confidentially speaking
The Africa Confidential Blog
Economic strengths and political troubles in 2014
Patrick Smith
Stronger
economies and troubled politics sum up the reports in Africa
Confidential’s
first two issues of the year, which focus on events and developments
ahead. The International Monetary Fund still forecasts African growth
at over 6% for 2014 – and mergers and acquisition deals in Africa
were up a third to US$30 billion last year. Amidst the cheerleading
for this economic revival, the brightest time since the immediate
post-Independence era of the 1960s, bankers and politicians are less
worried about the medium term or even the tough policy decisions that
have to be taken in the short term. Politics and economics intersect
again.
Slowly,
Africa’s growth story is changing the continent’s international
image; it is also prompting many people from the countryside to head
for the cities to seek new economic opportunities. Outside the rush
to China’s
coastal provinces, this flood of migrants to Africa’s cities is
probably the world’s biggest population shift.
Unlike
Asia, where rural migrants find jobs in an industrialising economy,
most of Africa’s migrants end up in the informal economy and
frustrated by the lack of services. Although these informal jobs may
provide a social safety net, they cannot substitute for a
government’s lack of economic strategy, industrial policy and good
infrastructure. These new migrants and their eonomic demands will
change the nature of urban politics across Africa, in the same way as
they did three years ago in North Africa.