Africa As Other ‘Emerging Markets’ Is Still In An Upward Swing, Especially Compared To The Stagnating Western Economies An article, “Africa’s Big Boom” on the pages of Project Syndicate discusses the recent positive developments on the “forgotten continent.” Africa is undergoing a period of unprecedented economic growth. According to The Economist, six of the ten fastest-growing countries in 2011 were in Africa. Average external debt on the continent has fallen from 63% of GDP in 2000 to 22.2% this year, while average inflation now stands at 8%, down from 15% in 2000. This positive trend is likely to persist, given that it is based on structural geographic and demographic factors, such as rising exports, improved trade conditions, and steadily increasing domestic consumption.” Is Local Development, Continuing Growth & Progress Possible In An Otherwise Struggling Global System? One of the biggest problems and reasons that no solution has been found for the global economic crisis is that isolated outlooks on all kinds of situations, including the economy of single nations or continents, still prevail. In other words, outlooks that do not take the full, global picture into account. Thus, there is a lot of talk about “emerging markets,” China and India, and now also Africa, regions and continents that were either suppressed, or were dormant up until recently and that have now started to catch up to the more developed part of the world. This, however, does not mean that the system being used, which copies the Western model, is a fruitful one. It simply means that they now have a lot of growth potential in relation to where they were...
