AFRICA'S MOMENT

This is Africa's moment

It is time to see Africa another way, as an unshackled continent. This century is being invented before our eyes, and Africa is the site of the greatest transformation. Canada, and the other G8 and G20 countries that gather in June, had better recognize opportunity knocking – before it knocks them over.

Africa has the highest fertility rates, the youngest and the most rapidly urbanizing population on the planet. Some time about now, the one billionth African will be born, which would have aggravated grinding poverty had the continent's economic growth not outstripped the population increases, growing on average 5 to 6 per cent a year (the IMF is forecasting African growth at 4 per cent for 2010) as a result of increasing commodity prices, debt forgiveness and free market reforms. The resiliency of African countries during the global economic crisis was in part because, in the words of Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete, "Africa is at the periphery of the global economy," a situation that, he said, "can't be left to continue." It can't, and it won't.

African governments have reined in deficits, opened up to foreign investment (with inflows increasing 10 times in just 10 years), and sought to reduce reliance on the public sector. The result is an astonishing growth in entrepreneurialism. Some 330 million people are estimated to now fall into the continent's burgeoning middle classes. Where there are middle classes, there is consumerism. Africans are subscribing to mobile phones at an astounding pace, an increase from 54 million to 350 million, or 550 per cent, over the five years ending 2008, according to a UN report. That's the fastest growth in mobile telephone usage in the world.

That in turn is transforming commerce, government, and society. Just as e-mail, the Internet and social media are changing North America, mobile phones are changing Africa. They are creating new business models: African farmers and merchants are using text messaging to find out the latest market prices for their goods, and even as a form of banking, to collect or make payments, while rural Africans can now find out when a medical professional might be available, saving an hours-long walk to town. Video-enabled phones are helping Africans record human rights violations committed by oppressive regimes or corporations. The developed West can in many cases learn from these advances, for its own profit or for use back home.

Africa, with its vast geographic advantages (the power of the Saharan sun, the flow of great rivers, and the geothermal potential of the Rif valley), resources (it produces half the world's chromium, half of its diamonds, half its platinum, one third of its gold, and has one-tenth the world's proven oil reserves and one-sixth of its forest cover) and population, is an unstoppable force. It is also an attractive place to invest. One country has been quick to see Africa's promise: Chinese direct investment in the continent is accelerating. Canada's private sector, too, has been among the world leaders in investment. And yet Canada's government has made Africa less of a priority, withdrawing from many previous commitments.

frica's progress, though, can be slowed. The recent recession has led to near-sighted decisions that have lowered investment in the continent, by as much as two-thirds, according to recent UN data. Some donor countries, such as France, Italy and Germany, have reneged on or reduced aid commitments made at the historic 2005 G8 summit in Gleneagles. This jeopardizes the tremendous strides made in Africa in recent years.

Not just Africans will be hurt. If economic resources do not keep growing, or if they stay concentrated in a few hands, abetted by some corrupt African governments, and if the threat of climate change goes unaddressed, Africa will produce new economic and environmental refugees, straining already-stretched Western social safety nets (Indeed, internal migration from the countryside to African cities is a leading edge of this change).

So when the G8 and G20 meet in Canada in June, Africa should be on the agenda. A 2009 review by the ONE campaign found that not a single G8 member was on track to deliver on a vaguely worded Gleneagles commitment to "make trade work for Africa." Canada did well to "untie" its aid by 2012-13, so that relief dollars can be spent in Africa, rather than on Canadian products. But G8 members should make other Gleneagles promises concrete, critically by reducing their agricultural subsidies and opening up their markets to African countries.

Other G8 and G20 Africa-related agenda items ought to include health care, including maternal health, and cheaper forms of assistance that produce economic results: for instance, the "Academic Chairs for Africa" initiative, spearheaded by Canadian David Strangway, which would create 1,000 senior research positions at African universities and could help reverse Africa's brain drain.

And the G20, itself a quickly evolving institution, will have to come to terms with Africa's growing strength. Stephen Harper is to be commended for inviting Ethiopia and Malawi to attend the summit, but the G20 has only one permanent African member country, South Africa. The continent is ill-represented by one state alone, especially when it boasts Nigeria, the world's eighth most populous country, and other resource-rich countries.

When the G8/G20 gather in Canada, the world's cultural and sporting attention will be fixed elsewhere: on Africa, with South Africa hosting the World Cup in an unprecedented, continent-wide celebration. Africans are claiming their place. New stories are replacing the old: Africa rising, Africa's century. Canada and other western countries need to join them on the fast road to development.

This article was first published in the Globe and Mail. The article forms part of a collection of pieces that showcase African growth and development.