Lydia Hartsell

Sums up pretty well the changes in Africa over the past years in regards to the effects of globalization and urbanization.  Pretty interesting too!

Change Beckons for Billionth African, David Smith. The Guardian Weekly. Jan 08, 2010.

The baby’s name and nationality are not known.  The child will grow up innocent of having a place in history.  But somewhere, last year, that child became the billionth person in Africa, the continent with the fastest-growing population in the world.

Climbing from 110 million in 1850, Africa’s head-count reached this threshold in 2009, according to the UN, although patchy census data mean that no one can say where or when.

By 2050, the population is projected to almost double to 1.9 billion.  Pessimists predict a human tide that will put an unbearable burden on food, jobs, schools, housing, and healthcare.  Optimists sense an opportunity to follow billion-strong China and India in pursuing economic growth.

“It’s not a problem,” said Mo Ibrahim, a Sudanese-born British entrepreneur.  “Africa is underpopulated.  We have 20% of the world’s landmass and 13% of its population.  We have a bulge of young people and that brings to the marketplace a huge workforce, whereas Europe’s population is ageing.  We need to focus on education and training.”

African born today are likely to live not in a village, but in a “mega-city” since the continent’s rate of urbanization is the fastest the world has yet seen.  Deaths from smoking or car crashes will be a factor as much as the more familiar issues of malnutrition, malaria, and Aids.  These citizens will also be vulnerable to droughts, floods, and desertification caused by climate change.

But the children of 2009 will also have opportunities. They will almost certainly own a mobile phone and eventually get regular internet access.  They may be better off-Africa has the fastest economic growth this year outside China and India.  They will have tentative grounds to hope for better governance and fewer wars.

If, that is, they can stay alive beyond infancy.  Richmond Tiemoko, population and development advisor for the Africa regional office of the UN population fund (UNFPA), said: “The first challenge for the baby…is to survive because, although it’s declining, child mortality is still high.  For the young people coming, the challenge is to get a good education so they are fully incorporated in the modern society.  That depends on government investment in them and their mother, and also in health services to ensure they survive and are healthy.”

Sub-Saharan Africa has the world’s most youthful population “and is projected to stay that way for decades,” the bureau said.  In 2050 the continent is expected to have 349 million people aged 15-24, or 29% of the world’s total, compared with 9% in 1950.  This could pay off as a “demographic dividend” of people of working age.

Access to quality healthcare and education remains the biggest challenge, Alex Vines, head of the Africa programme at the London-based thinktank Chatham House, said.  “These services remain poor for the majority of Africans and these are one of the greatest impediments for African growth.”

A momentous shift from the countryside is starting, leading to the rapacious expansion of cities such as Lagos and Cairo.  But with it comes urban poverty in slums such as those of Kibera in Kenya, and the Cape Flats in South Africa.  Urbanization has other unwanted consequences.  The continent has the most lethal roads in the world; it is predicted that by 2020 more people will die in traffic accidents than from HIV/Aids, tuberculosis, and malaria combined.  Africa is also already experiencing climate change.  By 2020, up to 250 million people on the continent could be exposed to water stress, the UN says, with agricultural yields halved in some countries.  Analysts say the continent must consolidate its patchwork of small countries and 30 overlapping trade blocs into a single huge market.  Today, intraregional trade accounts for just 9% of Africa’s total commerce, compared with nearly 50% for emerging Asia.

Ibrahim, head of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, said, “In Africa we have 53 mini-states with bad communication, bad roads, and bad markets.  That’s the road to disaster…that’s why I put the economic integration of Africa top of the agenda.”

There are signs of promise.  African are buying mobile phones at a record rate, with take-up soaring 550% in five years.  The internet has empowered civil society to hold governments accountable as never before.  Renewable energy technologies, including wind and solar power, rainwater tanks, and biofuel cookers, promise to transform lives in rural areas.

“I’m optimistic,” Ibrahim said.  “We have seen the rise of civil society in Africa and it’s no longer feasible to have bad governance all over the place. I envy the billionth baby.  I’m sure he or she will live through a much better Africa than the one we’ve known.”