Africas Economic Moment

On a number of occasions in the past 50 years, forces for expansion, growth and economic empowerment in the African business environment have seemed to appear, only for the opportunities to fade. This time is different. As David Mataen explains, it is now Africa's moment to take its place as the ultimate source of long-term business and investment opportunities. Meeting a demand for information on what is happening in the African business landscape and where the most exciting investment opportunities lie, Africa's Economic Moment elucidates Africa's robust investment case in a structured manner. It provides a concise, current analysis of the latest market dynamics; a description of the fundamental framework underpinning the growth of African markets; and the primary investment themes and strategies within seven key consumer sectors for the immediate future and the long term. This primer on the current state and future trajectory of the African economic situation will leave you more informed about the key themes and most important investment areas in the continent. This is Africa's economic moment - don't miss the opportunity.

The 21st century will be the century of Africa. This continent was once seen as empty, rural, animist, poor, and forgotten by the world. Now, fifty years after independence, it is full to bursting, urban and monotheist. If poverty and violence are still rampant, economic growth has taken off again and a middle class is developing. Africa will hold a central place in the big issues facing the world today. If it once made a ‘false start’, here it is back again – in the fast lane. The West has missed the turnaround of a continent that will no longer wait for us. How can we best understand it? Demography, economics, politics, diplomacy, cultures and religions – this book presents the different facets of this new Africa, which will soon have a billion people, at the mid point of the most rapid population boom that humanity has ever known. Without ignoring the risks of its metamorphosis, it brings to light the forces and hopes that Africa harbors.

What lies ahead for Africa? Is there any reason to hope that tomorrow will be better than today? It is easy to think that this troubled continent faces a troubled future. After all, Africa has long battled enormous problems for which there are no easy answers. Here is a book that challenges popular thinking about Africa and presents a refreshing optimism about her future. But this optimism is not without foundation. In taking a hard look at Africa's often painful past, author Pete Ondeng brings a new interpretation to critical events in her history. And he tackles the continent's most pressing social, economic, and political issues, drawing from his experience to illustrate his conviction that Africa's problems will be solved at a personal level. Meticulously researched and eloquently written, Africa's Moment builds a strong case for a bountiful future for the continent. And it offers specific ways that each of us can have in planting the seeds of hope.

This book explores in detail how African countries dealt with the pandemic and how it affected different aspects of different economies and social structures. Observing how human beings change the environment and, specifically, how population growth and urbanization negatively impact nature, recently shocked economies and social upheaval in Africa indicate a crossroads moment for the continent. The book further adds to the knowledge base of how to build a more robust Africa with sustainable solutions working in tandem with vibrant and robust economies. Commonsense social strategies go hand in hand with trackable shocked economies via first- and second-moment reactions. Uncertainty shocks, in this case, interrelate via an umbrella effect. The authors evaluate theories of impact shocks using a sustainable growth and change model. Finally, key topics incorporate new urban thinking for economic recovery, developing sustainable economies post-COVID-19, understanding social practices during a crisis, and developing community robustness via shock events. The book integrates an interdisciplinary approach to understanding how to best mitigate the COVID-19 crisis as well as reduce future shocks to the African continent. It raises vital questions connecting the effects of lockdown measures, crisis causation, and shock impacts most countries faced over the last two-year period. The answers to these questions are not limited to economists and sociologists, instead, they magnify to include policymakers and everyday people. The nature of this book is to help piece together solutions for preparedness, a stronger understanding of sound development, and a united and resilient Pan-Africanism to best handle future shock events.

"This book challenges conventional wisdoms about economic performance and possible policies for economic development in African countries. Its starting point is the striking variation in African economic performance. Unevenness and inequalities form a central fact of African economic experiences. The authors highlight not only differences between countries, but also variations within countries, differences often organized around distinctions of gender, class, and ethnic identity. For example, neo-natal mortality and school dropout have been reduced, particularly for some classes of women in some areas of Africa. Horticultural and agribusiness exports have grown far more rapidly in some countries than in others. These variations (and many others) point to opportunities for changing performance, reducing inequalities, learning from other policy experiences, and escaping the ties of structure, and the legacies of a colonial past. The book rejects teleological illusions and Eurocentric prejudice, but it does pay close attention to the results of policy in more industrialized parts of the world. Seeing the contradictions of capitalism for what they are - fundamental and enduring - may help policy officials protect themselves against the misleading idea that development can be expected to be a smooth, linear process, or that it would be were certain impediments suddenly removed. The authors criticize a wide range of orthodox and heterodox economists, especially for their cavalier attitude to evidence. Drawing on their own decades of research and policy experience, they combine careful use of available evidence from a range of African countries with political economy insights (mainly derived from Kalecki, Kaldor and Hischman) to make the policy case for specific types of public sector investment"--

Africa has experienced two liberations: the first from colonial and racist regimes, and the second from the autocrats who often followed foreign rule. African countries now have the potential to undertake a third liberation--from political economies chracterised by graft, crony capitalism, rent-seeking, elitism and social inequality. This third liberation will open up the economic space in which business can compete--a necessary condition for expanding employment. During the 2000s, the continent had its best growth decade on record since independence. High commodity prices offer a launch pad for sustained growth and employment creation. Now is the moment for African countries to act. This book asks how the political leaders of Africa, as well as interest groups can promote economic growth in their countries. Drawing on studies of countries outside Africa, Jeffrey Herbst and Greg Mills identify the factors separating the performers form the laggards worldwide. Aside from the need to create an enabling environment for business through good governance, provision of infrastructure, and improvements in education, most critical is the need for a laser-like development focus by governments.

Africa’s Development Dynamics uses lessons learned in the continent’s five regions – Central, East, North, Southern and West Africa – to develop policy recommendations and share good practices. Drawing on the most recent statistics, this analysis of development dynamics attempts to help African leaders reach the targets of the African Union’s Agenda 2063 at all levels: continental, regional, national and local.

Written amidst the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, this edited volume draws on the expertise of social scientists and humanities scholars to understand the many ramifications of Covid-19 on societies, politics, and the economies of Africa. The contributors examine measures, communicative practices, and experiences that have guided the (inter)action of governments, societies, and citizens in this unpredictable moment. Covid-19 tested governments’ disaster preparedness as well as exposed governments’ attitudes towards the poor and vulnerable. In the same vein, it also tested the agency of the African populace in the face of containment measures and their impact on everyday social, cultural, and economic practices of ordinary people. In this vein, our concern is to understand the relationship between growing vulnerability on the one hand, and ingenuity of agency on the other, and how both were embodied, narrated and discoursed by the African poor, university students, religious entities, middle-classes, and those who bore the major brunt of the lockdowns. The volume is thus a useful resource for scholars of Africa, policy makers and those who want to understand Covid-19 in Africa. It provides a multiplicity of perspectives of the pandemic and African responses at different levels of society, economy and the political spectrum. The continental focus of this volume gives room for broader comparative analyses. Lastly, this interdisciplinary work benefits from the input of medical historians, anthropologists, sociologists, linguists, political scientists, literature scholars, urban planners, geographers and others.

This booklet contains the Overview as well as a list of contents from the forthcoming book Africa's Infrastructure: A time for Transformation.