Prediction 5 – Africa Outperforms
African economies have been growing again in 2021, following the global recession caused by lockdowns in 2020, but the renewed lockdowns in 2021, have again limited growth in economies, on a continent where the production of primary products continues to be central, although they are increasingly moving away from primary products to service industries, as has been the case with developed economies.
The effects of lockdowns and lockouts on the global economy, necessarily impacted the poorest economies in the world, and the poorest in each society hardest. The calls for such lockdowns, irrespective of the damage they cause, came largely from middle classes, able to isolate themselves from those consequences. But, globally, the effects on the poorest economies has been to increase the numbers in absolute poverty by around 120 million, according to the World Bank, and according to Oxfam, around 150 million people are now suffering extreme hunger, as a result of the economic effects of lockdowns. As they point out, these consequences, which will last for years, are likely to cause many more deaths than will COVID.
In terms of COVID itself, Africa has done relatively well compared to elsewhere, despite being deprived access to vaccines on the scale of developed economies. That is partly due to the nature of its societies, being more sparse, and, in the cities, where that is not the case, the populations being generally much younger than in developed economies.
East Africa, where a lot of the more vibrant economic activity is focussed, has again suffered from war, as fighting broke out and extended in Ethiopia. Such conflicts are by no means peculiar to Africa, in these early stages of industrial development. European countries went through long periods of internal conflicts before nation states were constructed, followed by conflicts between nation states, as they too became too small for the needs of a rapidly growing capitalist production, and the US, went through its Civil War, on a similar basis.
Renewed global growth in 2022 is likely to see economic growth in Africa again rise sharply, as the demand for primary products rises abruptly, and rising primary product prices will feed through into revenues, and the potential for capital accumulation. At a time when developed economies in Europe, North America and Asia are facing demographic constraints due to ageing populations, and birth rates that are falling below the replacement rate, Africa faces no such problem, enabling it to find the labour it requires, and to act as a suitable venue for capital from across the globe in search of labour-power.
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