes, “Characterizing the contribution of high temperatures to child undernourishment in Sub-Saharan Africa,” Nature, Nov. 2, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/2ut96bp3.

[56] Sguazzin, Antony, Katarina Hoije and Maya Averbuch, “Rich Nations' Toxic Habits Bring African Refugees to Their Doors,” Bloomberg, June 1, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/2p8yp6xw.

[57] “Opening Speech, Annual Meetings of the African Development Bank Group, Dr. Akinwumi A. Adesina, President, African Development Bank May 24, 2022 Accra, Ghana,” African Development Bank Group, May 24, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/4tc8r24e.

[58] “Annual Report 2020,” Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, https://tinyurl.com/2d7brd7h.

[59] “Regional Economic Outlook for Sub-Saharan Africa,” IMF, April 2022, https://tinyurl.com/5n7hsfhh.

[60] “UN World Water Development Report 2022 — Groundwater: Making the invisible visible,” United Nations, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/3v27byap.

[61] Ibid.

[62] “Africa Summary,” Britannica, https://tinyurl.com/55xee5rn.

[63] John Reader, Africa: A Biography of the Continent (1999), pp. 181-189.

[64] J.F.A. Ajayi, “Africa at the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century: Issues and Prospects,” in General History of Africa, Volume VI, Africa in the Nineteenth Century Until the 1880s, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (1989); John Bierman, Dark Safari: The Life Behind the Legend of Henry Morton Stanley (1997).

[65] “Chasing Freedom: The Royal Navy and the Suppression of the Transatlantic Slave Trade,” Royal Naval Museum, https://tinyurl.com/2zu2hw78; “Britain and the Slave Trade,” British National Archives, https://tinyurl.com/4awp38ef; and David Olusoga, “The history of British slave ownership has been buried: now its scale can be revealed,” The Guardian, July 11, 2015, https://tinyurl.com/3mrbs29e.

[66] “North Africa After 1830: Advent of European Colonialism,” Britannica, https://tinyurl.com/2jxfe8up; “France in Africa,” Boundless World History, https://tinyurl.com/yckx5bbt.

[67] Elizabeth Heath, “Berlin Conference of 1884-1885,” Oxford Reference, https://tinyurl.com/37637anz.

[68] Martin Meredith, The Fate of Africa: A History of Fifty Years of Independence (2005), pp. 1-2.

[69] Charles Hornsby, Kenya: A History Since Independence (2012), p. 21.

[70] Raymond Jonas, The Battle of Adwa: African Victory in the Age of Empire, Belknap Press (2011), pp. 194-207.

[71] “Report of the Pan-African Conference,” Pan-African Association, 1900, in W. E. B. Du Bois Papers (MS 312). Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries, https://tinyurl.com/yc6mwjjr; Adam Hochschild, “Leopold II, king of Belgium,” Britannica, https://tinyurl.com/32t2ytne.

[72] Paul Henze, Layers of Time: A History of Ethiopia (2000) pp. 200-201.

[73] Haile Selassie, “Appeal to the League of Nations,” June 1936, https://tinyurl.com/32y9y5v6.

[74] “Africa's Forgotten World War II Veterans,” DW, May 7, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/2f9hkp3t.

[75] “The Atlantic Conference & Charter, 1941,” U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian, https://tinyurl.com/2p9dyzz8.

[76] “Apartheid,” Britannica, https://tinyurl.com/yha3fdrs.

[77] “The Economy of British Central Africa,” International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Feb. 10, 1953, https://tinyurl.com/37hn3kbv.

[78] Michael Fleshman, “A ‘Wind of Change' That Transformed the Continent,” Africa Renewal, August 2010, https://tinyurl.com/5fu69j85; “1960: A wave of independence sweeps across Africa,” France 24, Sept. 7, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/4jw9ak69.

[79] “Foreign Aid: The peak of prestige: foreign aid under kennedy,” American Foreign Relations, https://tinyurl.com/mvkshdrv.

[80] Arthur Schlesinger Jr., A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House (1965), pp. 551-584.

[81] Tim Weiner, Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA, Anchor Books (2007), Chapter 16.

[82] “The Organization of African Unity and the African Union,” U.S. Agency for International Development, Jan. 18, 2017, https://tinyurl.com/bdzkc4cd.

[83] Martin Meredith, The Fate of Africa: A History of the Continent Since Independence (2005), pp. 199-205.

[84] Alessandro Pellegata, “The Longitudinal Trend of Coups in Sub-Saharan Africa,” Italian Institute for International Political Studies, Dec. 17, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/2hkmz45x; Odd Arne Westad, The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of Our Times (2007), pp. 207-249.

[85] Meredith, op. cit., pp. 275-292; Else Artadi and Xavier Sala-i-Martin, “The Economic Tragedy of the XXth Century: Growth in Africa,” Working Paper 9865, National Bureau of Economic Research, July 2003, https://tinyurl.com/54hk2yfp.

[86] Meredith, op. cit., pp. 297-300.

[87] Fleshman, op. cit.

[88] Harold G. Marcus, A History of Ethiopia (2002), pp. 205-208.

[89] “Declaration on the Political and Socio-Economic Situation in Africa and the Fundamental Changes Taking Place in the World,” Organization of African Unity, 1990, https://tinyurl.com/2p8auxb4.

[90] Ibid.

[91] Frederick Cooper, Africa Since 1940: The Past of the Present, Second Edition (2019), chapter 1.

[92] Harry Verhoeven, “Congo Wars,” Oxford Bibliographies, July 29, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/26n5z2s7.

[93] Thomas Goliber, “The Status of the HIV/AIDS Epidemic in Sub-Saharan Africa,” PRB, July 2, 2002, https://tinyurl.com/5ej9vu5.

[94] “The United States President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief: 2022 Annual Report to Congress,” U.S. Department of State, Office of the Global AIDS Coordinator and Health Diplomacy, March 2021, p. 3, https://tinyurl.com/y7j7c7xk.

[95] “IMF Survey: Debt Relief Bringing Benefits to Africa,” International Monetary Fund, Feb. 25, 2008, https://tinyurl.com/4dv8cccc.

[96] “China-Africa Economic and Trade Cooperation,” Information Office of the State Council, People's Republic of China, December 2010, https://tinyurl.com/yc4cy4vp; Kingsley Ighobor, “Commodities prices crash hits Africa,” Africa Renewal, December 2016-March 2017, https://tinyurl.com/yckzmbzw; and “Primary Commodity Booms and Busts: Emerging Lessons from Sub-Saharan Africa,” UN Development Programme, March 2016, p. 4, https://tinyurl.com/wdtek5mu.

[97] Hornsby, op. cit., pp. 759-770.

[98] John Campbell, “Justice, Terrorism and Nairobi's Westgate Mall,” Council on Foreign Relations, Oct. 9, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/yckt6s4y.

[99] Susan Williams, White Malice: The CIA and the Covert Recolonization of Africa (2021); Max Siollun, What Britain Did to Nigeria: A Short History of Conquest and Rule (2021).

[100] “Emmanuel Macron's Speech at the University of Ouagadougou,” Élysée, Nov. 28, 2017, https://tinyurl.com/yckt6s4y.

[101] “Global and Regional ICT Data,” op. cit.

[102] Harrison Smith, “Kenneth Kaunda, Zambian President and African Liberation Symbol, Dies at 97,” The Washington Post, June 17, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/yck5nxr6.

[103] “Zambia's New Leadership and the Stakes for Africa,” U.S. Institute of Peace, Sept. 24, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/2487fw6s.

[104] Elian Peltier, “African Union Head Has Plea for Putin: Release Ukraine's Grain,” The New York Times, June 2, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/5f7yv3kf; Mark Trevelyan, “Senegal leader says Putin showed readiness to free up Ukrainian grain exports,” Reuters, June 3, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/ptfzarxp.

[105] “Nigeria Top Priority Under African Development Bank Africa Emergency Food Plan,” African Development Bank, April 27, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/yma4usxe.

[106] “African Economic Outlook 2022,” African Development Bank Group, May 25, 2022, pp. 32-33, https://tinyurl.com/4myepxej.

[107] “About EAC,” Organs and Institutions, East African Community, https://tinyurl.com/4myepxej.

[108] “Africa Regional Integration Index,” Regional Economic Communities, https://tinyurl.com/yrdf5y7k.

[109] Roselyne Omondi, “The Pros and Cons of Democratic Republic of Congo's Entry Into the East African Community,” Horn International Institute for Strategic Studies, March 29, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/mucsjf9t.

[110] “CIA World Factbook,” Kenya and Tanzania, U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/46945kru.

[111] “DR Congo President Felix Tshisekedi Accuses Rwanda of Backing Rebels,” France 24, June 6, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/3b9ns2aw; “Rwanda and the DRC at Risk of War as New M23 Rebellion Emerges: An Explainer,” The Africa Center for Strategic Studies, June 29, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/yb3wkv3d.

[112] Fred Oluoch, “Huang: The Great Lakes Has Made Strides in Political, Economic and Security Ties,” The East African, May 7, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/mwf8zrst.

[113] “Let's Look Beyond the Obvious in the Conflict in Congo,” The East African, June 4, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/2p9ebe94.

[114] “Macro Poverty Outlook for Nigeria: April 2022,” World Bank, April 2022, https://tinyurl.com/3m4dh64h.

[115] Kouassi Yeboua, Jakkie Cilliers and Alize le Roux, “Nigeria in 2050: major player in the global economy or poverty capital?” Institute for Security Studies, March 15, 2022, pp. 12-15, https://tinyurl.com/242hh4ya.

[116] Ibid., pp. 3-4.

[117] Ruth Maclean, “‘Down With France’: Former Colonies in Africa Demand a Reset,” The New York Times, April 14, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/46dr8wrd.

[118] “The Sahel: Land of Opportunities,” Africa Renewal, United Nations, https://tinyurl.com/36zwxa25.

[119] Elian Peltier, Mady Camara and Christiaan Triebert, “‘The Killings Didn't Stop.’ In Mali, a Massacre With a Russian Footprint,” The New York Times, updated June 1, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/2p9arudd.

[120] Isabelle King, “True Sovereignty? The CFA Franc and French Influence in West and Central Africa,” Harvard International Review, March 18, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/3u8yyk6b.

[121] “Addressing the Collective Challenges of Our Time: Implementing the U.S. Strategy to Prevent Conflict and Promote Stability,” The White House, April 1, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/2r5w285f.

[122] “Letter From the President on the Implementation of the Global Fragility Act,” The White House, April 1, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/4cahv38z.

[123] “Final Communique: Extraordinary Summit of the ECOWAS Authority of Heads of State and Government on the Situation in Mali, Guinea and Burkina Faso,” ECOWAS Commission, June 4, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/mrycv43f.

[124] “Military Component,” African Union Transition Mission in Somalia, https://tinyurl.com/y6bey642; Idrees Ali and Steve Holland, “Biden approves redeployment of under 500 ground troops to Somalia,” Reuters, May 17, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/mr29wjae.

[125] William Davison, “At Long Last, Ethiopia Prepares for Peace Talks,” International Crisis Group, July 4, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/wpxb7psx.

[126] “Africa's Urbanisation Dynamics 2022: The Economic Power of Africa's Cities,” Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, United Nations Economic Commission for Africa and African Development Bank, 2022, pp. 67-85, https://tinyurl.com/mr2bzfs4.

[127] Ibid.

[128] Annie Njanja, “Google Opens Product Development Center in Nairobi, Its First in Africa,” TechCrunch, April 19, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/32aufp6z.

[129] “CoM 2022 Calls for Extension of Debt Service Suspension and Issuance of New SDRs to Finance Africa's Recovery,” U.N. Economic Commission for Africa, May 17, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/5y8n8j2r.

[130] “Gas starved Europe looks to Africa for new supplies as E&Ps reconsider shelved projects,” Rystad Energy, May 12, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/36pcew6y.

[131] Benjamin Auge and Felicite Djilo, “New African Union Commission (2021-2025): Challenges and Issues After the Reform Initiated by Paul Kagame,” French Institute of International Relations, Dec. 21, 2021, https://tinyurl.com/2s3wdwp3.

[132] “Regional Economic Outlook, Sub-Saharan Africa: A New Shock and Little Room to Maneuver,” op. cit., pp. vi, 7 and 21.

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About the Author

Edward DeMarco is a writer on African affairs and a former U.S. Agency for International Development democratic governance strategist in Ethiopia and Zambia. In Ethiopia, he led U.S. government human rights monitoring that shaped the U.S. policy on Indigenous rights in global development, the basis of his memoir, Last Days in Naked Valley. Before moving to Africa a decade ago, he was a Bloomberg international politics editor in Washington.

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