The capitalist revolution Africa needs

Economist:

In the coming years Africa will become more important than at any time in the modern era. Over the next decade its share of the world’s population is expected to reach 21%, up from 13% in 2000, 9% in 1950 and 11% in 1800. As the rest of the world ages, Africa will become a crucial source of labour: more than half the young people entering the global workforce in 2030 will be African.

This is a great opportunity for the poorest continent. But if its 54 countries are to seize it, they will have to do something exceptional: break with their own past and with the dismal statist orthodoxy that now grips much of the world. Africa’s leaders will have to embrace business, growth and free markets. They will need to unleash a capitalist revolution. ...

In the past decade, as America, Europe and Asia have been transformed by technology and politics, Africa has, largely unnoticed, slipped further behind. Income per person has fallen from a third of that in the rest of the world in 2000 to a quarter.