Africa: promise, opportunities, and challenges

AS GLOBAL economic conditions have become more challenging, Africa's remarkable development story of the past 15 years has lost some of its shine. However Africa's socio-economic fundamentals are strong. This is a young continent in an ageing world; by 2034, Africa will have a larger workforce than either China or India. Africa is urbanising rapidly, and consumer and business spending is growing at a rapid clip. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) expects Africa to be the world's second-fastest-growing regional economy over the next four years.

In Africa as a whole, GDP growth has slowed from 5.4 per cent between 2000 and 2010 to 3.3 per cent from 2010 to 2015. But look at individual countries, and we see a divergence in economic performance. Two groups of African economies have taken a significant hit on growth: North African nations caught up in the Arab Spring movements, and Africa's oil exporte…