Africa'S Moment

The 21st century will be the century of Africa. This continent was once seen as empty, rural, animist, poor, and forgotten by the world. Now, fifty years after independence, it is full to bursting, urban and monotheist. If poverty and violence are still rampant, economic growth has taken off again and a middle class is developing. Africa will hold a central place in the big issues facing the world today. If it once made a ‘false start’, here it is back again – in the fast lane.

The West has missed the turnaround of a continent that will no longer wait for us. How can we best understand it? Demography, economics, politics, diplomacy, cultures and religions – this book presents the different facets of this new Africa, which will soon have a billion people, at the mid point of the most rapid population boom that humanity has ever known. Without ignoring the risks of its metamorphosis, it brings to light the forces and hopes that Africa harbors.

OLIVIER RAY currently works at AFD. Previously, he worked for the United Nation's Department of Peacekeeping Operations and Security Council Report, on questions of development, conflict prevention and post-conflict recovery.

• Acknowledgements
• Foreword by Paul Collier
• Introduction
• Part One: The Peopling of a Continent
• Chapter 1: Who Wants to Be a Billionaire?
• Chapter 2: Malthus on CNN
• Part Two: Africa on the Move
• Chapter 3: A Black Peril?
• Chapter 4: Crowded Roads
• Part Three: Africa Versus Growth
• Chapter 5: The Undiscoverable Curse
• Chapter 6: The Great Wheel of Growth
• Part Four: When Africa Awakes
• Chapter 7: The Great Clean-Up
• Chapter 8: Emerging Africa
• Part Five: God's Africa
• Chapter 9: Urban Compositions
• Chapter 10: Crescent and Cross
• Chapter 11: Switched-On Africa
• Chapter 12: The End of Ethnicity
• Chapter 13: African Democracy
• Part Six: One March, Three Directions
• Chapter 14: Countries of Rent, Countries in Danger
• Chapter 15: The Vanguard of Development
• Chapter 16: Fragile Africa: One Crisis After Another
• Part Seven: Africa, The World's Vitality
• Chapter 17: The End of Infinity
• Chapter 18: Light Against Darkness
• Chapter 19: The Hunger for Land
• Chapter 20: The Struggle for Man
• Part Eight: The Newcomer at the Feast of Nations
• Chapter 21: Africa Courted
• Chapter 22: Emerging Powers: Africa's New Exploiters?
• Chapter 23: Acknowledging Africa
• Conclusion
• Maps
• Notes
• Index