Africa in 2024

The bottom line is that Africa’s future, like its recent past, is likely to be uneven. There will be countries characterized by good governance and broadly shared economic growth, and those plagued by illegitimate autocrats, corruption, and violence. The biggest common challenge will come from an expanding population that will place extraordinary p

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I’ve found a strikingly similar pattern among political leaders, academics, NGO workers, businesspeople and young high-fliers, and not just in Europe and North America. Young people that I met in Africa were generally quite optimistic, but here too, despite burgeoning science-fiction scenes, dynamic hubs of digital innovation and lively political m

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the promise of postapartheid South Africa has not been realized. For its part, Nigeria was a British colony for a century before gaining its independence in 1960. The country’s subsequent history can only be described as deeply troubled; its initial decades were marked by civil war, secessionist challenges, and military rule. Its politics seem to h

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