Africa - The Dark Continent

  

Africa is the home to some of the most amazing scenery and natural beauty on the planet. It is the continent where modern humans originated, and has been home to some of history’s great empires. However, despite all Africa has to offer, for centuries it has carried a reputation of a poor, backward, dangerous place, and was known as the “Dark Continent”.

The reason behind the title of “Dark Continent” is that Africa had remained unexplored for a fairly long period of time. To say that Europe did not know much about Africa until the 19th century night be misleading. Because the truth is, Europeans had known quite a lot about Africa for at least 2,000 years, but because of powerful imperial impulses, European leaders began to purposefully ignore earlier sources of information. At the same time, the campaign against enslavement and for missionary work in Africa intensified Europeans’ racial ideas about African people in the 1800s. Over the years, people have given lots of reasons why Africa was called the Dark Continent. Many people think it is a racist phrase but can't say why. But in actuality, Africa was called the Dark Continent, because of the mysteries and the savagery they expected to find in the interior.

Reports made by World Economic Forum on Africa, highlight four interconnected challenges for the continent:

·       Unemployment and underemployment- Unemployment in Africa stands at around 6% and most of the work available is unskilled or low-skilled, because the region has the world’s lowest levels of access to higher education.

·       Underinvestment in infrastructure- Physical infrastructure across much of the continent is a challenge to productivity. A lack of funding for roads, telecommunications, water, electricity and more are hindering the continent’s productivity by around 40%.

·       Political changes- "Failure of national governance" is a leading risk to business, according to executives in sub-Saharan Africa. For instance, since the beginning of 2015, Africa has experienced more than 27 leadership changes.

·       Climate Change- Africa is expected to be one of the world’s hardest hit region by climate change, with increasing extreme weather events threatening the health of its people and economies.

Africa’s real GDP grew at an average annual rate of 5.4 percent in 2000–2010, driven in nearly equal measures by labor force growth and productivity growth. After a slowdown prompted by the shocks of the Arab Spring in 2011 and the collapse of oil prices in 2014, Africa’s growth has recovered and its future prospects look buoyant.

An African industrial revolution is underway as manufacturers ramp up production of everything from processed food to automobiles. New innovations and investments promise to change that picture of agriculture and mineral resources and create exciting growth opportunities for business. For example, in oil and gas, Africa is rich in unexplored, high-potential regions, and the continent has huge unmet demand for energy. It is estimated that the domestic gas market in Africa will grow by 9 percent a year to 2025, by which time the continent could use up to 70 percent of its own gas.

Sub-Saharan Africa saw the world’s fastest rate of new broadband connections between 2008 and 2015, and mobile data traffic across Africa is expected to increase sevenfold between 2017 and 2022.This will allow companies to improve productivity, speed up transactions, and access wider markets, and could add $300 billion to the continent’s GDP by 2025.