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21 century Africa
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It’s a different world now!

The embryonic Continental Free Trade Area CFTA is estimated to boost intra-African trade by
52 per cent by 2022 (United Nations Economic Commission for Africa)
The investment of than US$50 billion on infrastructure projects that will increase deep
water port capacity and build a number of long distance railways is already paying
dividends. 2018 saw the start of commercial operations of the Addis Ababa–Djibouti Railway.
95% of Ethiopia's trade with the outside world passes through Djibouti. The boost that this
infrastructure investment will give to the economy of several African countries. It has been
reported that, currently, cargo can take as much as 42 days to reach land-locked Rwanda
from the time a ship arrives at the port of Dar es Salaam.
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“ True individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence.
People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made ”.

Franklin D. Roosevelt (1995).
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Individuals in some African nations already enjoy a higher level of Economic Freedom than

some Western European nations. The 2020 Index of Economic Freedom is an annual
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index and ranking created in 1995 by The Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal
to measure the degree of economic freedom in different countries.

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Economic Freedom measurement
Singapore 89.4
UK 79.3
USA 76.2
Mauritius 74.9
Rwanda 70.9
Botswana 69.6
Belgium 68.9
Spain 66.8
France 66.0
Italy 63.8
Tanzania 61.7
Namibia 60.9
Source : Index of Economic Freedom (2020)

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A more economically independent 21st century Africa will develop a very different
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ɡ
relationship with the m'zuŋ u countries. Greater economic freedom combined with having
what will be 20% of the world's workforce will allow Africa to move from a seeming

ɡ
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dependency on the m'zuŋ u to a relationship based much more on interdependency.
It may seem like only a small change. It won't be.