Africa Rising: Reviewing the Narrative
The Greek philosopher Aristotle wrote over 2,300 years ago in his book on natural history that “there is always something new coming out of Africa”. In May 2000, the Economist ran a cover story ”Hopeless Africa” where it detailed the gory state of Africa; Africa deluged by floods, ravaged by famine, HIV/AIDS, poverty, unabated pestilence and incapacitated by political crisis. Until then, I thought that socio-economic crisis was exclusive to Nigeria. As a graduating high school student whose school was opposite the then Nigerian President, Olusegun Obasanjo’s house, I stood in front of his house asking myself if the article was another Euro/Americacentric or if Africa is really hopeless?
But within a decade, the narrative about Africa changed- from a region of unabated pestilence to a rising economic giant. The Economist published another article, “Africa Rising”, a direct opposite of its infamous “Hopeless Africa”. In the past decade, Africa’s economy grew at an average combined rate of 6%. And various organizations including IMF, World Bank, AfDB and thought leaders also bought into the Africa rising
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In Mckinsey’s what is driving Africa’s report, roughly 59 million households on the continent had $5,000 or more in income in 2000 and the figure is expected to have risen to 106 million in 2014. The African Development Bank in 2011 also estimated that Africa has approximately 300 million middle class, (defined as those with incomes of $2-20 per day) but the Credit Suisse report which measured wealth on a broad range of indicators suggest that Africa’s middle class might have been overstated. The report shows that only 3.3% of Africans should be considered middle class, or about 19 million people (based on $22,000 annual wealth). Nigeria, the Africa’s biggest economy with over 170 million people, has only 922,000 middle-class