Editorial - Global Insight, February/March 2022

Our cover highlights this edition’s focus on the future of Africa. Ten years ago, I was lucky enough to speak in depth with Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, who served as Chief Economist at the World Bank and was economic adviser to US President Bill Clinton. One of the things he talked about with characteristic conviction was the importance of investment in Africa, not only to benefit the continent, but as a very obvious way of boosting the global economy. A decade later, this remains true – perhaps even more so now after two years of the Covid-19 pandemic – and, in two features in this edition, we consider whether we are now at a major turning point for the continent.

Our feature 'Africa's free trade opportunity' focuses on the African Continental Free Trade Area as a ‘huge step forward for Africa demonstrating that it is emerging as a leader on the global trade agenda’. Emphasising the expected benefits, the piece refers to a World Bank report, which projects a resulting increase in Africa’s income of $450bn by 2035, and a boost to the rest of the world’s income by $76bn. It’s also expected to bring a ten per cent increase in wages for both skilled and unskilled workers.

In addition, as our Southern Africa correspondent noted in her column published in November 2020, ‘The US presidential election and what it means for Africa’, President Biden has, unlike his predecessor, ‘shown a deep and abiding interest in Africa’. In this edition the feature ‘Africa’s future: bright of blighted?’ takes, as its jumping off point, President Biden’s Big Democracy Summit, which took place at the end of 2021. Of the 100 countries invited, 17 were from Africa. While not all are fully democratic, some, as the piece points out, are best described as having ‘positive trajectories’ and President Biden is endeavouring to reinforce moves to strengthen democracy and the rule of law. As IBA President Sternford Moyo points out: ‘observance of human rights and the rule of law lie at the heart of any successful country’.