Africa Rising

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.

Astonishing change is underway in Africa. Over the next 25 years, Africa’s population is projected to nearly double. It is expected to grow 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. They will be at least one-third of all young people ages 15 to 24. This is according to United Nations forecasts.

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

Africa consists of 54 countries. It encompasses 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 is the fastest growing worldwide. It is expected to double to 768,000 by 2027. It’s home to 670 million cellphones. That is one for every two people on the continent.

“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.

“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. They joined the European Union and the U.S. Africa’s leaders, who are increasingly courted by foreign powers. They 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.

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.

Within the next decade, Africa will have the world’s largest workforce. Its total number of workers will surpass 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. Malnutrition is declining. Young Africans are more educated and connected than ever. Fourty-four percent of young Africans graduated from high school in 2020, up from 27 percent in 2000. Almost 570 million people use the internet.

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.

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. They could 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}

^{South Korea | $17.2}

^{Qatar | $15.7}

^{SOURCE: United Nations World Tourism Organization}

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.”

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.”

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.”

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.

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.

Technology has brought billions in investment. But it has so far failed in creating jobs. Chronic unemployment is a major crisis. Up to 1 million Africans enter the labor market every month. 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 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. This is according to the Pew Research Center. Migration is such a feature of life in Nigeria that young people have a name for it—japa. It is Yoruba slang that means “to run away.”

And many of the countries they leave behind depend on them to survive. In 2021, African migrants sent home $96 billion in remittances. That is 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.

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.

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. She later represented Kenya at the International Math Olympiad in London. In 2022, she was hired by a renewable energy company.

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.

“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.

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.

“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. 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. It has 70 percent of the world’s 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 was built in Morocco. There is a $10 billion green hydrogen plant in Namibia and a Kenyan-made machine that extracts carbon from the air.

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.

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.”

Despite their many challenges, African countries have a vital resource that aging societies in other parts of the world are losing. They have 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.

She and another student at the university hope to launch their projectile 100 meters into the air. It is the 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.”

Declan Walsh is chief Africa correspondent for The New York Times.

Declan Walsh is chief Africa correspondent for The New York Times.