Africa Key to Sustained Global Growth

May 23 , 2026
By Hippolyte Fofack

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Although Africa accounts for almost one-fifth of the world's population, its share of global trade has fallen below three percent. This baseline reflects an outdated economic view that treats the region primarily as a source of raw materials. This peripheral positioning has historically impeded the development of integrated supply chains and high-value manufacturing within the continent, widening the economic gap between Africa and the rest of the world. In this commentary provided by Project Syndicate (PS), Hippolyte Fofack, a former chief economist at the African Export-Import Bank, and a research associate at Harvard University's Centre for African Studies, argued that overcoming this imbalance requires targeted investments in infrastructure, human capital development, and policy reforms.

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More than 50 years after decolonisation, the West still regards Africa as a supporting player in the global economy, as a source of raw materials and little else. This outdated view has undermined Africa's development of high-value manufacturing industries and integrated supply chains, impeding economic growth.

As a result, disparities in per capita income between Africa and other regions have increased, and the continent's share of global trade has fallen below three percent, even though Africa accounts for almost one-fifth of the world's population.

But as more countries cross the "super-aged" threshold, with more than 20pc of the population aged 65 and older, the international community should be increasingly motivated to stop placing Africa in a peripheral role. The world economy needs new drivers of demand, and Africa is uniquely suited to fulfil that need. Africa's demographic dynamism, together with its enormous infrastructure investment needs, means that it should play an increasingly central role in global trade and investment in the coming years.

Africa's demographic momentum is unmatched. Its population is expected to approach 2.5 billion by 2050. At that point, Nigeria is projected to be the world's third-most-populous country, surpassing the United States and ranking below only India and China. By the end of the century, nearly 40pc of the world's population is set to be African.

More importantly, Africa will account for most of the net growth in the global working-age population, as countries in most other regions confront shrinking labour forces and rising dependency ratios. Recent data show that economies with population growth above the global average of one percent have experienced an average real GDP growth rate of 3.1pc, while those with negative population growth have achieved only 1.4pc.

African GDP is already growing above the world's average, and most long-term forecasts indicate that the continent's strong demographic tailwind will help power the global economy.

While economic growth requires an optimal mix of capital, labour, and technology, the mutually reinforcing interaction between job creation and rising consumer spending is often central. Historically, demographic strength has supported human-capital development, sustaining the expansion of domestic demand, which accounts for more than two-thirds of US GDP and over half of Canadian GDP.

Africa's youth bulge is a major asset in terms of both labour supply and new demand. Whereas consumption growth has slowed in the advanced economies, owing to demographic stagnation, it is expanding in Africa, as rapid urbanisation creates new consumer markets and incomes gradually rise. By 2050, hundreds of millions of Africans are expected to join the middle class, and consumer and business spending on the continent is projected to reach 16.1 trillion dollars, creating significant demand for goods and services.

Africa also has enormous potential for structural change. As the world's least-industrialised continent, contributing less than two percent of global manufacturing, Africa offers the greatest opportunities for productivity gains and per capita income growth. Bauxite is a case in point. What is worth 874 billion dollars at the mine gate becomes 5.2 trillion dollars when refined into alumina, and up to 15.4 trillion dollars when smelted into aluminium. Processing raw commodities on the continent, rather than exporting them, offers a vast economic opportunity.

Seizing this opportunity will require efforts to address Africa's infrastructure deficit. Increased infrastructure spending, particularly in the construction, mining, manufacturing, and services sectors, would set the stage for long-term productivity gains. The scale of the gap implies that sustained investment could drive growth momentum for decades, with huge positive spillover effects for the global economy.

With sufficient financing for infrastructure, human-capital development, and policy reforms, Africa can achieve large-scale industrialisation, transform its population growth into sustained economic dynamism, and generate a powerful demographic dividend for the global economy. The implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) is a key step toward catalysing this structural transformation, because a more integrated market bolsters cost advantages and spurs industrial growth. Manufactured goods would first scale through AfCFTA-enabled regional demand and then expand into global markets as Africa becomes more competitive.

With its rapidly growing population, large and untapped consumer markets, industrialisation potential, immense resource wealth, and pursuit of regional economic integration at scale, Africa holds the future of global growth in its hands. As more advanced economies face structural problems, Africa is the largest remaining reservoir of transformative growth potential.

But if African countries are to serve as a pillar of 21st-century global economic expansion, they need effective policies. If the continent's potential is not realised, the ageing world will struggle to sustain prosperity. Africa's success is thus no longer a regional issue, but rather a global imperative.

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PUBLISHED ON May 23,2026 [ VOL 27 , NO 1360]

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