African lessons for the world

Africa is the world’s second-largest continent, and the United Nations estimates that by 2050, it will be home to more than half of the world’s population growth. Africa’s economic growth, meanwhile, is expected to outperform that of other regions until at least 2025, with the continent home to seven of the world’s 10 fastest-growing economies. The continent also has the world’s largest intact ecosystems, supporting nearly a quarter of global biodiversity.  

Yet for all this wealth and potential, Africa is routinely portrayed as an underdeveloped continent with intractable political, economic, and social problems.  

“The erasure of African and Afro-descendant leadership, innovation and accomplishment from world history is an urgent problem,” said Felicia Appenteng, Chair of IE University’s Africa Center. “How can you see that you have the ability to change the world if you cannot see yourself in it?” 

"The erasure of African and Afro-descendant leadership, innovation and accomplishment from world history is an urgent problem".  Felicia Appenteng, Chair of IE University’s Africa Center

While significant obstacles remain, it would be wrong to turn a blind eye to the numerous initiatives that are not only driving positive change in Africa but can also serve as examples to the rest of the world at a time of pressing global challenges.  

As IE University’s Africa Center notes, “the intellectual and physical contributions of Africa and its people are not only central to the modern world as it exists today but are crucial to contemplate a better future.” 

The conditions for democracy to take hold   

And right now, the world needs to believe in a better future. In an environment of growing polarization set against a series of global crises – recession, a pandemic, a war in Europe – the value of democracy is being questioned in many parts of the planet. 

The 2022 Democracy Report by the University of Gothenburg warns of a global decline of democracy over the past decade. Although Africa is included in this intensifying wave of autocratization, it also has valuable lessons about the conditions under which democracy can be built and maintained.  

Ghana and Namibia, for instance, have not only become beacons of political rights and fundamental freedoms, but they have done so against the greatest of obstacles. In many cases, democratization occurred in the absence of what was widely regarded as required conditions: a strong middle class, high GDP per capita and a cohesive national identity.  

These experiences teach us key lessons about where democracy can work, and why.  

A role model for sustainability 

 Africa also has a chance to show the world how to get energy development right while ensuring environmental sustainability. Already, the continent is ahead in environmental stewardship. Of all the global greenhouse gas ever emitted, Africa is responsible for a mere 4%.  

 “African nations have the chance today, before energy development plans are complete, to ensure new energy infrastructure is largely renewable, planned at the system scale, and implemented in a way that serves communities while still protecting wildlife,” said Lynn Scarlett, former Chief External Affairs Officer at The Nature Conservancy.   

“Gabon is improving its forestry sector through the use of reduced-impact logging practices that can reduce carbon emissions from forestry by as much as 50 percent. Indigenous communities in Kenya and Tanzania are innovating in their approaches to climate adaptation that meet community development and conservation needs.” 

 Furthermore, African nations, which understand the severe threats presented by climate change, are experimenting with the financial tools that may be needed to mitigate disaster. For instance, Gabon passed legislation that will pave the way for it to trade carbon credits generated from preserving its forests. Africa’s largest geothermal producer, the Kenya Electricity Generating Company PLC, is also in the process of selling carbon credits worth millions of dollars.  

African creativity unleashed on innovation 

It’s in business and tech innovation where Africa is poised to play the biggest role in the future. In this paper, IE University Professor Gayle Allard explains how some nations are already surging ahead. Meanwhile, the current global scenario is driving rapid digital transformation, and this change is happening on a continent that is already a leader in “leapfrog development,” a term for accelerated progress that leverages new technologies to skip over entire phases of infrastructure- and institution-building to address development gaps and trigger economic growth.  

“Africa, both as a place and as a people, has been an integral part of innovation throughout history and continues to be so in this unique moment,” explained Appenteng. 

Improvements in Africa’s ICT sector have been largely driven by expanding mobile digital financial services, and the region will see the fastest growth in mobile money through 2025. As the world increasingly embraces artificial intelligence, advanced robotics and smart automation, the continent could become a hub for much-needed IT skills.  

“The fourth industrial revolution and digitization will transform Africa into a global powerhouse,” says the Brookings Institute in its Foresight Africa report.  

"The fourth industrial revolution and digitization will transform Africa into a global powerhouse".
 Brookings Institute

Education is improving in many African nations. Meanwhile, tech hubs, the backbones of Africa’s tech ecosystem, are rapidly proliferating, particularly in Nigeria, South Africa, Egypt, and Kenya. In a future where combining human talent and creativity with technology is expected to be the driving factor of progress, harnessing the talent, creativity and energy of Africa’s rapidly growing young population will be essential.  

“Having one narrow framework of value generation puts a stranglehold on innovation because it implies that we can only succeed in one particular way. Given the state of the world, we simply do not have time to limit ourselves in this manner,” said Appenteng. “The most thoughtful entrepreneurs offer new structures and ideas, and the context that African entrepreneurs operate in invites the kind of holistic creativity and ingenuity that we all need.” 

Pioneers in social 

Ultimately, Africa can also provide lessons in humanity at a time of rising inequality and mistrust. 

“One of the most special ways that Africans and Afro-descendants have shaped the world is by teaching us what freedom looks like,” explained Appenteng.  

“Many of the most transformative movements around freedom (gender, LGBTQI, education, among others) were shaped and led by Africans and Afro-descendants. The way that we honor those lessons is not by using the struggles of Afro-descendants as a shorthand for problems, but to understand that all our freedoms are inextricably linked and that we all owe each other our utmost humanity.”