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Africa's economy could rival China or India, says WTO chief Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala
Africa's economy could rival China or India, says WTO chief Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala | GZERO Media

Africa's economy could rival China or India, says WTO chief Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

The African continent has a population of 1.4 billion people, but it imports more than 90% of its medicines and 90% of its vaccines. WTO Director General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala says the time has come to open up the continent to globalization and encourage businesses to invest in African countries.

On GZERO World with Ian Bremmer, Okonjo-Iweala makes the case for decentralizing and diversifying global trade to open up new markets, bring Global South countries into the mainstream of the world economy, and reduce reliance on any one country for crucial goods and services.

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Focus on Africa: hunger, energy, climate - and the path to growth
"Lives At Risk" in Sub-Saharan Africa Due To Rising Food and Fuel Costs | Global Stage | GZERO Media

Focus on Africa: hunger, energy, climate - and the path to growth

Sub-Saharan Africa was on the brink of economic recovery last year. Now, the World Bank expects its growth to slow in 2023. With global inflation on the rise, rising food and fuel costs “actually put lives at risk in a way few other shocks can," says International Monetary Fund (IMF) senior economist Andrew Tiffin.

And sub-Saharan Africa is particularly vulnerable: 123 million people there are currently food-insecure, while the region accounts for 6% of the global energy demand. With climate change exponentially leading to those numbers rising, Tiffin says: “Any globally viable discussion has to take into account Africa’s concerns and needs. Because without that, there is simply no solution.”

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Demography and destiny: blessing or time bomb?

Demography is destiny. That ominous-sounding pronouncement, credited to French philosopher Auguste Comte, is today taken to mean that a nation's fate depends on the youthfulness of its population. For a poor country to become rich, it needs lots of young people ready to work, to support those too old or too young to work, and to pay taxes. This is called the "demographic dividend."

That's an important part of China's success story. Over the past 40 years, more than one billion people have emerged from poverty in China. Waves of young people surged from the countryside into cities to work in factories. The state invested in education, and wages helped young workers, and then their children, go to school. The state also began a drive to develop the technologies of the future, by any means necessary. In China, once dirt-poor, hundreds of millions have created a middle class.

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