Why Jakkie Cilliers (ISS) guarantees Africa in 2050 will be far more stable than today

Africa’s road to prosperity: Demographics, productivity and the choices shaping its future

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At a time when news headlines across Africa highlight political friction, economic distress and security concerns, a guarantee of better times ahead may sound almost provocatively optimistic. Yet Dr Jakkie Cilliers, founder of the Institute for Security Studies and head of its African Futures and Innovation Programme, bases that guarantee not on hope, but on rigorous demographic data and structural modelling. In his latest book, Africa's Road to Prosperity: 10 Things to Know, Cilliers doesn't pin Africa's future on its youthful population, technological leapfrogging or natural resource wealth. In fact, he argues that a median age of 20 imposes a heavy dependency burden that constrains economic growth and can make democratic systems more volatile, not less. Technology, meanwhile, is an enabler rather than a shortcut. His confidence instead rests on demographic ratios gradually maturing and a larger, more integrated and productive African market emerging. The conversation also explores several of the practical policy ideas he sets out in the book, including scaling "industries without smokestacks", modernising land tenure systems and how converting communal land, such as KwaZulu-Natal's Ingonyama Trust, into a bankable asset could unlock capital for farmers. Cilliers also shares his views on Africa's geopolitical options, arguing for closer alignment with Europe and India, and discusses the risks facing South Africa as growing numbers of voters lose faith in the ability of democracy to deliver.

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Edited transcript of the interview

Linda van Tilburg (00:00)

Dr. Jakkie Cilliers, founder of the Institute for Security Studies and head of its African Futures and Innovation Programme, has just released a new book titled Africa's Road to Prosperity: Ten Things You Need to Know. He takes a deep dive into what it would take to bring Africa to prosperity, and he's with me in the studio to discuss it. Hi Jakkie, so lovely to see you again.

I hope to touch on most aspects of your book, but there's a couple of things that really struck me. The first is your observation about democracy. It's something Africans clearly want, according to Afrobarometer, but you say in your book that it won't necessarily solve Africa's problems. Would you mind elaborating on that?

Jakkie Cilliers (01:20)

A lot of work has been done on the relationship between democracy and growth. For decades, Africans were told that if you democratise, Africa will grow and become more prosperous. But the data doesn't tell the same story. What the data tells us is that long term, there is a relationship between democracy and economic growth, but it is in the long term. Over twenty, thirty, forty years, liberal democracies grow more rapidly and more inclusively.

In the shorter term, though, the relationship between stability and growth is much stronger. So, the real question is how much democracy Africa needs. When you look carefully, the premise that you democratise and then you grow doesn't really hold. Look at East Asia compared with Latin America; East Asia is much less democratic, but governance is more effective, whereas Latin America is more democratic, but governance is less effective.

So, we can play around with the data, but the bottom line from the book is that you can't get away from the importance of stability. Without stability, nothing else is possible. We all believe in democracy and human rights, and that's an aspiration widely shared in Africa too.

The real question is what level of democracy is relevant to your level of development. Of course, we all desire a liberal democratic standard on rights for individuals, men and women, and so on. But the reality is that you need the level of democracy that's appropriate for your level of development.

If you have too much democracy, you tend to become very corrupt; that's the situation in Kenya and South Africa. If you have too little democracy, you risk an explosion. It's theoretically an easy point to make, but difficult to put into practice.

Linda van Tilburg (03:32)

Well, if you have too much democracy and you have corruption, like in South Africa, there's a view among some voters that democracy isn't working for them. Is that a danger for South Africa?

Jakkie Cilliers (03:44)

It's a danger to South Africa given our high levels of unemployment, inequality and low growth. The veld in South Africa is dry, and a discarded cigarette or a lightning strike can ignite that fire, as happened with the riots in KwaZulu-Natal when Jacob Zuma was temporarily incarcerated. So we are at risk, there's no doubt about that.

But in South Africa, our democracy, our constitution and our free press serve as a huge shock absorber. Had it not been for that shock absorber, South Africa would be in deep trouble. So, while democracy may not be promoting economic growth; and we need to get growth going; in the short and medium term, the extent of liberal democracy in South Africa has, I think, served us very well.

We now need to get the fundamentals right for economic growth, because in the long term our current path just isn't sustainable. But I think all the positive signs are there for South Africa to turn around, and with the local government elections coming up on the 4th of November, and national elections after that, I think the prospects for South Africa are quite good.

Linda van Tilburg (05:00)

If we can talk about South Africa before we turn to the other issues in your book; the local elections are in November, and for democracy to be effective you need a higher voter turnout. But if South Africans think democracy isn't working for them, will they go and vote?

Jakkie Cilliers (05:24)

That's the central problem. In practical terms, the central challenge we face is who is able to attract the urban black vote; that's really what it's all about. The Democratic Alliance has made some inroads but hasn't managed to excite the urban black vote, so it's very often a stay-away vote. Populist parties like the Economic Freedom Fighters and MK have tried, but they haven't been successful either.

So, who can mobilise the urban black vote? The rural areas of South Africa will, I think, remain ANC-dominated, but the ANC is in terminal decline. So, we're heading for coalitions, and the question is whether we get a centre-right or a centre-left coalition; that really is the challenge confronting the country.

Linda van Tilburg (06:17)

One of the things that also stood out for me in your book is your comparison of the histories of Ghana and South Korea, and how differently their development paths turned out. What lessons are there from those two very different paths?

Jakkie Cilliers (06:31)

They started off, more or less, at the end of the 1950s at similar levels of income and similar population structures, and both had military governments for many years. In fact, both had suffered; South Korea from Japanese colonialism, Ghana from British colonialism, so both have troubled histories. But today South Korea's income is nine times that of Ghana, even though they started at the same level.

In the book I give five reasons why. Because the book is a lot about demographics, the most important of those is that South Korea managed to benefit from a demographic dividend; the ratio of working-age people to dependents increased. It did not in Ghana.

Because labour contributes most to growth at low levels of development; remember, development comes from labour, capital and technology, and at low levels of development labour makes the largest contribution; South Korea grew the contribution labour made to growth. Ghana did not. Capital followed in South Korea, mostly from development aid from the United States, and that was then invested in technology; the three drivers of growth: labour, capital and technology.

That's one set of reasons. Another is that South Korea went through an agricultural revolution. Land ownership was privatised and modernised, and agriculture; food security; is foundational to economic growth.

Ghana hasn't done that. I think 84% of land in Ghana is still under traditional title deed, so its leadership remains dominated by traditional orientations.

Both Ghana and South Korea had military dictatorships for many years, and South Korea eventually democratised. Both had very high levels of corruption, but the difference is that the governing elite in South Korea focused on decisions that unlocked economic growth. They invested in heavy industrialisation, and the corruption that was evident in both countries was, in South Korea's case, largely invested domestically, while in Ghana it was exported to Dubai, London and Paris. So those are just some of the differences. A leadership committed to growth made all the difference.

It was a corrupt military leadership in South Korea, but the corrupt military leadership in Ghana didn't follow the same recipe of investing in agriculture, education and leveraging its demographic dividend. So, these are some of the reasons South Korea today, in fact, is one of the major donors in the world rather than a recipient of donor aid.

And speaking of aid, which often gets a very bad reputation; South Korea received a lot of aid from the United States in its early years, and it used that aid correctly. Ghana, by contrast, got a drip-feed of aid over decades from the United Kingdom and others, and became an aid addict; it didn't use that aid to change the productive structure of its economy. South Korea took the aid from the United States and invested it in heavy industry, changing the productive structures of the economy of South Korea.

Linda van Tilburg (10:22)

You spoke about the young populations, the demographic dividend that both those countries had. Africa has that too, and it's framed in different ways; some say it's a growing labour pool, and with populations shrinking elsewhere, that's a good thing. Others see it as a youth bulge, and even a security risk. What's your view?

Jakkie Cilliers (10:47)

The demographic dividend is a central feature of the book. Africa, on average, enters its potential demographic dividend around 2050; it is not yet in its demographic dividend.

The demographic dividend is when the ratio of working-age people; 15 to 64; to dependents, meaning children under 15 and people over 65, reaches 1.7 working-age people for every dependent. Africa gets there, on average, around 2052.

So, while Africa has a massively growing population, including young people, if you picture Africa's demographic pyramid, it looks like an exaggerated Eiffel Tower; broad at the base. A country grows when its demographic pyramid looks more like the Taj Mahal: fuller in the middle, not broad at the bottom. When it's broad at the bottom, you have to invest consistently in the education and health of a rapidly growing population; more children means more schools, better basic education, but you can't yet invest in the quality of your working-age population, which is what propels economic growth once the ratio reaches 1.7 and above, because at low levels of development labour is the largest contributor to growth.

Africa needs to invest in its young population to prepare it for when its demographic moment comes. If you look carefully across the continent; and I've spent most of my working life doing that; you can see the signs of Africa approaching its demographic momentum. In the meantime, this growing bulge of young men is obviously a security risk, which is another reason we need to get economic growth going.

It's one of the correlations; not necessarily a driver in Africa; that younger countries are inherently more unstable, meaning countries with a median age of 25 and a half or younger. Liberal democracies are normally a median age of 35 and a half or older. Older countries are generally stable, grow slowly and are democratic. Younger countries are almost inevitably unstable, less democratic and have higher levels of violence. As that ratio changes over time, countries become more stable, so I can almost guarantee that Africa in 2050 will be far more stable than Africa in 2025.

In the meantime, though, violence and instability in Africa are increasing, for a number of reasons. One is that Africa is, in fact, changing; it's democratising, and that change is unstable. And then, of course, we have a real challenge with the quality of leadership: the old men who run Africa, which is one of the chapters in the book, on modernising authority. As with South Korea, a growth-oriented leadership is hugely important. What Africa has is old men and traditional leaders running a continent where the median age is 20, and they're not in sync with the demands of their youthful population. They serve as a lid, holding down the continent's development potential.

That's one of the things we need to change; reducing the power of traditional leadership over issues like land. Traditional leaders are important when it comes to conflict resolution and so on, but not when it comes to economic development. We need a system in which the incoming generation of leadership can take Africa forward.

Linda van Tilburg (15:05)

When you look at how Africa's population is growing, it's often said that with development those figures come down. So, what should Africa do?

Jakkie Cilliers (15:14)

Our modelling indicates; Africa is 54 or 55 very different countries; that Africa, on average, enters its demographic dividend by 2050. We can bring that forward by about a decade through interventions the modelling points to making modern contraceptives available, female and male education, more rapid urbanisation. All of that can advance our demographic dividend and raise the point at which we peak.

If the demographic dividend starts at 1.7, China peaked at 2.6; that's one of the reasons China grew so rapidly, and the same holds for South Korea. People think of all sorts of reasons why China and the Asian Tigers developed so rapidly, but they forget that the fundamental driver was the extent to which those countries benefited from very rapid reductions in total fertility rates. That's going to happen in Africa too, and Africa will experience the same demographic momentum.

As Africa also proceeds with market integration; the continental free trade area presenting a larger internal market; the world will eventually invest, because there are pools of capital looking for investment opportunities. Once we have a common market in Africa, the money will come, as it did in China and as it's doing in India. At the moment we don't present a large enough internal market, so full implementation of the continental free trade area is, in our modelling, about the most important reform Africa needs to attract investment.

Linda van Tilburg (17:14)

You briefly referred to land, which is a hugely contentious issue everywhere, but also in South Africa. Tell me more about your idea for land tenure modernisation.

Jakkie Cilliers (17:28)

In South Africa, as you know, we have the Ingonyama Trust in KwaZulu-Natal, for example, where the land in that communal area is largely held in trust by the Zulu King. If that remains the case, you'll never develop the agricultural potential of a province with huge agricultural potential.

Simply put, you need to unlock what a well-known South American academic referred to as 'dead capital'. If you want to attract capital into agriculture, land has to become a bankable asset; typically, through privatisation, or through giving individuals’ full ownership so they can go to the bank and say, 'I want money to invest and transform.' But Africa, including KwaZulu-Natal, hasn't had an agricultural revolution, and without agriculture it's very difficult to move into agro-processing and manufacturing. This is one of the fundamental missteps Africa made.

After independence, many African leaders became military leaders, or their countries experienced coups and were run by the military. They looked at what the Soviet Union was doing in terms of rapid industrialisation, and we ended up with all kinds of blue-sky projects that went nowhere. You have to go up the development curve; starting with agriculture, then agro processing, then manufacturing, and eventually services. Africa has never had an agricultural revolution, and the continent as a whole is becoming more food-import dependent every year, despite having the largest agricultural potential; including water; of any continent in the world.

And yet, because African lifestyles are changing, though let me correct myself; this is starting to change. We're recognising the importance of indigenous crops, and African agriculture is starting to improve. So again, the future has been a problem, but you see signs everywhere on the continent of growth, entrepreneurship and much saner policies being adopted to unlock the continent's growth potential.

Linda van Tilburg (20:05)

Another issue you touch on in your book is technology. It's often seen as a shortcut for Africa to leapfrog and accelerate development. Is it?

Jakkie Cilliers (20:17)

There's no doubt that technology can accelerate development in Africa; there are many examples, particularly today with artificial intelligence, of how it lets us work more rapidly and efficiently. But for technology to unlock development, two requirements are fundamental: household electricity access and broadband internet access. Africa struggles with both; 60% of Africans don't have reliable household electricity or broadband internet access.

Fix those two things, and modern technology can do both: it can give us all household electricity in Africa through solar and wind, and satellite providers like Elon Musk's Starlink can give us broadband internet. If we have both, Africa can accelerate its development rapidly, because we're starting from a low base; we'll catch up, but we won't fully catch up. We won't be at the forefront of technology, and for decades we'll remain dependent on cutting-edge technology from elsewhere. So, the argument in the book isn't that technology will solve all our problems and make us the Silicon Valley of the world, but it will certainly accelerate Africa's development, provided we address those two prerequisites.

Linda van Tilburg (21:54)

So, what's holding Africa back in terms of energy and infrastructure?

Jakkie Cilliers (22:00)

Energy is another chapter in the book. When you compare different sources of energy; wind, solar, coal, oil, gas, hydro; and convert them into barrels of oil equivalent, so you have a common measure, the average African uses 3.9 barrels of oil equivalent of energy per year. To get to rapid development, you need a minimum of 8.6 barrels per person. So, we're decades away from that, and energy is a binding constraint. If you have enough energy, you can deal with the effects of climate change, invest in industrialisation, in mining, and so on.

Africa faces huge demand: we come from a huge energy deficit; 3.9, needing to get to 8.6; and we also have a rapidly growing population, so Africa's energy demand is going to increase dramatically. What the book argues is that Africa will use all its fossil fuels. South Africa needs to reduce its coal exports and coal use; when it comes to oil and gas, Africa exports most of what it produces, but it needs to use much more of it domestically. It will, because of this massive shortfall; and alongside that we need as much solar, wind, hydro and biomass as we can get.

Jakkie Cilliers (23:48)

And yet Africa; and I deal with this in the book; releases less than 5% of global carbon emissions currently. That's going to increase; by about 2050, our modelling indicates Africa will release around 10% of global emissions. By then, carbon emissions in the rest of the world will be declining, but Africa's will still be increasing, because we're coming from such a large energy deficit. So, what's the resolution? Our argument is that Africa is going to need everything, including nuclear, because of this massive energy shortfall; and the point is that without energy you cannot develop. Africa needs a great deal of energy, and the rest of the world needs to help us in that process. Instead of exporting our oil and gas, we need to use more of it domestically, even as we work towards more renewables.

Linda van Tilburg (24:46)

And is infrastructure needed before we can develop that energy?

Jakkie Cilliers (24:50)

Yes, of course. Africa faces a big infrastructure deficit. The African Union, through its agency AUDA-NEPAD, which we work with, has a vision of various projects; mostly corridor projects across Africa; that can connect the continent. We see that developing mostly through Chinese funding, but also through funding from Europe and the US; for example, the Lobito Corridor, which links the continent together and helps Africans connect with one another, and with the rest of the world.

The first thing we need to do is trade with one another, to connect Africa, because what happened during colonialism is that railway lines and so on were built to export African goods to Europe. That's starting to change, but we need to be able to trade with one another, because trading with one another means moving up the value curve, and eventually benefiting properly from our mineral exports. Instead of only exporting unbeneficiated raw minerals and goods; whether coffee, bauxite or anything else; we need to move up the value-added curve. That's another way of addressing Africa's industrialisation challenges.

Linda van Tilburg (26:23)

One of the things I found interesting in the book is what you say about geopolitical contestation. Africa often finds itself somewhere between the West and the East; between Russia and the US, or the US and China. What's the way forward for South Africa? South Africa says it's neutral, though that's not always perceived to be the case. But I see you point towards India and Europe.

Jakkie Cilliers (26:50)

Yes, we did quite a big analysis of where we think power is heading globally; material power, not energy. The short and long of it is that China and the US remain the two dominant powers in the world, but if you take a longer view, up to mid-century, the European Union is a third power pole, though its power is declining; likely because of its ageing population, among other things. Africa's combined power; even the sum of our 54 or 55 countries; is very limited in material terms.

So, we're dependent, and the question is where our allegiances lie. Generally, Africans don't want the raw capitalism of the United States, and they don't want the state capitalism or state authority of China. They're looking for a rules-based world, because a rules-based world is one in which rules protect the weak. Look at what's happening with Donald Trump at the moment, who says it's a jungle out there and the strongest prevail; and look at the instability that's creating. The proponent of a rules-based world is Europe, the European Union. Europe is a soft power; it will never be a hard power. So, given Africa's colonial history, our alliance, from a geopolitical perspective, probably lies with Europe, and to a degree with other aspiring global powers; and there's really only one aspiring global power, and that's India.

But what we should be doing is not choosing sides; we should decide what it is that we want. Basically, we want investment, and we want to trade with everybody. We don't want a fight. We want to say: this is the African opportunity, come and invest, and let's set common investment standards for China, the US and Europe in Africa. Because our trade deficit with China means China is becoming a problem for Africa; we have a much more balanced trade relationship with Europe, in value-content terms.

So, short story on geopolitical orientation; we've done a lot of work on this; it's about setting common investment standards, looking at our interests, which are development, and adopting a foreign policy that prioritises our developmental requirements above taking positions on Gaza, Ukraine or whatever else isn't directly in Africa's interest.

Linda van Tilburg (29:58)

You've touched briefly on this, but could the African Continental Free Trade Area, which wants to become a single market, be a solution for Africa? And what are the impediments to trade?

Jakkie Cilliers (30:11)

Trade integration is, of the eight scenarios we model for every African country, the one with the largest potential to unlock growth, GDP per capita and poverty reduction. Having said that, there are regions; the Horn, the Sahel; that are unstable, so I expect trade arrangements in Africa will build up from regional arrangements like SADC or the East African Community, and eventually that may become a continental free trade area.

From a trade perspective, this is very important for attracting investment; companies will only come to Africa if the market is large enough, and African markets are quite small. South Africa and Nigeria present markets that might be considered of global interest, but we need to be able to offer domestic and foreign companies a market and investment opportunity large enough for African businesses to grow and become globally important, complemented by investment from abroad. So, in that sense, the continental free trade area, and regional trade agreements, are very important for Africa.

Linda van Tilburg (30:49)

So, the future of work in Africa; will it stay a gig economy, an informal economy where people pick up different jobs all the time, rather than working in just one sector?

Jakkie Cilliers (31:00)

I think that's the perfect description. I think the current and future prospect for work in Africa is that a large share of Africans will remain in the informal sector; it dominates; and that Africans will keep surviving through the gig economy, finding different ways of making a living. As the labour force grows, people will find opportunities, including in manufacturing. At the moment the general sense is that China is the factory of the world and manufacturing has been outsourced there, but as China moves up the GDP-per-capita curve, it leaves room at the bottom; not only for manufacturing, but for other sectors too. In the book I refer to a large body of literature on 'industries without smokestacks'; the idea that certain services can have the same transformative effect on employment structures that manufacturing historically had.

Historically, manufacturing was the escalator that moved fastest, followed by services and agriculture. Today, some argue that services are the route to growth, but I think the data tells a different story. China became powerful and rich largely because it moved from agriculture into manufacturing and then into services. India tried to go straight into services and is now moving back into manufacturing, because manufacturing has a particular effect; like yeast in a cake, it makes growth rise much faster. I think the same holds for Africa: we need to get our manufacturing going, but we also need to look at industries without smokestacks; how sectors like tourism affect the productive structure of an economy.

That would accelerate Africa's growth and mean that instead of growing at just over four and a half percent a year; our current forecast, on average, for Africa; we could get to the 7%, 8% or the 9% we need.

Linda van Tilburg (33:44)

Just a last, slightly provocative question; there have been a lot of books over the years promising the recipe to fix Africa. Given that your findings come from deep research, how are they received?

Jakkie Cilliers (33:54)

Very positively; the book starts by warning the reader that this isn't a blue-skies book. A lot has been written about where Africa wants to go, but we use a modelling platform hosted at the University of Denver in the United States, so our modelling is grounded in data, and the relationships in our forecasts are what's possible and proven in the academic literature. We don't say Africa can become the Switzerland of the world when the data says no. In fact, Africa is 3% of the global economy today; by 2050, on the current path it would reach 5%, and on a high-growth path it could get to 8%.

These forecasts are often disappointing to Afro-optimists and to quite a few Africans, but they're grounded in data, and we can back that up. The response to our findings; on the large website we run; has been very positive, because there's a recognition that we're not telling fairy tales about things that aren't going to happen. Our forecasts, from water access to education and trade, are based on proven data relationships that have stood the test of time. So, the response to the book has been remarkably positive, I'm glad to say, despite the warning in the introduction that this isn't a good-news story; it's grounded in academic literature and data.