FRAMING THE POPULATION MOMENTUM
In 1800, the world had 1 billion people. Today we have 8.2 billion people on the planet. Although that population is still growing, the rate at which it is happening is decreasing. We will have a population of 10 billion by 2050. The slower population growth rate is because women are having fewer children, and more people are living longer.
But Africa’s population is growing faster than other regions, while Europe is experiencing a declining population. Africa, with a continental population of 1.5 billion people today, is projected to achieve population growth in leaps and bounds over the rest of this century: our continent will have 2.7 billion by 2050 which will be one quarter of the world’s projected population 25 years from now. By 2070, Africa’s population will have doubled to 3.2 billion. Of the eight countries that, together, will make up half of global population growth by 2050, five are African – Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Nigeria and Egypt. At current trends, Africa as a continent will likely be 40% of the world’s total population by 2100 according to population experts.
Welcome to a scenario in which the world’s future is increasingly African, demographically speaking. Why is this happening? Because fertility rates remain high in our continent, combined with decreasing mortality rates. This trend has created an extremely young continent in terms of population, one in which 70% of Africans are under the age of 30.
This background brings us to the theme of Harvard University’s African Development Conference – the future of Africa’s youth. If the future will be increasingly ‘‘African’’ with one-third of the world’s working age population being African, will Africans automatically prosper because they have multiplied on the earth? Will Africa’s population boom be an asset or a liability? Will the 21st century be the African century?
Some have argued that it will be, and, that this population explosion – the population momentum — means Africa is The Next Big Thing. There is a certain level of political correctness that is inherent in optimism. No one wants to be a party-pooper. And yet … We must think this through, even though tomorrow is full of unknowns. On the one hand, Thomas Robert Malthus’, theory, set out in his famous but anonymously published essay in 1798 titled ‘‘An Essay on the Principle of Population’’ in which he argued that population growth will be restrained by famine and disease because, he argues, population increases geometrically while food production could only grow arithmetically, was proved wrong. The world’s population has increased by nearly 1000% since 1800, and the world has not run out of food because science and technology have transformed agricultural productivity in advanced industrial countries.
On the other hand, we should be wary of conventional wisdom about Africa’s population boom such as theories of The Next Big Thing. The question is not so much about the world becoming numerically more African. The International Monetary Fund (IMF), for example, has gone as far as to posit that Africa’s demographic transformation could alter the world order. The question is not Africa’s population numbers. The real question is about how prosperous or poor the billions of the new African entrants to planet earth will be. As Ashley Ann put it in her cautionary Foreign Policy magazine essay in August 2023 titled ‘‘Demography is Destiny in Africa”, “rapid population growth is about to hit countries whose economies and elements are least equipped to handle it.’’
Evidence abounds that projections of Africa’s imminent transformation have often been exaggerated. The post-independence euphoria about our continent’s prospects after colonial rule ended in the 1960s have not been born out, while Asia, most of which also experienced colonial rule, has made remarkable progress in human development and industrialization. In the 2000s, the ‘‘Africa Rising’’ euphoria hit the airwaves. While the continent witnessed some economic progress, it certainly did not rise, and has not risen, because the structure of the continent’s economies has barely changed from reliance on raw commodities in its international trade and revenue profile, and most African countries continue to suffer from a marked deficit in leadership and governance.
IMPLICATIONS OF AFRICA’S POPULATION BOOM
Africa’s demographic trends should be understood in a clear-eyed manner to assess accurately whether it will be an asset or a liability. First, as we all know, it has resulted in a massively young population. But will this young population have the skills, jobs, and productivity that can secure the future? Without this, the phenomenon will ultimately prove a liability – a youth bulge that will foster challenges of unrest and security. Even discounting the entrepreneurial inclinations of Africa’s youth and the changing nature of work and opportunities fostered by technology including social media, the reality is that the economies of African countries are not creating jobs for young Africans at the rates that are necessary.
Second, a massive wave of urbanization is afoot. This has implications such as the adequacy of urban infrastructure, social services, and other aspects of municipal governance.
Third, Africa’s young population is putting its stamp on the world in the areas of music and the arts. Afrobeat is taking over the world. But how many jobs do musical superstars create? We should not be misled by cliches and feel-good stories and statistics.
Fourth, the young generation of Africans is more self-assured than their forebears, and they are more entrepreneurial. This means that African agency, a missing factor in the continent’s development trajectory, is on the rise.
Fifth, the younger the African population gets, the more likely that the texture of politics and democracy could change for the better in the years ahead. The youth, especially if well educated, will likely be impatient and demand more from aspiring political leaders in the continent. We have seen this trend in countries such as Kenya and Senegal in recent months.
Sixth, a population boom has implications for climate change in African countries. There will be increased demand for resources, including fossil fuels that drive higher greenhouse gas emissions.
Seventh, the booming youth population has triggered more and more innovation and is responsible for the rise of the Fintech industry in the continent. But I argue that this is financialization without underlying economic productivity in goods and services.
HOW TO FUTURE-PROOF AFRICA’S YOUTH
Massive investments in education (including in education reforms that transform both what young Africans are taught and how they are taught), is required. Massively boosting skills (productive knowledge) of African youth is critically needed to increase the economic productivity of African populations. This is what drove the Asian economic miracles.
Investment in energy infrastructure will also boost productivity, including in the informal economy.
Strategic investment in science, technology and innovation as a core goal of public policy. Remains necessary. This is an area of natural competitive advantage for African youth, but it remains a low priority for too many governments on the continent. Innovation ecosystems need to be supported by governments in African countries. Other than South African, Kenya is one of very few African countries truly investing in technology and innovation as a major plank of public policy. Private sector investments without strategic policy support is unlikely to yield the kind of technological transformation that powered the industrialization of the western world and is powering the rise of Asia.
Access to capital, in a manner that is truly transformative, must be created in African countries where the lack of infrastructure and inflation drives up the cost of capital as monetary policy tackles rising prices with high monetary policy rates to achieve price stability. Governments must create alternative funding structures to support small businesses, innovation and entrepreneurship by African youth, and not leave the financial space only for central banks whose toolkits are limited. That, in turn, requires more effective mobilization of fiscal resources by governments. All of this is different from participation in financial flows through fintech. Here, what is needed is access to low-cost funds to support innovation and small businesses formation. Giant venture capital funds established as public-private partnerships will stimulate wealth-creation by young Africans.
Expansion of agricultural value chains will create jobs for young Africans. Agriculture remains a major anchor of economic activity in most African countries. Transforming it from subsistence farming to agri-business that African youth will engage in, with value chains of mechanized agricultural production, storage, transportation, processing and export, will create wealth for young Africans.
Population policy is essential. Africa’s population growth must decline for economic growth to catch up. The best way to achieve this is through education, in rural areas and the education of women and girls, that changes mindsets away from cultural tendencies and reduces the number of children that women have on the average. The average fertility rate in sub-Saharan Africa is around 4.3 to 4.6 children per woman, while the global rate is 2.3 births per woman. This is what will make investments in education yield the transformations that will secure the future of Africa’s youth. This is a major lesson from China and several Southeast Asian countries.
Competent, thinking governance, including performing the basic task of providing security inside territorial states, is required overall in Africa. Conflicts and terrorism remain a threat to the future of Africa’s youth and must be decisively tackled. Nigeria has the world’s highest out-of-school age children at nearly 20 million, mainly because of terrorism and its disruptive effects on municipal and local populations. What is the fate of these children?. Tomorrow they will be young man and women who are the products of population momentum.
Competent governance also includes a capacity for futures thinking and scenario planning. The mission of the African School of Governance (ASG) is to become a pipeline for the emergence of this kind of leadership in the continent. The question that is the theme for Harvard’s 2025 African Development Conference and the subject of this address, along with that of why Africa remains poor relative to the rest of the world despite its abundance of critical natural resources, is a major reason behind the founding of the ASG by Rwandan President Paul Kagame, former Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, and other African academics, philanthropists and policy makers in 2024.
CONCLUSION
Africa’s youth population boom can be both asset or a liability. The outcomes in 2040 – 2050 depend on the choices governments in Africa make today for the future. The important point I want to make is that we should not get carried away by narratives that are not created and owned by Africans themselves. We must not, to deploy the phrase used by the Indian writer Arundati Roy in the title of one of her novels, worship at the alter of the “gods of small things’. We often get excited about trends without truly interrogating them and their implications for our present and future as a continent. This must change.
There are two scenarios. One is a super story in which Africa’s youth become increasingly skilled and productive, creating broad-based prosperity. In this scenario, the demographic boom shifts from rhetoric about The Next Big Thing to a lived reality.
The other is indeed a dystopian future in which increasingly unemployed and frustrated young men and women mill around in African urban centers, jobless and unskilled. No outcome from this scenario should surprise anyone, but it is likely that such outcomes will not be pleasant.
Thank you.
Keynote Address by Professor Kingsley Moghalu
President, African School of Governance.
@ Harvard University’s African Development Conference 2025
