Africa in 2024

the promise of postapartheid South Africa has not been realized. For its part, Nigeria was a British colony for a century before gaining its independence in 1960. The country’s subsequent history can only be described as deeply troubled; its initial decades were marked by civil war, secessionist challenges, and military rule. Its politics seem to h

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The bottom line is that Africa’s future, like its recent past, is likely to be uneven. There will be countries characterized by good governance and broadly shared economic growth, and those plagued by illegitimate autocrats, corruption, and violence. The biggest common challenge will come from an expanding population that will place extraordinary p

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The details of the division of the continent into colonies reflected European interests more than African realities. Colonial lines were drawn with little or no attention given to local tribal, religious, or clan-related identities or commercial patterns. Seeds were thus sown for instability both within and between the countries that emerged from c

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Africa’s collective GDP has grown sharply over time but is still small, constituting only a few percent of the world total. In recent years, overall growth has averaged between 3 and 4 percent, lower than it needs to be for most Africans to enter the middle class given the low starting point and the fact that the region’s population continues to gr

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