2023-08-02 04:00:00
In his prophetic book Black Africa is off to a bad start published in 1962, the progressive ecologist René Dumont described the serious shortcomings and deficiencies of the newly independent sub-Saharan Africa. Sixty years later, we must note that they have worsened.
Thus, coups d’etat, successful or not, are experiencing a thunderous resurgence in French-speaking Africa, where there have been around ten of them since 2020. Black Africa outclasses the rest of the world in this area. From the failed one of 1960 against the Emperor of Ethiopia Haile Selassie to the present day in Niger, sub-Saharan Africa has experienced some 120 coups or attempted coups.
Africa spirals into mediocrity
Dumont’s analyzes caused a scandal at the time. He judged the new African elites just as harshly as the former colonizers. For him, decolonization led to the tribalization and “mediocrization” of the black subcontinent: the colonial masters were succeeded by privileged castes engendering nepotism, corruption, impunity, waste and incompetence.
While the situation of the peasants stagnated or deteriorated, the schooling of a small urban elite made it possible to multiply the bureaucrats, thus creating a new class of profiteers.
To the shortcomings of development due to the incompetence and greed of the elites – poverty, low health and lack of education – is now added an unstable political situation compounded by the rise of jihadism, the aftermath of COVID-19 and the repercussions in Africa of the war in Ukraine (wheat supply, Wagner mercenaries).
Added to this is the distress of the peasants amplified by the current climatic disturbances. Seventy percent of Africa’s population derives most of its income from agriculture.
In the 1980s, for Radio-Canada, I traveled several times to Africa, already affected by climatic conditions that caused famines.
An explosive demographic
Thanks to advances in medicine, we are witnessing a significant drop in infant mortality in Africa: births are four times more numerous than deaths. Africa will experience the largest increase in the world’s population in the years to come. By 2050, its population will more than double to 2.8 billion. Its economic development will not follow.
The obvious solution would be to limit the African birth rate. But for cultural reasons, family planning is practically impossible to impose on these traditional societies. These are tens of millions of Africans who will try to reach Europe across the Mediterranean, where the populations are more and more reluctant to welcome them, as indicated by the rise of the European far right.
According to UN projections, more than half of the population of black Africa in 2037 will live in cities. The number of African city dwellers will exceed the number of Chinese city dwellers by 2041, to constitute a quarter of the world’s urban population by 2050.
This billion Africans, who will crowd into cities with dismal sanitary conditions, will create an ideal situation for the spread of viruses. In bushmeat markets, buyers will inevitably have access to animal species carrying pathogenic viruses.
Black Africa: vertiginous challenges
Will black Africa recover from the quadruple crisis of climate, health, development and demography to build viable economies? Will it overcome its governance issues? Its challenges in terms of peace, security and terrorism? The answer to these questions will affect the entire planet.
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