The three main challenges facing Africa in 2020 will be development, debt and dictatorships. Continued conflicts will stall progress in socioeconomic development. Insecurity will thus need to be watched closely in Mozambique, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Central African Republic (CAR), South Sudan, Somalia, Algeria, Burundi, northern Nigeria, Mali, and Burkina Faso.
Africa’s hegemons, who should be powering regional integration, are themselves suffering anaemic growth and huge unemployment. Nigeria’s projected 33% unemployment rate mirrors SA’s 29%. Both economies have yet to recover from recent recessions, and continue to suffer electricity blackouts.
Climate change will remain another pernicious inhibitor of development. Droughts in 2019 made millions of people food insecure in Angola, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Namibia and Somalia, while two cyclones hit Mozambique. The Sahel region also remains prone to drought and desertification.
Africa’s largest trading partner, China, will continue to be active in the area of trade and infrastructure across the continent. Many francophone African populations will continue to protest against France’s neocolonial role in Africa. Gallic delusions of grandeur have been exposed by its failure to stabilise the Sahel through African proxies such as Mali, Niger and Chad acting as cannon fodder. The US military presence across the continent will also continue to be questioned, as will Russia’s military backing of Libyan warlord Gen Khalifa Haftar.
Amid the slump of Chinese purchases of African commodities and growing African indebtedness, rapid industrialisation will continue to elude the continent in 2020. Angola, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Cape Verde, Sudan, Gambia, Somalia, and Sâo Tomé and Principe have a debt to GDP ratio of 80% or higher, while Zambia, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Mauritania, Cameroon, Ethiopia, and Djibouti have a high debt distress level. African economies are predicted to grow by only 2.6% on average in 2020.
SA’s external debt has reached a staggering $177bn (R2.5-trillion, with a 60% debt-to-GDP ratio) even as the government struggles to subsidise public utilities, which have been milked as cash cows, and to control a bloated civil service wage bill. Africa’s largest economy, Nigeria, has similarly amassed an unsustainable debt burden of $80bn and uses half of its government revenues — the same amount devoted to infrastructure — to service this debt. Ethiopia has amassed a $52bn debt burden, while highly indebted Kenya struggles to fund its Naivasha-Malaba railway line. Neighbouring Uganda’s public debt is 42% of its GDP.
Despite Africa having made progress in democratic governance over the past three decades, with multiparty political systems established and elections of varying degrees of legitimacy conducted, autocracy and long-ruling dictators will seek to remain entrenched across the continent in 2020. Iron-fisted, long-ruling autocrats continue to reign in Equatorial Guinea (40 years), Cameroon (38), Uganda (33), Chad (29), Eritrea (26), and Rwanda (19), as well as ruling family dynasties in Togo and Gabon. There will thus be continuing reports of clampdowns on opposition, draconian media and civil society legislation, jailings, “disappearances” and assassinations. Egypt President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi will also remain intolerant of dissent, while playing the Pharaoh by overseeing grandiose projects.
Tanzania’s “Bulldozer”, John Magufuli, has delivered infrastructure projects but will continue to crush dissent as he heads for re-election in October. Zambia’s Edgar Lungu has similarly cracked down harshly on the opposition and civil society. Ivory Coast technocrat Alassane Ouattara has damaged his democratic credentials by issuing a dubious arrest warrant for presidential candidate Guillaume Soro, and remaining ambiguous about running for a third presidential term in October. Zimbabwe’s Emmerson Mnangagwa’s militarised regime will continue his repressive rule.
Africa has thus entered a new decade with the prospect of another year of mixed efforts to conquer the three demons of delayed development, debt and dictatorships.
• Prof Adebajo is director of the University of Johannesburg’s Institute for Pan-African Thought and Conversation.
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