Africa Rising

upfront.scholastic.com/issues/2023-24/012924/africa-rising.html

In Dakar, Senegal, university students play at a beach (left). In Lagos, Nigeria, young fans at a
concert by Afrobeats artist Davido (inset).

Africa is in the midst of a massive youth boom that will transform many of its nations and reshape the
continent’s relationship with the rest of the world.

January 29, 2024

Astonishing change is underway in Africa. Over the next 25 years, Africa’s population is projected to nearly
double to 2.5 billion.

In 1950, Africans made up 8 percent of the world’s people. A century later, in 2050, they’re expected to
account for one-quarter of humanity, and at least one-third of all young people ages 15 to 24, according to
United Nations forecasts.

The median age on the African continent is 19. In China and the United States, it’s 38.

Africa comprises 54 countries that encompass a wide variety of different cultures and religions. It covers an
area larger than China, Europe, India, and the U.S. combined. It’s the most rapidly urbanizing continent on
Earth. Africa’s population of millionaires, which is the fastest growing worldwide, is expected to double to
768,000 by 2027. It’s home to 670 million cellphones—one for every two people on the continent.

About 570 million people in Africa use the internet.

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“Africa is entering a period of truly staggering change,” says Edward Paice, the director of the Africa
Research Institute in London. He adds, “The world is changing. And we need to start re-imagining Africa’s
place in it.”

Signs of Africa’s growing influence are everywhere. In September, the African Union joined the Group of 20,
the premier forum for international economic cooperation, taking a seat at the same table as the European
Union and the U.S. African leaders, who are increasingly courted by foreign powers, are spurning Africa’s
longtime image as a needy place with too many intractable problems. They are demanding a bigger say.

“Africa is neither poor nor desperate,” says President William Ruto of Kenya.

In Dakar, Senegal,young Muslims leave a mosque after Friday prayers; over the next decade, Africa’s
working age population will reach 1 billion.

Within the next decade, Africa will have the world’s largest workforce, its total number of workers surpassing
the number in each of the world’s two most populous nations, China and India. By the 2040s, it will account
for two out of every five children born on the planet.

Africa’s skyrocketing population is partly a result of remarkable progress. Africans eat better and live longer
than ever. Infant mortality has been halved since 2000. Calorie intake has soared, and malnutrition is
declining. Young Africans are more educated and connected than ever: 44 percent graduated from high
school in 2020, up from 27 percent in 2000, and about 570 million people use the internet.

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In Senegal, a young computer science student is using artificial intelligence to help eradicate malaria.

‘It’s Cool to Be African’

Amidst all this growth, African culture is having a moment. The Grammy Awards just added a new category
for Best African Music. African fashion had its own shows in Paris and Milan. Last year, an architect from
Burkina Faso won the prestigious Pritzker Prize. In 2021, Tanzania-born Abdulrazak Gurnah won the Nobel
Prize in Literature.

“It feels like the opportunities are unlimited for us right now,” says Jean-Patrick Niambé, a 24-year-old hip-
hop artist from Côte d’Ivoire.

Afrobeats, a West African musical genre, is becoming a global sensation. Afrobeats songs were streamed
more than 13 billion times on Spotify last year. Sub-Saharan Africa is the world’s fastest- growing music
market. By 2030, Africa’s film and music industries could be worth $20 billion and create 20 million jobs,
according to UNESCO estimates.
COUNTRIES | AMOUNT SPENT ON TOURISM (IN BILLIONS OF U.S. DOLLARS)
China | $105.7
United States | $73.5
Germany | $47.8
France | $38
United Kingdom | $24.2
United Arab Emirates | $21.6
India | $17.8
Italy | $17.2

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 y|
South Korea | $17.2
Qatar | $15.7
SOURCE: United Nations World Tourism Organization

In Lagos, Nigeria, a fashion show at a weekend gathering of young designers and musicians

Sipho Dlamini, an executive at a music company, was born in Zimbabwe but raised outside London, in the
1980s. Dlamini remembers being bullied because of his background.

“We were called names,” he says. “All kinds of names.”

Now “African” is a badge of pride.

“Historically, the image was what people saw on TV: kids starving, kwashiorkor, and flies,” he says, referring
to a severe form of malnutrition marked by a swollen belly. “Now they will tell you they are dying to come to
Cape Town, to Mombasa, to Zanzibar. It’s cool to be African.”

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In Johannesburg, South Africa,a protest against high unemployment

Chronic Unemployment

Start-ups have sprouted in countries such as Nigeria, South Africa, and Morocco. Innovative technologies
have brought mobile banking to tens of millions of people. Women-only computer coding schools have
emerged. Microsoft and Google have established major centers in Kenya.

But while technology has brought billions in investment, it has so far failed dismally on one crucial front:
creating jobs. Chronic unemployment, a lingering issue, is now a major crisis. Up to 1 million Africans enter
the labor market every month, but fewer than one in four get a formal job, the World Bank says.
Unemployment in South Africa, the continent’s most industrialized nation, runs at a crushing 35 percent.

The continent’s working-age population—people ages 15 to 65—will hit 1 billion in the next decade. What will
these 1 billion workers do?

“That’s a problem,” says Mo Ibrahim, a Sudanese-born telecommunications tycoon and philanthropist.

For legions of jobless and frustrated young Africans, the only good option is to leave. Every year, tens of
thousands of doctors, nurses, academics, and other skilled migrants flee the continent. (At least 1 million
Africans from south of the Sahara have moved to Europe since 2010, according to the Pew Research
Center.) Migration is such a feature of life in Nigeria that young people have a name for it—japa, Yoruba
slang that means “to run away.”

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And many of the countries they leave behind depend on them to survive. In 2021, African migrants sent
home $96 billion in remittances, three times more than the sum of all foreign aid to Africa, according to the
African Development Bank.

“The African diaspora has become the largest financier of Africa,” says Akinwumi Adesina, the bank’s head.

In Morocco,boys play in an abandoned boat in a dried-up fishing area; climate change is an urgent problem
for the continent.

Climate Change

The climate crisis is an especially urgent concern. Floods, droughts, and storms have battered African
countries.

“Our generation takes things personally,” says Keziah Keya, a 21-year-old software engineer from Kenya.

Keya exemplifies the potential of her generation. Born into a poor family, she taught herself to code using the
internet and later represented Kenya at the International Math Olympiad in London. In 2022, she was hired
by a renewable energy company.

‘If we want to change things, we have to do it ourselves.’

But she recently watched in dismay as a river near her home ran dry. Soon after, her grandmother’s crop of
tomatoes withered. Starving cattle began to die.

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“If we want to change things, we have to do it ourselves,” says Keya, who is currently a student at Bryn Mawr
College in Pennsylvania. She’s studying computer science on a full scholarship, but she sees her future in
Kenya. “We can’t afford to wait.”

The new big idea to invigorate African economies is the transition to green energy. Africa has 60 percent of
the world’s solar energy potential and 70 percent of its cobalt, a key mineral for making electric vehicles. Its
tropical rainforests pull more carbon from the atmosphere than the Amazon. Ambitious ventures are taking
shape in numerous countries: a dazzling solar tower in Morocco; a $10 billion green hydrogen plant in
Namibia; a Kenyan-made machine that extracts carbon from the air.

In Lagos, Nigeria,young software developers at a start-up company

Energy & Ideas

Despite their many challenges, African countries have a vital resource that aging societies in other parts of
the world are losing: a youthful population brimming with energy, ideas, and creativity that will shape their
future—and the world’s.

Nedye Astou Touré, a 23-year-old student in Dakar, Senegal, has big plans. Standing in front of a pile of old
aircraft parts at a university lab, her eyes gleam with anticipation.

“It’s for a rocket,” she says.

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She and another student at the university hope to launch their projectile 100 meters into the air, a first step
toward building a low-orbit satellite. It might take a while, Touré admits. But while others with such grand
dreams have typically left Africa behind, she wants to show it can be done at home.

“Just wait,” she says. “Three years from now, you might be hearing
about us.”

Youthful Outlook: The median age in Africa is 19, younger than any other region
Source: U.N. World Population Prospects 2022

Where
Source:the Young
United People
Nations Are: Population
World Share of global population
Prospects 2022ages 15-24 by region
Note:1%
than Regions are
of global based on U.N.
population classifications
are not shown. (Mexico, Central America, and South America are included in Latin America). Regions with less

By the Numbers

$175 million

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AMOUNT Netflix has spent in Africa since 2016.

65

NUMBER of new hotels Hilton plans to open in African countries within five years.

600 million

NUMBER of Africans who lack electricity, about 40 percent of people on the continent.
Source: The New York Times

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