2000s–2010s: (Growth Without Development — Six of the World’s Ten Fastest Growing Economies in Africa Yet Most Countries in the Bottom Billion, GDP Growth Dr…

2000s–2010s: (Growth Without Development — Six of the World’s Ten Fastest Growing Economies in Africa Yet Most Countries in the Bottom Billion, GDP Growth Driven by Chinese Demand for Raw Materials and Structural Adjustment Privatization, an Emergent Middle Class Visible in Cities but Remaining a Minority, Growth Benefiting the Same Kinds of Entrepreneurial Adventurers as in the Nineteenth Century, and the Challenge of Translating Growth into Development Requiring a Historical Perspective on Africa’s Economic Trajectory): The larger issues of growth and development remain — and these are very different things. Between 1980 and 2000, sub-Saharan Africa’s GDP growth averaged 2.4 percent annually; over the past decade it jumped to 5.7 percent. Six of the world’s ten fastest growing economies were in Africa: Angola, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Chad, Mozambique, and Rwanda. This impressive growth was connected to massive inward investment from China, India, the Gulf States, Europe, and North America, and to structural adjustment leading to rapid privatization — Chinese demand for raw materials drove much of it. Yet GDP growth does not necessarily mean development. Poverty remains rife, most African countries occupy the space one economist described as the bottom billion, education remains a privilege, proper healthcare elusive, and access to capital a matter of birth — women especially vulnerable. Under structural adjustment, an emergent middle class is discernible in cities across the continent, but they remain a minority. Growth in general benefits many of the same kinds of elites — the entrepreneurial adventurers, whether political, economic, or military — as it did in the nineteenth century; the challenge, now as then, lies in the distribution and reinvestment of the proceeds. Even the impressive growth figures remain, as over the past two centuries, based on the export of raw materials at high prices. Africa’s history over two centuries is characterized by extraordinary dynamism and creativity on the part of its peoples, and this alone suggests that further innovation driven by Africans themselves is not simply possible but inevitable — there will be destruction as well as construction along the way, but the story continues.