#### [AFRICA 2020]{.underline}

**The views expressed in this and other papers associated with the NIC
2020 project**

**are those of individual participants. They are posted for discussion
purposes**

**only and do not represent the views of the US Government.**

[AFRICA 2020]{.underline}

GT 2015 estimated that the interplay of demographics and disease -- as
well as poor governance -- would be the major determinants of Africa's
increasing international marginalization in 2015. Developments over the
past three years have only reinforced rather than diminished that
finding. The relentless progression of AIDS continues, with HIV
seropositivity rates in the most severely affected countries holding
steady or in many cases mounting, while the two most populous countries
in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), Nigeria and Ethiopia experience major
increases in HIV prevalence.

Most African states will miss out on the economic growth engendered
elsewhere by globalization and by scientific and technological advances.
Only a few countries will do better, while a handful of states will have
hardly any relevance to the lives of their citizens. As SSA's multiple
and interconnected problems are compounded, ethnic and communal tensions
will intensify, periodically escalating into open conflict, often
spreading across borders and sometimes spawning secessionist states.

Of the seven key drivers identified in GT 2015, demographics is the most
important in Africa. SSA's population growth rate is among the highest
in the world, despite the ravages of AIDS, which is distorting the
demographic profile and exacerbating the youth bulge; half of SSA's
population will be under the age of fifteen in 2020. As the number of
able-bodied agricultural workers declines, relative to mouths to feed,
malnutrition rates will increase and create the potential for famine
where the combination of internal conflict and recurring natural
disasters prevents or limits relief efforts.

Urbanization will accelerate with many capitals and commercial
centers/port cities doubling in size but without a commensurate growth
of basic infrastructure and services. The relative decline of the rural
sector and rapid urbanization will be most profound in economies
narrowly based on petroleum and mineral extraction. Luanda could prove
the paradigm for the emergence of the city-state, where most of the
national wealth is concentrated, and the countryside is increasing
ignored and essentially ungoverned. Unrepresentative governance will
drive the city-state phenomena and promote growing income inequality
that should prove especially volatile politically within a population
dense urban environment.

The positive effects of globalization with its emphasis on information
technology and an educated work force largely will by-pass SSA. As a
stimulus for greater labor mobility, globalization will foster a
continuing brain drain from SSA. Today one-half of the medical doctors
and PhDs produced by Nigeria reside in the United States. Even less
skilled workers will be motivated to seek employment in more attractive
venues such as Europe and the Arabian Peninsula. The movement of people
on the continent from the poorer regions to the relatively more affluent
will be hard to control as the efficiency of state security mechanisms
decline. Competition for jobs between indigenous peoples and migrants
will be most contentious and more susceptible to conflict, where the new
arrivals are of different ethnic and religious backgrounds. This
phenomenon will be most profound in West Africa, where Islamic peoples
of the Sahel seek employment in the more affluent coastal areas.

Of all the drivers enumerated in GT 2015 science and technology will
have the least impact in SSA as compared to other areas of the world.
The African capacity for innovation and discovery is stagnant at best as
institutions of higher education atrophy for lack of investment and loss
of some of the best faculty. The most promising area for the application
of science is in agriculture, especially the development of GMOs better
suited to the African environment. Roadblocks, beyond the lack of
domestically based research capacity, most notably opposition led by
Europe, are inhibiting the application of the new technology. The one
notable exception is South Africa, which could prove a leader in the
propagation of GMOs. Advances in science and technology can prove
negative for Africa's extractive industries; witness the decline in
copper prices with the development of fiber optics. Similarly, the
successful commercial introduction of fuel cell technology would prove
deleterious to oil based rentier economies like Nigeria and Angola, but
this is highly unlikely before 2020.

Natural resources and environment are essentially neutral as a driver,
with the notable exceptions of very high value, concentrated resources,
such as oil, diamonds, and gold.

Africa's relatively rich natural resource endowment will not be
productively exploited if negative trends, as is most likely with the
two most determinant drivers, national governance and future conflict,
persist. Lacking peaceful, stable environments in states with a rule of
law in which disputes can be regulated, domestic and foreign investments
will not be made, especially in extractive industries that require high
capital investment (ports, railways, refining plants, etc.) and long
capital amortization schedules.

Conflict has been and will persist in the 2020 timeframe to be the major
inhibitor of political and economic development on the continent. It
will be mostly ethnic and communal, with disputes centering on the
division of national resources, rather than inter-state warfare. Indeed,
few states will be capable of arming and maintaining military forces
capable of projecting power beyond their borders. The notable exceptions
will be South Africa, Nigeria, Angola, and Sudan. Lesser states, with
financial resources, may be able to accomplish limited extra-territorial
missions with the aid of non-state contractors providing transport,
maintenance, and logistics. Most conflicts will be low-tech, with RPGs,
AK-47s, mortars, and trucks being the main instruments of war making.

International governance (i.e. the UN system) will look to African
institutions (e.g. the African Union, ECOWAS and SADC) in the first
instance to provide the leadership and manpower to exercise peace-making
and keeping functions on the continent. The latter can provide the
troops, but will need international finance, and force multipliers (e.g.
airlift, communications, intelligence, etc.) supplied by developed world
donors to successfully carry out their PKOs.

The role of the United States, like the former colonial powers and
Russia has declined in SSA since the end of the cold war and will
continue to do so in the 2020 timeframe. With the exception of the
import of West African oil, Africa is of little economic significance to
the United States; it represents no more than 1% of total foreign trade
and investment.

When considering international drivers, it would be more interesting to
consider external actors other than the United States. The world's two
most populous states and increasingly dynamic economies, China and
India, are becoming attentive to and relevant to SSA's future. Both
already are dependent on imports for their energy needs and will become
increasingly attracted by the relative security and attractiveness of
Africa as a source of petroleum. As states transitioning to a higher
state of economic development they offer a plausible model and produce
goods at both the lower (plastics, textiles, etc.) and higher
(computers, software, etc.) level of technology that are of interest to
Africa.

China is only exceeded by the US as an importer of Angolan and Nigerian
oil, and is a major investor, along with India, in the Sudanese oil
industry.

Not to be overlooked are non-state actors; international arms merchants
and illicit dealers in valuable African minerals; they have and retain
the potential to support insurgent movements and warlords for profit.
Often, failing or collapsed states retain little more than their
sovereignty for sale, and willingly offer ship registry, plane
registration, and arms licenses to the highest bidders.

The United Nations system will remain the institution of last resort to
address Africa's persistent political and humanitarian crises. While
individual external actors may be unwilling to take on the burden and
responsibility of tackling African problems or even be rejected by
Africans who fear their dominance, the UN will prove the vital
institution to organize an international response.

The increasing importance of religion in Africa merits its consideration
as a driver in the 2020 context. As states fail to protect, provide
services, and nurture their citizenry, Africans are turning to the
spiritual world for solace and to the institutions of religion for
support. The most dynamic and growing religious groups in Africa are of
a fundamentalist bent, both Islamic and Christian. The Islamists are
influenced heavily by foreign missionaries and the resources they bring
with them, while the Christian are reflecting more indigenous
influences. Where they come into contact and competition for adherents,
such as in the transitional zone in West Africa between the Sahel and
the Coast the potential for confrontation and communal violence are
greatest. While the dangers inherent in rivalry are readily apparent,
enhanced commitment to Christian and Islamic values could lead to
stronger families, greater community cohesion, and respect for the rule
of law.

Wild cards for Africa range from the plausible and positive, to the
catastrophic and possible. All nations or regions, no matter how poor or
afflicted, enjoy comparative advantages; Africa's lies in agriculture, a
once robust sector in the colonial period and one capable of recovery
with good policy, both domestic and foreign. A reduction of domestic
agricultural subsidies, the lowering of duties, and elimination of
non-tariff barriers to trade in the United States and European Union,
combined with the propagation of GM crops, greater provision of
agricultural extension services, and the elimination of agricultural
pricing that subsidizes urban consumers in Africa could lead to a
resurgence of the agricultural sector. Under the best of circumstances a
rural renaissance will only provide slow but steady national income
growth due to persistent problems of inadequate farm to market roads,
warehousing/storage, crop finance, and markets. It, however, will
provide greater stability, food security, and a brake on rapid
urbanization.

AIDS will continue to take its heavy toll in Africa absent a major
medical breakthrough and dramatic advances in education and changed
cultural attitudes. Equally lethal diseases with much shorter
contraction to death timeframes such as Lassa fever, Marburg and Ebola
viruses have been reasons for alarm, but have proved susceptible to
confinement within the African context. It is the airborne flu viruses
such as SARS that pose the greatest threat of catastrophe. While the
warmer African climate is less hospitable to SARS than the temperate
climes with their winter months, it is not immune to the rapid spread of
the disease. Africa's inadequate to practically non-existent public
health infrastructure would be incapable of quarantining the disease.
The lethality of SARS would be especially profound due to the impaired
immune systems of tens of millions of HIV positive Africans. A SARS like
disease once established in Africa will prove extremely difficult to
eliminate and could lead to constraints imposed by the developed world
on the movement of African persons and products.

The reality of AIDS is with us, but how it will play out is uncertain.
An expected leveling or reduction of infection rates in some of the most
severely effected countries has not materialized. The most populous
states, Nigeria and Ethiopia, are entering a take-off stage. Africa's
declining per capita food production is resulting in poorer nutrition,
which accentuates the progression of the disease among the HIV positive.
Infection rates among women, who primarily contract the disease from
their husbands, are increasing relative to men. Herein, resides the
potential genesis of a low probability but high impact social and
political development, the mobilization and empowerment of women to
combat the spread of the disease, seek treatment, and participate in the
political life of their communities and nations. Women in Uganda and the
most severely AIDS effected countries of Southern Africa are already
demonstrating a new and greater independence and activism. How far the
movement progresses will be largely determined by the reaction of male
leadership and their ability to co-opt and accommodate the women's new
energy and demands.

Terrorism probably is the wildest card of all in Africa. SSA presents
the softest target of all the regions of the world, largely due to the
plethora of failing states, weak security forces, and porous borders.
It's potential as a recruiting ground, is highlighted by the numbers of
undereducated, unemployed, young men that swell the ranks of insurgent
movements and local warlords. The lack of sophisticated infrastructure,
however, complicates the activities of the terrorist as well the Western
businessman. Africa most likely will serve as haven, training ground,
and staging area for the terrorist rather than as a leadership center.
The very weaknesses that attract the terrorist can make unilateral
counter-terrorist operations less complex and costly in terms of
relations with host governments. It is precisely in the more
sophisticated environments (communications, banking, etc.), with
relatively competent governments, such as South Africa, that the
terrorist could prove most dangerous and difficult to root out.