Africa’s population, particularly her growth rates, 2.5 to 3.0 percent per annum, has
usually been viewed with alarm as being a cause of her underdevelopment; seemingly,
for these rates, associated also with a very young population of nearly 50 percent under
age 15 years, point to doubling of a population in 23 to 27.6 years, but if they prevail.
However this couldn’t be far from the truth. Indeed this status of Africa’s population is,
and will be, a critical global asset: this is what this paper attempts to show, on three
bases.
First, the negative, neo-malthusian view on development effects is disproved by scholarly
evidence, notably commissioned studies by the American Academy of Sciences, the
World Bank, Australian Government, and independent others; all have one verdict: little
or no evidence of deleterious effects. Indeed opposing schools of thought e.g. Boserup’s
and Julian Simon see positive effects, which, on theoretical and empirical basis, fit the
African labour-intensive socio-economy. It is perhaps both, lessons of dire consequences
of ageing of European populations _a result of fertility decline_ and, due to momentum
from past high fertility, continuing growth and young age structure of Africa’s population
into the foreseeable future that demonstrates clearly Africa’s population as a global asset,
thus the second and third bases of this.