Now, the phrase “razzle dazzle” might conjure up images of the finesse and fantastical for some of you. As, for a lot of us, it’s a term we normally use in reference to hucksters, confidence-men and entertainers. We hear this term and picture a sleight of hand, the practice of illusion for manipulation and deceit. There’s something shady about it, like the old village peddler from Jack and the Beanstalk seen above.

The old village peddler trope harkens back to a time when Europe was divided along the lines of clan and was ruled over by local serf overlords or distant monarchs and emperors. A time when the village - not the city - was the bastion of European culture and heritage. A time when the majority of Europeans belonged to the rural world (Europe only became over 50% urban after the Second World War).

Looking back at it reminds me how the more things change, the more they stay the same. In the old days when life was a lot more decentralized and a lot less standardized and conformist, city folk would buy up popular everyday items, from kitchenware, fine silks, fine wine and fine jewelry, to simple toys and trinkets, then travel from one village to another hawking them off to locals who were situated relatively far from the nearest town or city.

While I’m sure that most of these traders simply performed an honest living, eagerly fulfilling a critical market gap at the time as mobile middle men, that didn’t stop the spread of tales of travelling shysters swindling the people of the shires and the provinces.

Wily entrepreneurs began to prey on the ignorance and naivety of the villagers. A typical pitch unfolded with the arrival of a fast-talking and animated trader draped in elaborate dress. Goods carefully arranged and prepared to accentuate their strengths and conceal their drawbacks. Moving from village to village in colourful wagons. Putting to work the skills that urban life, with all its diverse characters and crafts refined: namely their superior command of verbal articulation, exposure to a larger range of cultures and possibilities, and just good overall communication skills.

Selling hopes and dreams in the form of miraculously marketed herbal medicine and opioid-laced oils, metal-weighted silk, boiled seeds and spiritual scams. All sold on the power of symbols, not substance. Such fraudulent schemes (with a few minor tweaks) still proliferate across the world.

Indeed, there was a period in the early and mid-to-late 2010s where I lived and worked in China as a teacher and writer. Even as recent as then, stories of charismatic and scrappy urbanites relocating to swampy villages and prefectures with zero internet coverage and no piped-in water, making promises about setting them on the path to riches or good health under the guise of one get-rich-quick scheme or miracle after another proliferated.

Back in 2014, while residing in the Shandong Province of China, I remember catching wind of some of these widespread cons and bumbled feats of shanghaiing. A Chinese business student of mine filled me in on how he almost got duped into what became an infamous pyramid scheme out of Beihai, Guangxi Province.

A few months later I found myself chatting with a taxi driver in Qingdao when he mentioned that he was from Guangxi Province. We got into a conversation about it and he told me about Beihai and the sheer scale of scamming and trickery at play over there.

“Beihai is teeming with these scams and about 58,000 people have already been arrested for having ties to pyramid schemes within the past three years.”

https://nextshark.com/massive-pyramid-scheme-raid-china-leads-arrest-1000-people

I reflect on these stories and incidents as a way of reminding us that we’re all human. In spite of all of the technology and sophisticated mechanisms that we now utilize to lead more “advanced” and faster-paced lifestyles, our brains and primal senses still operate now, as they did 70,000 years ago. We’re still very much fallible to the razzle dazzle.

How much of your social media feed comprises of symbols which spread messages of inspiration and unity or self-serving razzle dazzle?

Plato & Aristotle

So to summarize, the conceptual essence of symbols lies in representation. We create symbols in our languages, body language, and overall presentation to express and project the universe as we interpret it. They provide a peek into things as we see it, but not entirely it for what it is. Symbolism is coded in subjectivity. Nonetheless, symbolism is meaning-making and is arguably the basis for our human species. It has the power to unite and inspire, but that power can also be hypnotic, and self-serving.

Now, how does all of this pertain to two Greek philosophers who lived over 2,000 years ago?

Well, beginning with the elder of the two: Plato elevated the power and possibilities of symbolic communication by introducing a radical piece of technology in writing. Yes, I am aware of how off what I just wrote sounds but please bear with me.

Based on the current findings, writing has been a part of our societies since 3200 BCE, with it first emerging out of the Sumer Civilization as a combination of different strokes and shapes recorded on stone and clay tabs.

However, from then until the time of Plato writing was used and seen as practical documentation, recording the key details of important events, observations, and declarations for the notice of others. Writing for a long time was almost all about drafting and dispersing legal changes and recording economic transactions and ceremonial events. Poetry and song has always existed, but until the last few thousand years, we created, practiced, refined and delivered them orally.

Plato stretched writing to include thought. For, even the great philosophers and poets of his age like the Greek Socrates and Homer, the Chinese Confucius and Laozi, or the Indian Siddhartha Gautama practiced and memorized their arguments, poetry and teachings for oral recount and delivery. None of what has now been attributed to them was originally written.

Plato invented writing as conversation and rhetoric. The essay you are now reading rests on platonic roots. Even short posts and opinions that people share about their day in writing incorporates elements of his written legacy.

He might not have realized it at the time, but the release of Plato’s Republic would go on to shake the very foundation of humanity and neurology. And more importantly for this discussion, the shape and the expression of the book was a fictionally endowed manifesto for the ideal society. In Republic, Plato outlines a fictional city-state named Kallipolis as the model for social order and governance. By doing so, he charted into the dangerous and seductive territory of writing as manifestation. And here, was the planet’s introduction to writing as thought.

Engaging rhetoric, argumentation and logic in writing opened many up to new worlds of thoughts and possibilities, but for others it merely added another layer of symbols between truth and interpretation - a symbol of a symbol. The release of Plato’s Republic was followed by that of the Septuagint, a Greek translation of a collection of Hebrew texts which would serve as the basis for the Holy Bible.

Because of its belief in ideal states and the concept of morality, Platonism as a worldview, lends itself to the cosmological, wrapping itself in a more top-down layered course of thinking and comprehension. Or to put it more simply, ordering the details around the conclusion rather than ordering the conclusion around the details.

“It has the power to unite and inspire, but that power can also be hypnotic, and self-serving.”

In the next instalment of this post series you will be introduced to Aristotle, the youngest of the Greek Three and arguably the most important of them all. He endeavoured to order his conclusions around the details of a matter, by trying his best to map out content as closely as possible to its observed form. Narrative in all facets of life seems to be split between Platonic and Aristotelian logic, and the study of economics is no exception to that.

The following works contain frameworks and excerpts from a book that is in the works. If you like these kind of breakdowns and scientifically-framed analyses then please subscribe so you can be among the first to get updates on my journey to writing my book.

I recently shared a note on how I believe that the conversation around Africa and development has been hacked, and hijacked by symbols (among other things!). Without lunging too deep into the abstract, let’s begin with my own symbol in an iconic quote:

Symbols are projections, representations that are accessory to something else typically preceding and encompassing said symbol. When kung-fu G.O.A.T Bruce Lee points to the Moon the eyes of his young Padawan settle on his finger. The stare of the young man is wayward, struggling to find focus, he fixes his view on what is nearest and dearest to him. For that split moment his mind became entangled with the secondary, show over substance, the ripple instead of the stone.

Being there for the moment is not the same as being in the moment. In a world where we struggle to be present we need to remind ourselves that the finger pales in the face of the Moon and is ultimately, besides the point.

Symbols channel and project meaning. Such symbols are the products of our brains and bodies. Through symbols anchored in sight, signs, animation and sound, we are capable of negotiating with the universe to help shape our reality and our state of being.

Words and letters, characters, numbers, wear, video, brands - all symbols concomitant to underlying meaning. Their existence and utilization employed for a broader purpose, all human creations that appear and transform reality. In saying all of this it’s important to remember how symbols and symbolism are agents of representation expressing their take of reality. They are not the end in and of itself.

Furthermore, because symbols are human creations they are vulnerable to manipulation that can be leveraged into control over others.

And society today has been co-opted by social media, the mainstream media and ultimately, multimedia. It’s why so much of what we consume in life today, be that our food, clothing, personal belongings, hobbies, our identity, is knowingly or unknowingly tied to at least one or more of the modern Media Trio.

Yet no matter how sophisticated and enchanting the symbols may be, the representation is not the equivalent of the represented. The most regal and sturdy looking cart still doesn’t come before the horse.

Existence has become so symbolic as to drown out our natural senses and present us with mirages, mirages that we’re beginning to believe in and motion towards, leading us astray from our true path.

The cart and the horse, the representation and the represented, symbolic representation set off against objective truth and true intent. Journalism and reporting, expert analysis and opinion, and even the halls of academia in some instances is rooted in the sharing and discussing of symbolic content. The media and the entertainment industry across the board fight for dwindling attention spans and multiplying screens, amidst the backdrop of a changing business model.

The fight for eyes incentivizes income-earning content creators to manipulate symbols that tug at our emotions, peddle in our vices, and cater in conveniences. The outcome being that millions take medical advice from unqualified YouTubers, and world leaders are still able to justify war and the slaughter of the innocent on the grounds of divine intervention in the 21st Century. While the primary source we rely on for accessing and interacting with information and content is essentially the internet.

Through the introduction of the creator-platform ad partnership model along with the inclusion of metrics that filter for social clout, players in Big Tech seem intent on monetizing anything and everything that is content.

How long it will it be before you set-up a YouTube channel for that new hobby of yours?

It’s no wonder why so much of what we’re exposed to online via Google’s search results, social media, and YouTube (which is TV to a lot of us within the younger demographics) comes across as hollow. Perhaps framing the case for Dead Internet Theory in a new light.

Let me further illustrate my thoughts with a short case study of sorts.

Here we see a recent headline coming out of Ghana announcing the signing (there’s already a clue) of a Memorandum of Understanding or MoU between the country’s Ministry of Education and Google, specifically Google for Education.

It’s a short post with the most tangible section of it informing us on how:

“The partnership is expected to strengthen digital literacy, build the capacity of teachers, promote innovation in classrooms, and equip Ghanaian students with critical 21st-century skills needed to thrive in an increasingly technology driven global economy.”

Okay cool, but what does that actually mean?

The quoted statement is riddled in symbols, packed with buzzwords such as digital literacy, innovation, and 21st-century skills. It’s almost as if the author is rambling on for the word minimum, throwing in popular keywords as a tribute to the search indexing lords. It’s also highly likely that the author is generative AI.

If you read the article as someone who isn’t familiar with the world of AI you would have finished it having very little idea of what exactly is going on and how the tech in question factors into it all.

The publishers could have hyperlinked Google for Education to the actual AI platform, but they didn’t. They made mention of none of several of Google for Education’s products, ranging from Gemini for Education, NotebookLM, and Google AI Pro for Education either. Google for Education’s official YouTube channel literally has thousands of videos that explore the platform in more detail, yet not a single one of their videos has been embedded into the post.

I believe additions along these lines would do a better job in telling readers how the partnership between the Ghanaian government and Google for Education might deploy AI tech to raise literacy rates for students in rural villages and towns, identify learner strengths and weaknesses, or improve and streamline the processes behind the provision of student-teacher feedback.

Meat that we can sink our teeth into and build with. Instead you’re left with a lot of window dressing, aspirational claims, and grand promises. You might not learn any more on AI in Africa after reading that post, but you will probably be able to recall details like the names of the people and organizations party to the agreement and what country the MoU (whatever that really is) was signed in. And perhaps that is the goal of the article..

What at first sight nowadays reads as your run-off-the-mill press release piece, descends into a dry text of shallow verbiage. By trying to appease every stakeholder, it clarifies nothing: it is sanitized, safe, and corporate. Symbolism makes it possible for you to create a model drawing of a product stunning enough to sideline any questions people might have had concerning its technical feasibility.

The politicians and the executives come out of it looking busy and better-off - we got the photo-op but we never got the chance to examine the foundational blueprint under a microscope. It’s vital that we do; structural change is typically evolutionary in its scale and complexity. It’s much like the invisible transmission of a pathogen across a population, all happening off-camera, and in this case is hidden deep within the fine print of institutional networks and norms.

Thus, I look at that story and scratch my head and immediately begin to wonder about what is actually going on. To paraphrase (without endorsing) a now infamous rap record executive who is currently rotting away in a cell somewhere in New Jersey: we wanted them to tell us what it is, but instead, they told us what it might be.

Symbols carry the capacity to unite people and resources around a common interest. When effectively communicated, symbols enable humans to wield extraordinary heights of will and control over the world we’re in. Whether they’re in the form of slogans, appeals to authority, the use of analogy and idiomatic expressions to get a separate point across, memes, music, ritual and performance, symbols compress and pinpoint meaning and messaging.

In the next instalment of this post series we will be learn about the first of the four entitled figures in Plato, the Middle Child of the Greek Three. His works revolutionized the world of symbolic communication through the introduction of writing as thought. In the process, the power of the symbol became a double-edged sword - sharpened with the ability to electrify and liberate the spirit, or pacify and control it.

“I make music that electrify 'em, you make music that pacify 'em.” Kendrick Lamar | Euphoria

The following works contain frameworks and excerpts from a book that is in the works. If you like these kind of breakdowns and scientifically-framed analyses then please subscribe so you can be among the first to get updates on my journey to writing my book.

The African spirit, along with the general culture downstream of it, is decentralized and autonomous in formation and behaviour. A lot of this is tied to geography. Aridity to the north, and dense jungle to the south of the Continent, act as natural borders across and around Africa. While a lack of extensive river networks and poor soil fertility restrict settlement sizes and encourages nomadic movement.

Nature and the human experiences borne from it are unsurprisingly reflected in the political and economic composition of Africa as a whole.

At 54 and counting (53 in 2010), Africa is home to the largest continental contingent of nations globally. It’s also home to an uncountable amount of distinct ethnic groups, of whom speak almost a third of the world’s languages. Africa is incredibly diverse, but is built like a labyrinth as a result, walling its players off from each other.

Today’s globalized economy looks at this and simply sees fractured and disconnected markets. Manufacturing requires scale for expansion, but only 5 African countries boast populations equal or in excess of that of the United Kingdom’s. The population count for most African nations is fewer than 20 million. Comparatively low population density rates within these countries further fragment markets. Only the Great River and Great Lake nations of Nigeria, Egypt, Ethiopia, the DRC, Kenya, Tanzania and South Africa have been able to sustain fairly large population sizes.

Size matters, and big might not always be beautiful but it’s certainly more bountiful. A $100,000 factory producing 100,000 Nokia 3310s (my age is showing here) a month is more competitive than a $100,000 factory producing 10,000 Nokia 3310s. This process is what people in business and economy describe as economies of scale. Fixed and certain variable costs such as land costs, rent, heavy and light machinery and even wages, fall on a per unit of Nokia 3310 under expansion as those costs spread, or become diluted across a larger economic market.

What follows can be a virtuous cycle, as manufacturing feeds into economies of scale, and economies of scale finances and justifies more manufacturing. The big get bigger and the small get smaller - the rich gets richer and the poor become poorer.

This brings me back to why manufacturing in Africa isn’t thriving like it is in much of Asia, North America, Central and Eastern Europe now, or like that of Western Europe in the past.

Excessive red tape and regulations, corruption, or skill constraints (Africa was a larger manufacturer 50 years ago) are not to blame for the failure of manufacturing to take off across many parts of Africa overall.

Most African nations lack the kind of scale required for real manufacturing growth. If ECOWAS was a properly enforced free trade area, Member State manufacturers would have a larger market to produce for, enabling lower costs per unit of input (or economies of scale) to kick in, enhancing local competitiveness.

You really can’t compare manufacturing for a market of approximately 20 million in Senegal, to over 400 million with ECOWAS (larger than the USA population-wise).

Manufacturing was more of a potent force for Africa in the seventies than it is now. Partly because trade was not as globalized back then and a truly Communist China was out of the international market.

Fast forward to today, and the emergence of China and India has changed everything. The size of their internal markets and workforce is unlike anything we see across individual African nations (not Africa as a whole though). So nowadays, the scale threshold for unlocking competitiveness in manufacturing is much higher as a result.

The long run average cost curve has essentially shifted upwards for a lot of African manufacturers.

I think that it would be beneficial for us as thinkers focused on African growth to assess matters under a deeper, meta-focused lens. I rarely see African content on economy attempt to dig into “The why behind the why”, or try to deconstruct and explore matters from first principles.

PS: I haven’t been writing as much lately as I am currently writing and editing a book that basically sums up all of my views and “hot takes” on Africa.

More to be revealed soon.

I normally use this Substack to share my insights about Africa. As someone with ancestral ties to the continent, who is also a third generation Brit that spent several years living in multiple African nations, I hold a unique perspective. I believe that Africa holds meteoric levels of potential that Africans and the rest of the world need to tap into for the sake of economic survival.

On this occasion though I want to talk about something else: my country of the United Kingdom and Great Britain. Specifically, what it is that we can learn from the children of our old empire within Africa and the rest of the Global South, and adapt to fit our own national context.

Welcome to the “Yookay”

The UK - as it is today - is becoming unrecognizable from the country that I grew up in. We have declined in geopolitical influence, economic prominence, and in our living standards.

If we were a US state, we would be poorer than Mississippi on a per capita basis. Without help from our families, most of us Millennials and Zoomers are unable to get on the housing ladder. Increasingly more of us are resorting to living out of our caravans and on boats in order to get by. Most of us have or will spend a considerable portion of our twenties living with Mum and Dad, or for some of us, just Mum. Accountants, nurses, doctors, teachers, law professionals, skilled tradespeople, can’t afford to keep their homes warm during winter.

More of us are struggling to eat than ever before. This is not an exaggeration, you are reading that right. In 2011, the Trussell Trust had 35 foodbanks scattered throughout Blighty. This figure ballooned to approximately 1300 in 2020 (before the effects of COVID and relatively sky-high rates of inflation). To really drive the message home allow me to present more raw data and figures on this. 61,000 food aid parcels were delivered to people in Britain in 2011, with the total rising to 1.9 million by 2020.

The descent into destitution is unprecedented. High streets once filled with shops, bars, and restaurants fulfilling almost every niche imaginable, are now littered with vape shops, Chinese and Indian takeaways, and charity shops selling used clothes and items. Roads riddled with potholes are becoming the norm. Every other car on the road is 15-20 years old, and most of the new ones are paid for on finance (bought on credit). The shops now have items that were once easily attainable, like cheese, salmon fish and condom box sets, locked away in security cases. We have one of the highest rates of homelessness across the developed world.

Churchill wept

Earlier this month, our government in Westminster held an emergency parliamentary session on a Saturday for the first time in 43 years to discuss rescue plans for the Chinese-owned British Steel: home to our last two remaining blast furnaces capable of producing steel from scratch. We were the first nation on Earth to deploy coke-powered blast furnaces, paving the way for the Industrial Revolution, now we’re unable to sustainably run them - how far we’ve fallen.

Many of us weep and grieve our deterioration in silence because our stiff upper lips get in the way of the wail. It feels like we have regressed so far back in time within the space of 15 years. The UK I am describing to you reads like the one I would read about in old Dickens’s novels back in school. It’s like we’re back in Victorian England but without the industrial expansion and innovation, community-orientated culture and large families to fall back on.

But this in the UK of 2025. This is real, this is widespread, this is systemic. What you see in official figures and news report might suggest otherwise, and much of the youth and our ever-expanding immigrant population might not know any better, but they’re talking a load of rubbish, a poorer UK is an objective reality. We have dropped from the ranks of high-income countries to those of the mid-income, emerging economies in everything but official classification. We are a developing nation with a posh accent and a maxed-out credit card.

Where are we going wrong? As you’ll see, what is thriving across the developing world is waning over here in the UK. For today’s article, I’m going to start by focusing on one lesson, and I may write more about this as part of future instalments.

So, for what it’s worth, here’s my two pence:

We’ve overregulated ourselves into rigidity in areas where economic flexibility reigns supreme in the Global South

Environment-related regulations and the burdensome restrictions of the 1947 Town and Country Planning Act have sucked the vitality out of our small businesses and self-employed workforce.

Throughout the UK, regions where lots of economic opportunities lie in respect to their transport connections, infrastructure quality and market access have become expensive to live at and operate businesses in.

These areas are largely found in the South East of England, encompassing cities like London, Cambridge and Oxford, Reading, Brighton and surrounding towns. A handful exist in and around the West Country in places such as Bristol, Bath, Exeter and Cardiff, then there’s Birmingham and Coventry out in the Midlands. Go further north and you have Manchester, Leeds, and Liverpool to a lesser extent. Scotland has Edinburgh, and increasingly, Glasgow.

Residential rents, municipal taxes like council tax, and house prices across these economic hubs are increasingly pricing out the young. While commercial rents and business rates here represent considerable barriers to entry for new business start-ups. The result being that these cities get engulfed by large American corporations and crime syndicates who operate shopfronts as platforms for money laundering.

Transitioning from a nation of builders to one of rule-loving pencil pushers

On the other hand, across the country, where living costs are relatively cheap, planning permissions and requirements still dictate what you can and can’t do with land and buildings. These govern everything, from where you can build or expand housing or commercial properties, to where you can set-up a market stall, park your car, and whether you can make a bedroom extension to the house you own. They tend to be strict, and what is even worse is that they lack uniformity in their legal contents and application.

So, you might have one part of town that plays host to an assortment of bustling restaurants, and you might want to open up a fine meats butchery on the same street to capitalize off of the neighbouring businesses. You spot a vacant shopfront and wish to submit an offer. But before you do, you need to first receive approval for planning permission from the local council. The outcome surrounding planning approval is contingent on the peculiarities of that specific council, it’s not a simple matter of zoning like almost everywhere else in the world.

You might be given the OK, but on the other hand, you might not be. Local residents might complain to the council about how they view the sight and smell of displayed meat carcasses as “unpleasant”. Others might voice concerns about what impact your food delivery trucks may have on local congestion and pollution levels. Unless you can establish a case for how your enterprise will unlock vast economic benefits for that neighbourhood with immediate effect, then prepare to venture elsewhere for viable locations.

NIMBYism has run amok in the UK, prioritizing incumbent businesses and establishments over new upstarts, and often times tending to the interests of older, more settled populations at the expense of the young and mobile.

Serfs to the bureaucracy and our corporate overlords

This is just one example, I can go on, but our overall system and laws around land use are so prohibitive, and have in turn, limited our rights to life, liberty and property (to quote British philosopher John Locke). The government has all but effectively nationalized land. The Enclosure Acts that were implemented throughout the UK from the beginning of the 17th century to the early 20th century, sliced and diced communally-owned land into patches of privately held spaces.

Many argue that this series of changes meant that farming communities lost their ability to freely grow their own food and flexibly utilize land for their cattle to graze over time. Consequently, formerly self-sufficient and autonomous farmers turned into wage labourers, as many were forced to migrate into the cities and towns to eek out a living and earn the cash necessary to buy the food and materials they once produced for self.

In many ways, the 1947 Town and Country Planning Act is a continuation of this process. By attaching considerable regulatory burden, i.e. cost, to land and property use, it has pigeonholed a lot of us into working as employees for employers. Less than one percent of these employers provide our country with 40 percent of its jobs and 48 percent of its turnover, leaving us beholden to and reliant upon a tiny number of large businesses to earn money and buy from.

Conversely, the picture surrounding employment across the developing world is a far cry from what you see in the UK. All over Africa, parts of Latin America and the Caribbean, South and Southeast Asia, most of the workforce tends to be engaged in the informal sector. Of those working informally, they are either self-employed or working as one of a handful of employees for a small business. Lax enforcement of rules and regulations on the ground gives way for the flexibility fueling these patterns. And while some view this persistent trend as problematic and as something for those countries to eventually “move on” from, I beg to differ.

The ease with which you can set-up shop in the Global South fosters a sense of resilience and adaptability that we have long lost over here in Britain. For most of us, in the United Kingdom, if you don’t have a job, you must find another one quickly as without one you will not be able to eat. Granted, a sizeable portion of us (almost 20 percent) will go into business or become self-employed, but that still leaves over 80 percent of us relying on someone else to employ and deploy our labour. Then there are those of us who end up signing-on for welfare benefits, wedding us even closer to the nanny embraces of the state, rocking us from cradle to grave.

Where citizens of the Global South rely on themselves, their families and extended local networks to secure their own food, clothing and shelter, us over here in Britain look to faceless corporations, the government, and the mounting bureaucracy that enforces the rule of the state. If life out there in the Global South is a jungle, then it’s a zoo in the UK and other industrialized nations. We have become domesticated and defanged, sedated by football, beer, Strictly Come Dancing, and tabloid newspapers and gossip columns.

So here we are, the birthplace of modern capitalism and industrialism might be the first to fully deindustrialize. The star student of the Roman Empire is now most closely mirroring its decline. With that said, it does not have to be this way because we still have a lot going for us. We’re a top 10 economy by all measures despite only being the 22nd largest country in the world by population. We are still home to a lot of exceptionally smart, talented and wealthy people and institutions. But we need to shake off our complacency and update our operating system to adjust for a new era - which involves borrowing some practices from Africa and the rest of the Global South, as the algorithm for growth continues to reward these regions over ours.

More on this series soon...

Key talking points and questions:
How does removing aid bring more power to Africans?

Does the removal of aid hurt or help African businesses?

How would the removal of aid increase a poor nation's chances of building wealth?

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Here we go again

Across the pond over in the USA, there's a new sheriff in Washington. President Donald J. Trump is back in leadership, and this time he's come with back-up. During his 2016 run, Trump walked into the Oval Office as an untested political representative whose surprise presidential victory shocked the world, and indeed The Donald himself (according to some of the rumours out there).

Nearly a decade has elapsed since then and President Trump returns to the helm tested and battle-hardened. To borrow the tagline that Morgoth's Review adapted from the second instalment of the Die Hard series: he's back, and this time it's personal. With an electoral loss mired in controversy, criminal trials complete with full mug shots, and FBI raids into his personal home, Trump has a bone to pick and is under no illusions about power and politics and how they work. We are not looking at the same man from eight years ago.

Nor are we looking at the same kind of Administration. The 2025 Trump Administration is donned with a who's who of hard hitting politicians and influential people - sitting on top of that list, and, frankly the world and maybe even Mars one day, is South African born Elon Musk.

DOGE is rolling back the government goodies

The $400 billion dollar man – with a net worth measuring at about 40 percent of that of the total wealth of his country of birth – has been appointed by the new Trump Administration to head the newly created Department Of Government Efficiency (DOGE). The purpose of DOGE is to make the administrative state as lean as possible by eliminating bureaucratic waste, ensuring that government instruments such as the federal civil service, the State Department, and the IRS, deliver value for the taxpayer.

These developments are important for Africa, South Africa in particular, given that a very powerful and influential South African now has a direct line with the leader of the free world. USAID has already fallen victim to DOGE, jeopardising $12 billion in aid funding for Africa and the rest of the world, with an estimated $500 million of that once directed towards providing lifesaving medical treatment for millions of South Africans.

Which brings us on to the ongoing feud emerging between the Trump Administration and the South African government. At the heart of this beef is the Rainbow Nation’s warming relations with Russia, as well as its role as a key member of the BRICS contingent. But, over the last month, the country’s racialized politics has caught the sights of US ire, widening what is already a clear rift in US-South Africa relations.

The African giant’s move to enshrine the Expropriation Act into law officializes a shift from the “willing buyer, willing seller” mechanism for redistributing white-owned land to the non-white majority, to one of “nil compensation” in cases where certain conditions are met.

Washington responded with disapproval, reiterating their commitment to freeze South African aid. They then rolled out a US resettlement scheme for white South African farmers who believe they have been racially targeted in the country.

US-South Africa relations according to Elon Musk？

Now, it’s hard to believe that Trump’s new colleague in the Oval Office, Elon Musk has had zero influence on the position the Trump Administration has taken in response to the new law. Especially once you consider that Musk has traded verbal jabs with prominent South African politicians like Julius Malema and the South African president himself on South African affairs in the past.

Going beyond the tweets though, while Musk has distanced himself away from his South African heritage, nowadays identifying himself as American, that’s not the same as him completely severing his ties with the country. Just based on what I know about South Africa, I would imagine that he still closely keeps tabs on what’s happening back there.

Indeed, once upon a time ago this writer got the chance to undertake an internship with a consultancy firm in Cape Town. It was the summer of the Marikana Massacre and I was a young college student, eager to finally come to the Motherland so I could behold the beauty of this continent with my own eyes. So allow me to share some personal insights about South Africa, specifically with respect to white South Africans.

Having worked with white South Africans in the past, along with me having a number of white South African friends and associates and bumping into many of them while traveling overseas elsewhere around the world, I have found one common thread. Simply put, you will find that even amongst the ones overseas, a lot of them love their country and identify as South African before anything else.

Even after spending several years abroad in places like the UK, USA, Australia and China, working in what tend to be well-paid and stable roles, for many, their hearts are still at home in South Africa. And this is not me attempting to hold hands with everyone and sing Kumbaya, in some naïve attempt at wishful thinking, the numbers seem to support my anecdotes.

A new group of African returnees

When the chapter of the Apartheid came to a close in 1994, approximately one million white South Africans packed their bags for what they felt were greener (and safer) pastures beyond their home country in the ten years that followed. But from the mid-2000s to the mid-2010s, nearly 350,000 went on to return to South Africa.

Even when you consider the net emigration rates that materialized in the decade leading up to now (which are comparatively low), this number is still nothing short of extraordinary. I have previously written about the need for the Global African Diaspora to build more inroads with Africa, and return to lend their talents and skills to expanding the continent’s developmental capacity. So it’s rather revealing, if not slightly awkward, to discover that the largest group of African returnees might actually be white South Africans.

Point being, Elon Musk, a third generation British South African, who still retains his South African citizenship, and whose father and distant relatives continue to live in South Africa, has not forgotten about the nation. South Africa’s race-obsessed politics are leading the nation to make enemies with the wrong people.

Revisiting the trauma of Apartheid in the name of “progress”

What is more, the race-based land laws in question are misplaced and ineffectual. In the 30 years leading up to the passage of the Expropriation Act, the ANC Government had already transferred millions of hectares of white-owned land to black South Africans via the aforementioned willing buyer willing seller mechanism, but the results of such redistribution have so far been disappointing.

By 2010, the ANC Government’s land redistribution program had tallied up about $4 billion in spending. Yet, in spite of this, it was reported that close to 90 percent of the redistributed farms had failed to generate real livelihoods for the black farmers it was designed to help, with many struggling to even produce valuable supplies for local stakeholders. In fact, almost all of this land isn’t simply underperforming, it’s lying dormant. The minister of Land Reform at the time all but admitted to this, stating that “The government didn’t have a strategy to ensure that the land was productive. If there was a strategy, it was not backed with proper resources,”.

“The government didn’t have a strategy to ensure that the land was productive. If there was a strategy, it was not backed with proper resources,”

A lot of these farms were once run as large commercial operations, raising animals and crops for sale at large retailers and restaurant chains. They were very capital intensive in nature, necessitating the deployment and use of large tractors, combine harvesters and heating devices in order to bear profitable yields. Successfully running these farms demanded a high level of expertise and relevant farming experience from the new operators.

However, a lot of the black farmers in receipt of the land either came from a smallholding background, perhaps producing to meet the needs of a small village or neighbourhood, or worse yet, some had no farming background at all. There was a mismatch between the farming know-how of the assisted black farmers, and the scale and complexity of the farms given to them.

What could have been

In a country double the size of France, a lack of access to land was never the issue

What makes South Africa’s land reform failures even more frustrating is the fact that vast amounts of land—enough to support a thriving black farming sector—were already available. In South Africa alone, land not owned by white farmers was larger than many European countries. The government itself controlled roughly 33 million hectares of land—about a third of the country’s total 100 million hectares. For the record, this figure exceeds that of the 22 percent of white-owned land.

To put 33 million hectares in perspective, that is roughly the size of Germany (35.7 million hectares) or Poland (31.2 million hectares). South Africa didn’t need to seize land from commercial farmers to address agricultural inequality; it simply needed to use the land it already had.

Here is where the underlying issue rests: land doesn’t make the man, the man makes the land. Valuable political bandwidth and capital has been wasted debating and attempting to address the questions of who owns how much of what, instead of how much of what is being produced and where. The grass is not always greener on the other side, only where you tend to.

“Land doesn’t make the man, the man makes the land.”

The South African government, along with the diverse communities that make the nation what it is, need to focus on fostering the market mechanisms that promote more competitive and thriving black-owned farms, while also introducing and supporting access to the kinds of training, machinery and farming practices that adequately prepare black farmers to operate commercial grade farms.

Chase the dream, not the competition

That is the problem with the kind of leftism that has gone on to run rampant within the ANC for decades. It diminishes the role of individual talent and enterprise by reducing us all into interchangeable cogs, that can be shuffled around by the state at will with minimal disturbances made to the production processes that inform and produce the output in question. The premium paid to a farm manager is not the sum of their “exploitation” of the lower-paid farm workers, but a share of the productivity gains their expertise unlocks for the whole operation.

By prioritizing ideology over economic reality, South Africa’s leaders have wasted time, money, and public trust. When the country made way for multiparty and multiracial governance in 1994, the ANC had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to channel the goodwill that it had earned nationally and internationally to instigate real change and upliftment. They instead chose to fixate the country’s attention on the past and racial differences. Practicality is what anchors idealism to reality, without it you quickly fly off into the clouds of chaos.

Over 30 years later, South Africa has nothing to show for the racialized politics that have come to define the nation we now know it as today. They have also made enemies with some of the most powerful people in the world as a result, who are now intent on dismantling South African healthcare and trade networks, all the while poaching what’s left of South Africa’s valuable white farming base. Envy is a sin – is it now the ANC’s time to repent?

I have titled it Red Pill Truths about Africa because the assertions challenged have gone on to be uncritically accepted by most of the global African and black Diaspora, along with the African intellectual class. Indeed, increasingly more elements of Western society have moved in a similar direction.

But, the truth has to rein free, irrespective of whether or not it’s popular at the time.

So what is the Red pill?

You might be familiar with the terms red pill and blue pill as a result of their prominent usage in Manosphere circles. Well known social media influencers and YouTubers like Andrew Tate, Better Bachelor, Kevin Samuels, and Rollo Tommasi and their followers use this phraseology to refer to and define what they believe represents successful, masculine males, as well as those perceived as “beta” and “weak” in the modern age.

However, its origins stretch further back and speak more to a philosophy than a given archetype.

In the year of 1999, a sci-fi film called The Matrix was released. It’s responsible for introducing the concepts of the red pill and the blue pill. At the time, the planet was on the verge of ushering in a new millennium. The final century of this millennium - the 20th Century - marked the beginning of the modern world as we know it. The nation-state, the widespread phenomenon of urbanization, air travel, the modern automobile, assembly line manufacturing, space exploration, computer technology and information communication technology, life-saving medicines and vaccines, the Green Revolution, all came of age in the 1900s.

By the end of it, our world had become one, interconnected on a scale and complexity that’s still difficult for a lot of us to comprehend. A person living in 1900 might not have been aware of what lay before them hundreds of miles beyond where they lived, and may have had no discernable way of accessing the kind of information needed to shed light on this glaring blind spot. By the time 1999 came along, children and adults alike virtually everywhere developed an understanding, awareness and connection of the world around them that is now irreversible. Televisions, telephones, radios, computers and the internet enabled instantaneous access, conceiving a new global citizen.

Consequently, such changes pulled more and more of us into a kind of shared reality. The flipside of this evolution is that this new, globally felt reality, its memes, myths, values and customs, have been shaped by a smaller number of centralized entities and institutions.

The influence of Hollywood and pop music, the consolidation of language, the spread of and strengthening of multilateral organizations like the United Nations, the end of the Cold War, the rise of the internet, and the emergence of the modern multinational corporation now means that so many of us - consciously or unconsciously - are reading from the same script. We are as close to belonging to a proverbial Tower of Babel than we ever have been - universality serves as the overarching backdrop of whatever the zeitgeist of the day might be.

In the Matrix film, the red and blue pills both serve as tools and an allegory for the harsh, yet liberating truths of this world (the red pill), as well as the propaganda and constructed half truths that mask what is and manipulate many of us into conformity in one way or another (the blue pill). The movie’s protagonist (Neo), steps into the role as “The One” who has to fight to defend the survival of the red pill world and freedom itself.

The Matrix posits that the overwhelming majority of us have taken the blue pill, opting to participate in one big simulation built and monitored by the technological, cultural and economic forces responsible for centralizing and carving out the new shared reality that we have all absorbed to some degree or another.

Essentially, what you experience, see, hear, touch, taste, smell and feel today is reality but that doesn’t make it real and spontaneous. Advertising and multi-billion dollar marketing campaigns, media, formal schooling and the modern nation-state are steered by a small number of powerful interest groups to manipulate you into believing that what you came to be: when it comes to how you dress, how you speak, what you eat, how you define your dreams, even how you discovered this article of mine that you’re reading right now, were of your own free will.

The Matrix narrative that defines modern African relations

Since then, the red pill and blue pill has gone on to be used as a narrative articulating competing visions and views of a lot of different elements of life and society. In the world of Africana and all things African and Afro-descended, this writer is opening your eyes to the red and blue pills encompassing it.

On one side there is the blue pill: black people, and non-white people in general, have been, and continue to be, subjected to racial and cultural discrimination and oppression. The powers that be operate under an ideology of white supremacy and use it as an instrument to manipulate and control everyone within a racial hierarchy. Colonialism, neocolonialism and racial subjugation are part of an intentional and concerted effort to maintain dominance. Non-white people therefore can expect to lead their life at a disadvantage when compared with white people.

On the other side there is the red pill: what has been categorized and explained as racism and oppression has been misconstrued and sensationalized with the help of the film industry, academia, global organizations and different governments. The motivations behind this lie in a black elite and their partners in crime, who leverage this worldview as a means to controlling and stringing along your actions and thoughts in ways that enrich them, in terms of money, status and power.

By having you buy the okey doke that you as an African or Afro-descended person, are a victim of others, you are in need of their leadership and assistance to make you whole. Instead, you become a mental slave, trapped by the invisible chains of your own mind, not realizing that freedom isn’t free of charge, and that it’s less about the outcome than it is the ability, driven by your liberty.

The blue pill keeps you distracted from and numb to your own individual and collective agency for effecting change. It lulls you into the false belief that the grand solution to your problems lie in the delivery of recompense and atonement by the West. The idea that this mysterious other will deliver this vague “correction” is mere superstition dressed up in intellectual pretense, ultimately, no different than farmers praying to the Gods for rain to help alleviate their hardship instead of looking inward for practical solutions within one’s control.

By tying our fate to the actions of external players we unknowingly create new markets for them by way of outsourcing the work that’s attached to our own efforts. By externalizing the problem, you unwittingly externalize the solution.

The red pill is the acceptance and embrace of liberty, and the responsibilities that come with it. By recognizing that you have been the answer to your questions all along, you illuminate the corresponding clues to unlocking transformation. You can wait to obtain value or you can generate value now, bit by bit, patch by patch.

Do you choose to gather fruits from the forest like our ancestors did tens of thousands of years ago, or do choose to utilize your mind to harness the seeds and land before you to produce for self?

Throughout the following days, months and weeks, I will publish a collection of red pill truths about Africa that will demonstrably shift the way you look at our predicament. You will come face to face with some uncomfortable truths, as well as deep opportunities for growth.

If you choose to take the red pill, you will never look at life in the same way again. The blue pill is predictable, comforting and conventional, but the facts on the ground show us that it’s a dead-end. Taking the red pill is undergoing the painful task of breaking out of your shell to lead your life as an emancipated and sovereign individual.

Which leads me to my next question: are you ready to take the red pill?

Anyway, I present to you Exhibit A and Exhibit B:

Exhibit A

In 1960, a handful of African nations including Egypt, Algeria and Ghana had attained independence. Scores more went on to achieve liberation by the end of the decade. Contrary to popular belief, best exemplified by Walter Rodney's work, 'How Europe Underdeveloped Africa', many newly christened African nations actually started off in a comparatively favourable position relative to the rest of the world.

Indeed, some countries such as Ghana, had inherited considerable infrastructure in the form of schools, hospitals and railroad, thriving industries and deep foreign currency reserves at the beginning of independence.

As seen in the chart above, Sub-Saharan African GDP per capita in 1960 was slightly less than a third that of global GDP per capita. This trend held strong for multiple decades. In 1981, the gap narrowed and minimized the split to the point where global GDP per capita was only 2.6 times more than that of Sub-Saharan Africa's. For better context, if this ratio held true today, then average incomes across this African region would be more than TRIPLE current figures. People would earn almost $15 per day instead of the present estimate of around $5 per day.

In large part thanks to a boom in commodity prices, 1981 represented the zenith of African economic performance.

Exhibit B

From the 1980's onwards, as monetary policy across the Western World tightened, and commodity price pressures eased in response, much of Africa got caught up in a dangerous debt cycle. Debt accrued throughout the 1960's and 1970's became more expensive to repay, right at the time when export revenues from commodities started dropping off.

Debt infused investment carried out by African states into expanding infrastructure, schools and industries also failed to generate sufficient returns largely as a result of inefficient central planning and the widespread misallocation of taxpayer funds.

Growth throughout the continent went on the wane as a result. In 1981, Sub-Saharan African GDP per capita was more than triple that of East Asia & Pacific (excluding high income) and South Asia. But, 20 years later in 2001 the gap between Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia had considerably narrowed, while the gap went in the opposite direction with the East Asia & Pacific region with their average standing at 1.7 times that of Sub-Saharan Africa's.

In 2023, South Asia had already joined East Asia & the Pacific region in eclipsing Sub-Saharan Africa in the realm of GDP per capita. East Asia & the Pacific region's GDP per capita is now 6 times that of Sub-Saharan Africa's - what a difference 40 years can make.

In many ways, what we see a lot of Africa suffering from harkens back to the period of the Dark Ages that occurred all over Europe in the wake of the dissolution of the Roman Empire.

The case of England illustrates this well. As the most advanced and industrialized civilization of the lot, the Romans and their 350 year occupation of England (beginning in 43 AD) introduced practices and built infrastructure that considerably raised the living standards of the English. Concrete roads, sewerage systems, public bathhouses and new water navigation techniques cemented a Roman legacy throughout the country that still persists to this very day.

The Fall of Rome in the late 5th Century sent shockwaves throughout the world. It's actually difficult to put into words how important the Roman Empire was to establishing the foundation of the modern Western World.

If Western powers and civilizations were smartphones, then Rome would be the original iPhone. And tbh, this comparison in and of itself doesn't even do justice to highlighting their true impact! If anything, the legacy of the Roman Empire to the West is akin to an Android or IOS operating system, on which almost all of our modern mobile devices run off of.

Upon the Roman occupiers exiting England, the country plunged into decline with almost immediate effect. The governance frameworks and capacity to govern that had previously held the country together was no longer, food production fell, the litany of technical applications and crafts once taken for granted fell into short supply or were forgotten about altogether. The last of those subsequently prevented England from being able to manufacture the things the population once relied on for a higher quality and less toilsome life: for example, the production of high-quality pottery like the Roman Samian ware ceased, leading to a decline in everyday household goods.

According to historians, it wasn't until some 800-900 years later, during the Middle Ages that English quality of life, in terms of diet intake and life expectancy, caught up with the highs experienced under the Roman Occupation. Advanced techniques of industrial production and trade like water-powered mills, centralized manufacturing, sophisticated metallurgy, and widespread use of concrete, that were once a common sight across England nearly 2,000 years ago, only returned to the country in the late 1700's, at the onset of the Industrial Revolution.

Tying this back into Africa: the impact that colonialism had on Africa is complex, it simply isn't as simple "Everything about European colonialism was bad and it's all their fault that Africa is in its current predicament." Nor was everything about Europe's colonial episode in Africa good, as nations such as the Democratic Republic of Congo can certainly attest to. The matter is multi-faceted, there is no one catch-all answer.

The contents of this piece also serve to highlight that the nature of Africa's plight is not particularly unique to it. Africa isn't cursed and doomed to a fate of poverty and mediocrity. But, much like other regions of the past, it is out-of-step with the demands of a new world at hand, all the while trying to climb its way out of stagnancy with a view obscured by the lofty shadows that still loom on from its colonial past.

I find myself listening to Stevie Wonder’s Rocket Love as my thoughts spill onto this document, key by key. This planet that we have inherited is in a bad, chaotic way: in the midst of a Great Storm, awash with war, pandemics and fragmentation. In less than a month from now the USA’s most consequential election since 1860 awaits us, promising to send us into the second half of the 2020’s with a bang.

Almost everywhere across North America, Europe and the Oceania Region, the doors to the rest of the world are closing, one by one: Australia, Canada, the USA, the UK, Ireland, Germany, Austria, Italy, Poland, Denmark, Sweden. The Post World War 2 zeitgeist is slowly dissipating before us, as the globe that it encompassed becomes unglued. The pressure cooker is close to full blast.

Governments across the developing world are beginning to fold in response - some have fallen apart, while others creep closer to the verge of dissolution with each passing day. Paradoxically, as more instability, infighting and war breaks out, heaping the demand for asylum into the precarious respite of the Rich World, its appetite for such a flow of people wanes precipitously.

In my most recent piece, I carefully laid out why mass migration into the West is a sub-optimal solution for all parties concerned. The sight of more boats arriving on our shores and more new faces settling into our increasingly unaffordable major cities and ill-equipped towns continues to polarize native populations and embolden the more extreme fringes of politics and society. The question now centres around where different nations’ future lie.

On the other hand, what is the long-term solution to this rising tide of movement: is it to throw up walls? Or perhaps, we can build new paths that channel it all in towards more positive and productive uses? From mid-2022 to mid-2023, The United Kingdom recorded an immigration-fueled growth in population of one percent. The highest rate in over half a century, exceeding those of countries like India, Indonesia and Brazil. We actually added people to our country at a rate that was three times faster than our annual GDP growth for a similar period, subsequently making us poorer on a per capita basis.

So I understand what’s at stake. With that said, nationalities and national boundaries aside, these are other human beings we’re talking about. Whom we find ourselves wont to deny entry to for reasons stemming from a mere incidence of birth. There has to be a better way, a third way in private cities.

Private cities: the past and the present

According to the World Bank, private cities (PCs) “designate significant urban areas whose development was associated with at least one large private actor.” PCs operate as de facto and (in some cases) de jure municipalities of sorts. They tend to be managed by private entities and are essentially in the business of governance.

No, you’re not reading an awkward introduction to a sci-fi piece. I’m not describing a concept out of Robocop or Judge Dredd, PCs are real. Examples of them abound across the developing world, including South Africa’s Waterfall City and Steyn City, Kenya’s Tatu City and India’s Gurugram. And they’re only growing in recognition and popularity, with companies like Próspera leading the helm on creating them.

They’re not necessarily anything new either, in many ways the colonialism of yesteryear initially started out as PCs or private territories. Shareholders and employees of the Virginia Company of London completed the landing of the Mayflower 400 years ago (a precursor to the formation of modern America), not English government leaders backed by military forces.

The Dutch East India Company or the VOC owned parts of what are now Malaysia and Indonesia. A number of African colonies, including those of South Africa, Nigeria and most famously, the Democratic Republic of Congo, were also run and ‘owned’ by private entities at one point in time or another. Something that I have previously written about. Indeed, this is the story of most former colonies.

Private actors tended to band together to raise the capital and manpower necessary to launch a hostile takeover of distant lands, with them subsequently requesting the protection and recognition of their newfound colonies from their governments, in a wiley demonstration of asking for forgiveness later rather than asking for permission first.

Fundamentally PCs go beyond the bricks and mortar associated with the term and promise a dynamic governance mechanism. By investing their own money and resources, PC operators and owners have ‘skin in the game’ in a way that is not the case with conventional, municipally-run and taxpayer-financed cities. With these operators boasting the expertise and specialization to dedicate sufficient and targeted bandwidth to raising the quality of the city that increasingly cash-strapped, archaically structured public cities might be unable to compete with.

Such a comparison rings especially true in the developing world, partially explaining why many of them happen to be springing up over there instead of the Industrialized World.

Why can’t we export the governance, legal and technological mechanisms of the most successful economies to the corners of the world most in need of it? Let’s jump into a short case study of a heavily publicized PC in Próspera Roatán.

Próspera Roatán: the model private city

Próspera Roatán is a new private city located on the island of Roatan, Honduras. It functions as a ZEDE (zone for employment and economic development), which is a step above the widely adopted SEZ (special economic zone) in that this development vehicle grants ZEDE operators with a degree of legal autonomy.

The founders and architects of the project include the likes of famed economist Paul Romer, businessman and former Mississippi House of Representative Joel Bomgar and major finance executive Erick Brimen. As a concept, it incorporates libertarian philosophies and elements that promote private sector-led development and city planning. Plans for Próspera Roatán have been in the works since the early 2010’s, with the private city finally getting off the ground on building and development in 2021.

According to Prospera’s website:

the ZEDE framework underpinning the city consists of:

(i) Constitutional Provisions and Acquired Rights
Constitutional protections pertaining to Articles 294, 303 and 329 of the Honduran Constitution grant the “legal, economic, administrative, and political autonomy of ZEDEs” So Próspera Roatán operates with a civil and regulatory code distinctive to that of the rest of the country.

For instance, businesses registered in Próspera Roatán have the options of operating in compliance with national Honduran regulations or those of 20 different OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) member countries1. The city also has its own tax code and sets its own legal minimum wage.

(ii) Legal Stability Agreements
The existence and character of the ZEDE cannot be altered for 50 years as a result of legal stability agreements upheld by the ZEDE Organic law. This is similar to elements of the special lease agreement granted to the British for control of Hong Kong in the mid-19th Century under the Second Convention of Peking.

(iii) International Investment Law Protection
As a US company, Honduras Prospera Inc. is also protected by multiple US and international investment treaties.

The data on Próspera Roatán and economic development

2Over 1,000 acres of land fall under the city, encompassing more than 34,000sqm of finished real estate that is home to 1,700 residents hailing from about 40 countries, who have created over 200 businesses that support 950 jobs largely staffed by locals. Prospera has also added $100 million in growth and economic activity to the island and country.

The city offers visa-free visits for up to 90 days for citizens from countries all around the world, and the local airport (A mere 20 minute drive from Próspera City) provides direct flights from a number of major global hubs.

21st Century Ellis Islands

Here’s a proposal: commission the creation of PCs in accordance with a ZEDE framework on select islands that serve as a third places for would-be migrants, refugees and asylum seekers. The locations would be managed by proven developers and city planners who aim to ease migration pressures through economic development.

War, poverty and the forces of oppressive regimes around the world are contributing to more people testing their prospects abroad. In Africa alone, four million people call refugee camps ‘home’. These safe havens are usually supported and managed by multilateral organizations such as the UNCHR. They act as temporary shelters for individuals and families fleeing from war or persecution, allowing them to rest their heads and regroup for entry into a new nation or a possible return to their home country.

However, lots end up staying in these camps for years, even decades on end as some experience difficulty with migrating elsewhere. Nearby countries might refuse to host them or they lack a safe and secure route to other places, among other issues. It’s not uncommon to meet children and adults who have spent their whole lives in these places.

The camps themselves usually operate with thin resources. Families are nestled in rudimentary tent enclosures, worn-out tin shacks not exceeding 110 sq ft in size, or slightly more spacious container houses and canopies. Often located nearby borders for obvious reasons, inhabitants are lumped into remote, rural areas where they lack regular access to electricity and clean sanitation.

Across Africa, camps tend to be based inland, within rough, arid geographies that make farming without modern technology and tools close to impossible. Leaving them dependent on the assistance of the lead organizers, charity and donations for survival.

The current model unintentionally warehouses refugees. By transforming camps with the PC framework, millions of people are granted the freedom to fully tap into their skills and networks to earn a living with a shot at a decent quality of life.

Over the years, as the international refugee crisis has ballooned due to wars in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan, along with climate change hastening desertification, more organizations and specialists are beginning to turn their attention to reform.

A few years ago, the Brookings Institution released a commentary piece titled ‘Build cities, not camps: A proposal for addressing refugee crises’ that explores implementing a ‘sustainable charter cities-in-exile model’ (SCCEs) that “promote refugees’ self-reliance and facilitate their integration.” It calls for coordination and engagement from governments, international development agencies, multinationals and the broader private sector to create fully functioning and semi-autonomous cities.

An organization called Refugee Cities is dedicated to carrying out Brookings’s vision. They advocate for what they term ‘sustainable development zones’ (SDZs). SDZs promote economic and political participation within a designated area, with them working with countries like Ethiopia and Libya to make this a reality.

To recap, the concept of the PC enables:

1. People the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness;

2. The practice of pro-market values and principles within a noted jurisdiction as modelled and governed by lead private developers and operators;

3. The full embrace of property rights and labour participation, catalyzing production, services, trade and overall economic activity.

PCs also possess a certain level of agility simply not available to governments bound by international treaties and the politics of the day. With accommodating partners, PCs can take hold relatively quick, making a meaningful difference to people’s lives almost immediately. In a migration context, results could represent a complete 180 from the disastrous efforts attempted by recent governments.

Take the UK’s infamous and quashed Rwanda Bill. The recently unseated Conservative Government intended to send people landing in the UK to claim asylum off to Rwanda in lieu of their applications being reviewed. But politics and legal complications meant that after spending what is reportedly nearly $1 billion preparing the holding facilities and accompanying measures, only four asylum claimants were sent as part of the initiative. For the same amount of money, you could have had 10 Próspera Roatáns headed under the PC framework, based on the $90 million of investment which has so far been raised under the project.

Private cities as hubs for investment and migration from the Rich World into developing regions

PCs such as Próspera Roatán have gone on to draw money and settlements from Western and other industrialized countries. Its novel mechanism, light-touch regulations, low taxes and relatively cheap land and properties present lucrative and exciting opportunities for those willing to take the plunge. Different private cities - in cooperation with host governments - can design residence policies that attract entrepreneurs, tradespeople, engineers, educators, healthcare workers and other skilled professions from around the globe.

Such a move facilitates the dispersal and transfer of capital, technology, skills and network connections. An oft overlooked observation is that the migration of people from more economically advanced areas into poorer ones can pay vast dividends. Professionals bring with them their experience and know-how, along with tech and machinery that may not be widely available locally. Starting from the more simple and everyday in smartphones and computers, and sewing machines to the more pivotal relating to farming and building equipment, shelter appendages and more heavy duty industrial and mechanized tools. Addressing infrastructure shortages and unlocking big efficiency gains.

Migration into PCs - particularly within a refugee camp context - also provides additional sources of revenue for the city. Proceeds from land purchases, residency and business permits can be recycled into investing in and upgrading the PC for its residents. For example, Próspera Roatán charges foreign residents (non-Honduran nationals) for annual e-residency permits ($130), as well as resident permits ($1,300) among other charges.

Transforming migrants and refugees from political hot potatos into invaluable assets

As we stand at the crossroads of a fragmented world and a looming migrant crisis, the establishment of private cities offers a visionary yet practical solution. These cities embody the spirit of collaboration between the public and private sectors, creating environments where displaced individuals can rebuild their lives with dignity and purpose. By exporting effective governance, legal frameworks, and technological advancements to regions in need, we not only provide immediate relief but also sow the seeds of long-term prosperity.

Embracing private cities is more than a humanitarian gesture; it's a strategic investment in a more equitable and connected world. Let us seize this opportunity to redefine our response to migration—transforming challenges into catalysts for global progress.

The global migration picture of 2024 and the last 70 years or so has been one of economic migration, mostly from the relatively poorer regions of the southern hemisphere towards those of the richer parts of the northern hemisphere. Countries like the United States, Canada, Germany, France, Australia, South Africa and my home nation of the United Kingdom pack the lists of those planning to make the leap of location.

In fact, millions upon millions settle into the handful of countries listed above annually, but is movement at such scale sustainable or even really desired, from the perspectives of both the destination and emigre places?

According to some, like the globalists of the day, the aforementioned movement of people is a win-win arrangement for everybody involved: host countries benefit from largescale immigration by meeting their worker demands in critical industries like healthcare, hospitality and construction, all the while reaping the rewards tied to the additional spending and economic activity generated by newcomers.

Conversely, the poorer countries that these migrants once called home now essentially have one less mouth to feed, with them adding this person to an increasingly lucrative source of income and foreign exchange in the form of overseas remittances.

Short-term gain for long-term pain

But I don't see it as a win-win arrangement, or at least not in the long-term. The scale of migration that we've witnessed over the last 20 years is actually locking much of the southern hemisphere into a cycle of poverty and dependence, and placing added strain on the resources and infrastructure of the rich world. There has to be a better path to elevated growth and living standards.

Mass migration is nothing more than a band-aid solution to the economic woes felt by nations on either side of the equation. It's a sub-optimal measure that involves bringing in more people to compete within limited spaces for limited markets as more move from the more populated developing world to the geographically smaller and relatively lightly populated rich world.

A more dynamic and sustainable way forward begins with us exploring how the talents and skills of people in developing regions can be best utilized where they are. I think that this is the optimal solution where heaps of people do not need to leave their families and cultures behind in order to simply make ends meet in a new environment that's largely alien to them.

Which country ever got rich off remittances?

The story of China embodies the optimal approach to development and poverty reduction. The Middle Kingdom grew famous for sending Chinese migrants to all corners of the world throughout history. At one point, the Chinese Diaspora ranked as the largest in the world - a title recently taken by the Indian Diaspora.

However, such vast volumes of emigration throughout centuries past did not pay much by way of economic dividends for the country, even if it did for its emigres. Remittances from a large number of wealthy people abroad simply wasn't enough to fix what was a broken economic system.

Only when China took on a form of free market capitalism and opened up its economy to global trade and investment - culminating in its accession into the World Trade Organization in 2001 - that the country was finally able to climb its way out of poverty. And by getting it right at home rather than overseas, China is able to accumulate wealth and raise living standards in a way that simply isn't possible for its Diaspora to supplement in any meaningful way. Remittances aren't going to lift 800 million people out of poverty and add hundreds of millions into the middle class.

The global economy (Africa in particular) is also much better off as a result of the Chinese Economic Miracle. China is the factory of the world and is the second largest importer of its goods and services; the spending power and economic impact of Chinese tourists and students across the West far outweighs that of the Chinese economic migrants in these same places.

Learning from Ireland

A similar case study can be outlined using the example of the Republic of Ireland. Emigration had become a way of life for the Irish ever since the onset of the Potato Famine in 1845. The cultural and ethnic legacy of such massive migration can be seen in the scores of Irish communities and their ancestors found in countries as far as the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom and even Jamaica.

The total number of Irish immigrants and those of Irish descent throughout the globe is estimated at between 50-80 million. A figure that's at least around ten times that of the population of Ireland today. But, despite an Irish-descended US president like John F. Kennedy belonging to one of the wealthiest families in America at the time of his presidency, Ireland itself was still something of an underachiever when compared with the rest of the United Kingdom and the rest of Europe. Its GDP per capita was 75 percent of the UK's as recently as 1992.

Yet, 10 years later the Irish Republic's GDP per capita exceeded that of the UK's. What changed: were the Irish Diaspora suddenly able to come together and provide major economic stimulus for the country? Not quite, what instead happened was that Ireland adopted the euro currency in 1999. This meant that the country adopted the regional currency of the euro, complementing EU membership and a favourable location nearby a much larger economy in Britain. The Good Friday Agreement between Ireland and the UK in 1998 also helped in creating the conditions necessary for economic take-off.

The curious case of the Philippines

Look at the Philippines, their Diaspora is famous the world over. In 2013, over 10 million Filipinos and Filipinas were working overseas, representing 11 percent of the country's population at the time. Remittance flows to the Philippines in 2023 were recorded at $37 billion, making it the fourth largest recipient of remittances in the world.

However, remittances don't seem to be registering much across the country on the development front. The South East Asian nation is still one of the poorest in the region and the whole of Asia, being labelled as a perennial underachiever and the 'Sick Man of Asia' for decades on end.

Economic models that tap into an outlook of abundance, where plans to secure opportunities for growth aren't largely limited to economic sources overseas seem to be delivering. These models prioritize exploiting their homegrown advantages, be that cheap labour and land, language skills, or an advantageous trade and business location, to sell to and attract investment from much bigger markets.

This is why emigration and remittances, no matter how much it continues to grow, will not deliver on development for Africa. We could even argue that they are inhibitions, rather than stimulants of growth for the continent. Hence, the current picture surrounding mass migration from various parts of Africa into different pockets of the world, mostly in Europe and North America, represents a sub-optimal solution to growth for everyone involved.

How mass migration is beginning to hurt host nations:

(i) Foreign labour deployed tends to operate at a relative cost disadvantage

Money spent hiring migrant labour abroad in rich and industrialized countries at much higher wages could go further on a per-dollar basis as investment in the migrant worker's home country. The British monthly minimum wage of $2,400 per month could pay for the work of close to a dozen Nigerian full-time workers on average compared to only employing one of them as an employee in the UK.

(ii) Large scale migration increases the cost of living for the native population

To say this openly is to evoke anger and consternation from some, but I am not too sure why this is the case. The facts are the facts, it's nothing personal. Houses and apartments are not like loathes of bread that can be churned out the instance a new person arrives in a country. Houses almost anywhere in the world take at least four months to build, and sometimes up to a year or more.

These estimates don't even factor in the time taken to get the planning permits required to start in the first place. Developers are required to carry out multiple rounds of feasibility studies and consultations with local stakeholders to ensure that developments protect community interests and their quality of life.

Hence, finalizing and approving the planning process alone can take years (even decades in some cases) to complete for buildings planned in the urban centres of the rich world. And it's these same places (usually consisting of a handful of a nation's major cities) that attract the lion's share of incoming migrants, as many naturally flock to these spots in order to better access good quality schools, general amenities and job opportunities.

How exactly is a country like the UK, who is already falling behind on meeting the housing demands of the native population, then supposed to muster up the means to accommodate an additional 600,000-700,000 people per year?

Well, the UK, and many other places simply don't since the task in and of itself is Herculean. A recent meta-analysis carried out on eight different countries concluded that "On average, a 1% increase in immigration in a city increases rents by 0.5–1%". Such an effect also has the potential to offset a dangerous cycle, where less affordable housing reduces family sizes and a nation's total fertility rate declines as couples have fewer children later. In response, said nation goes back to the wishing well of immigration in order to retain its worker-to-pensioner ratio (in the short-term), only to exacerbate the spiral.

(iii) More intense levels of migration likely to lead to less culturally harmonious and more ethnically fragmented societies

It can be said that migration is to a country what cinnamon is to a meal: moderate additions spice up dynamics and can lead to healthy developments, but too much of it envelops and eviscerates the essence of the dish. Newcomers bring with them new ideas and perspectives, that generate fusion and innovation. Nonetheless, like anything in life, it has its breaking point.

As migration volumes near closer towards a critical mass, clusters of different ethnic communities begin to form and gain momentum. Such heterogeneity of cultures, religions and histories then begins to tug away at what a society might have once identified as a collective memory, common values, customs and quirks. Trust between inhabitants begins to break down and people segregate off and seek security within their own blocs. Blocs that they now have a vested interest in preserving and expanding.

Why it's bad for Africa and other developing regions:

(i) Brain drain, brain drain, and more brain drain

Anyone with a cursory understanding of African affairs - with this applying to many Africans themselves - is very much aware of the adverse impacts that the departure of a large number of its sons and daughters of the soil has on the continent. Culturally and spiritually, the communities and countries that migrants once called home begin to stagnate - they experience brain drain. So systemic flaws and distortions become entrenched as many of those who may have been best placed to shake things up and deliver change are now gone.

It'll be difficult for a country to make any progress on the healthcare front for instance, if a significant share of their best doctors and nurses keep on moving on for supposedly greener pastures overseas. How can a country like Nigeria for example, expect to achieve any real advances in research, training and health outcomes if nearly half of their already highly scarce doctors are not currently practicing in the country?

Data also suggests that the adverse economic consequences for countries exporting so many of their skilled workers can also be steep. A report published by the Pollution Research Group in the early 2000's estimated that it was costing Africa $4 billion a year to replace its outgoing skilled professionals with Western expatriate workers.

This number also doesn't account for the resources ploughed into training and preparing skilled African emigrant workers earlier on in their lives by the country in the form of taxpayer money and manpower. Another, more recent study found that the cost to a country subject to a largescale exit of homegrown doctors can be anywhere between $3.5 billion and $38 billion annually once we consider the excess deaths offset by the resulting shortages.

(ii) Financial remittances might unknowingly increase inequality

Remittances can also contribute to widening a nation's divide between the rich and the poor. Those with the connections, skills and wherewithal to finance travel abroad and land a job tend to come from the more affluent segments of society. Upon migrating overseas and sending money and gifts back home to family and friends, the difference in the financial prospects between those with connections outside of the country compared to those without becomes more pronounced. This reality also feeds into increasing the allure of an escape abroad, perpetuating the broader problem.

Furthermore, for recipient nations that lack many reliable vehicles for protecting and accumulating wealth, as is often the case in lots of countries across Africa and the rest of the developing world, remittances can become inflationary. People are likely to direct some of the remittance proceeds towards financing land and property purchases. Subsequently pushing up land values and driving up rents for everyone else - or the overwhelming majority who own very little valuable land.

(iii) How important are remittances to economic growth?

At about $100 billion per annum, remittance flows into the continent of Africa and the sum of its international aid and foreign direct investment are neck-to-neck in scale.

Yet, over time, as remittances to Africa have grown in size and intensity as the scale of the diaspora continues to increase, growth at home remains subpar. In fact, in 2020 a group of researchers conducted the first meta-analysis of 95 different studies examining the relationship between remittances and economic growth. All in all, it found that the mean effect on growth was positive but small. What is more, the analysis highlighted how remittances seem to aid growth in Asia but not Africa.

Which makes sense once you look at how many African nations are structured economically. Many lack the industrial base to produce a lot of goods locally, so a lot of whatever money received from overseas goes right back out in the form of imports. As noted in the study, since remittances mean larger volumes of dollars being exchanged for different national currencies, this tends to lead to an appreciation in the value of local currencies, possibly contributing to deindustrialization as African manufacturers become less price competitive at home and abroad as well.

The sickness is in the system, and remittances are usually expended on merely keeping its participants above water, by helping friends and families meet immediate consumption needs like accessing food and electricity, or paying off school fees. If Africa is the patient then remittances are the treatment, not going far enough to address the problematic interactions and behaviours that give rise to the continent's ailments in the first place.

In economic terms, money sent back home helps Africa to meet its consumption needs, but does little in boosting its production needs. This could be changed by countries exploring ways to guide remittances to local industry through investment vehicles such as corporate bonds and the stock markets as I have written about here.

Africa needs moderate levels of immigration, not crippling levels of emigration

I would also like to use this article to proffer a policy solution for Africa rarely considered in development circles: the targeted migration of skilled workers into the continent. Many of Africa's leading economies, like Kenya, Mauritius, South Africa, the Ivory Coast and Botswana, also happen to host relatively vast and diverse immigrant communities.

Be it historically or in the present, the positive effects are long-lasting. The migrants coming into these nations are able to apply their industrial and technical expertise in new settings to unlock growth and expansion. For instance, one of the largest manufacturers in Nigeria and probably Africa just happens to be operated by the Lee Group, a Chinese-owned industrial conglomerate that first set-up shop in the country way back in the 1960's. The company employs more than 25,000 workers in 50 locations, working to facilitate skills, knowledge and technology transfers throughout Nigeria.

The presence of Lebanese and Indian communities within Africa has also contributed to expanding the continent's industrial capacity. Mauritius is home to a large contingent of Asian Mauritians and a broader, more transient international crowd, enabling the country to move up the economic ladder and become one of the wealthiest countries in Africa on a per-capita basis.

I would also like to stress that the benefits accrued by this economic transformation are not limited to these communities with foreign connections, as many may perceive them to be on first sight. Africans on the mainland have the option of moving to Mauritius to share in its economic opportunities. Major African corporations like the Afrieximbank and Sanlam Holdings, have tapped into Mauritian equity markets (the ninth largest in the whole of Africa) to finance expansion. Mauritian companies themselves also invest in economies throughout Africa while serving as a convenient point of entry for foreign firms (particularly those from India) looking to breakout into the continent.

An African nation with Western rates of net migration

Botswana serves as another great example of how migration into an African country can be beneficial for the host nation. Recent figures show that Botswana had a net migration rate of 6.51 per 1,000 persons, double that of the USA's 3.28 per 1,000 persons (in terms of legal migration) and about two thirds of that of the UK's 10 per 1,000 persons in 2023. By many counts, Botswana boasts one of the highest net migration rates across the continent as a whole, and is one of the few that records net migration rather than net emigration.

" Foreign workers were aggressively pursued to fill skills gaps in sectors including technology, management, education, engineering, law, and healthcare, and were offered competitive salaries, subsidized housing, cars, health insurance, and free education for expatriate children."

This is by no accident, according to the Migration Policy Institute, for Botswana, " Foreign workers were aggressively pursued to fill skills gaps in sectors including technology, management, education, engineering, law, and healthcare, and were offered competitive salaries, subsidized housing, cars, health insurance, and free education for expatriate children." As a result, the number of foreign residents based in Botswana more than doubled to 60,000 in 2001 (3.4 percent of the population at that time) from 29,000 in 1991. At the same time, the government aggressively invested in educating and training its workers, with recent figures on government spending on education for Botswana being between 8 and 10 percent of GDP, or about double the global average.

Not only did they prepare their youth in the classroom, Botswana also structured the workplace in a manner that would enable the transfer of key skills, best practices and highly prized tacit knowledge from the nation's expat workers to the local workforce. It did so by requiring companies to take on Batswana 'understudies' of sorts, who were trained and groomed to eventually take on the skilled positions held by foreign nationals at the time. Such a policy is not uncommon across many parts of the world.

Indeed, I first learnt of this practice from a friend who worked for the Tesco Shanghai office during my second visit to China as an intern in 2011. The arrangement pays dividends for both the country and the company, with one party gaining an extra skilled worker over time, and the other party eventually being able to hire a local to carry out the job of the foreign worker at more competitive pay.

Mass migration in an age of cheap and fast travel will simply unravel

Mass migration is a sub-optimal solution to global economic challenges, much like pouring more water into an already crowded reservoir—it increases strain without addressing the root issues. While remittances provide short-term relief, they fail to solve the deeper economic problems faced by developing nations. The optimal path lies in empowering people to succeed where they are, by strengthening local industries, investing in talent, and fostering sustainable growth at home. This approach alleviates pressure on host nations while offering a more lasting, resilient solution for global development.

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Where it all Began

A global environment of relatively high commodity prices and low interest rates once again led Africa to the infrastructure well as a means to development across the region.

Such an economic strategy harkens back to the post-independence period when African governments took out massive loans as a way to build the schools, road networks and power generation capacity required to foster growth. However, as global rates began to climb in the 1980's and the price of different commodities started to settle, more countries fell into debt distress. Decades later, Africa is caught in a similar dilemma, calling into question what it is that the continent can do to escape this cycle.

I have previously written about Africa's first regional debt crisis, so throughout this piece we will skip over to the second one that's unfolding before our very eyes. In the late 2000's, interest rates across the USA, the Eurozone and the UK fell to their lowest levels ever in response to the onset of the 2008 Financial Crisis. Overnight, rates fell from between four and five hundred basis points, to close to zero.

The cost of borrowing plunged, and the central banks of the aforementioned countries and regions went on to carry out multiple rounds of quantitative easing. Trillions upon trillions of dollars were created by central banks out of thin air, then used to buy bank IOU bonds from private banks in a bid to shore economies up from their knees, as many across the rich world witnessed regression and recession not seen since the Great Depression.

In the midst of all of this calamity and seismic change, more of the African continent started to dip its sun-soaked toes into what is known as the Eurobond markets. According to Kenyan financial firm Cytonn, Eurobonds are "fixed income debt instruments issued in a currency other than the currency of the country or market in which they are issued, mostly denominated in a currency that is widely traded and accepted globally, like the US Dollar or the Euro."

Africa Discovers the Eurodollar Markets

This EUR 13.2 trillion market enables governments, state-owned and private corporations from every corner of the world to access short and long-term credit relatively simply. With the investors responsible for fueling this market ranging from institutional to retail. Prior to 2006, no African nation - besides Industrialized South Africa - had tapped into Eurobond investment vehicles. But the door into this market for Africa creaked open with a $200 million debt issuance by the Seychelles that very same year. The following year, the door was blown open to the rest of the continent for all to see. A triplet of West and Central African nations in Ghana, Gabon and the Republic of Congo, went on to issue over $2 billion worth of Euro bonds in 2007. More African nations would go on to tap into this market in the following years.

By 2021, 21 countries across Africa were participating in a regional market that had ballooned in size to $136 billion.

A number of push and pull economic factors are behind this meteoric rise:
(i) Higher spreads for Western lenders
Ultra-low interest rates across Western markets meant that investors were faced with negative real returns once inflation was taken into consideration. Simultaneously, institutional investors could borrow at these same rates and then lend it out to sovereign borrowers across the emerging world at a premium. Thus, some looked to African state and corporate Euro bond issuers for higher reserve currency-denominated returns;
(ii) The Noughties and Africa Rising
Growth across the Sub-Saharan African region was relatively high throughout the 2000's, averaging around 5 percent per annum throughout the decade. Leading to higher investor confidence;

(iii) Discounted rates for sovereign African borrowers
While returns of between 5-10 percent were relatively high for Euro bond lenders around the world, global rate cuts and increased investor interest meant that these rates were lower and therefore discounted, for African borrowers when compared to those of prior years. Indeed, looking at the chart below you can see how bond yields fell from close to 10 percent, to around five percent over the next few years.

The rest, as they say is history. African Euro bond issuers raised debt to rollover old debts, balance foreign currency reserves, and to finance major infrastructure projects. Studies show though, that most of this debt was used to support infrastructure investment across the continent. On the face of it, this reads as sensible spending. Figures from the African Development Bank show that Africa has an infrastructure financing gap of around $100 billion. Reliable and consistent power supplies, adequate sewerage and plumbing systems, and extensive road, rail, air and port networks facilitate production expansion via increased efficiency.

Is Capital Investment-Driven Growth Putting the Cart Before the Horse?

On the other hand, this still doesn't drive away from the fact that the execution of many of these initiatives were botched. To begin with, African states leveraged short-term Euro bonds to fund long term infrastructure projects that take time to pay themselves off. Furthermore, the rate at which returns on infrastructure are generated also depends on the revenue model underpinning the project in question.

Are repayments supported by direct charges such as C2B (consumer-to-business) toll fees or B2B (business-to-business) lease payments, or indirect charges tied to general taxation? Something has gone amiss because the continent's debt-to-GDP ratio has increased considerably over the last decade or so. A return of higher rates across the rich world in response to the Russia-Ukraine War related inflationary pressures, coupled with a rising dollar, has now hastened the currents of external debt that Africa now finds itself drowning in.

The African debt cycle is repeating itself, in part due to different issuers' financing models, external economic shocks and nagging structural issues. I will dedicate the remainder of this piece to unpacking the story behind the continent's structural limitations.

In my humble opinion, this is the biggest contributor to Africa's second sovereign debt crisis because, even prior to rate rises and the COVID crisis, many African nations debt-to-GDP ratios were already on the rise. For decades, whether in times of high or low growth, Africa has struggled to create sufficient numbers of jobs to absorb its young and rapidly growing workforce.

Jobless Growth and Urban Change

Indeed, a white paper on Job Creation and Skills Development in Africa highlights how the region is only able to create jobs for three of the twelve million young people entering the workforce every year. Some of the remaining nine million fall into unemployment or drop out of the labour market altogether, but the overwhelming majority of them instead seek economic refuge in informal work, which leads us on to the next piece of this puzzle.

Africa has undergone an urban transformation over the course of the last half a century or so. Sub-Saharan Africa, for instance, was only 15 percent urban in 1960, and home to just one city - Johannesburg - that boasted a population of over one million people. In 2009, there were 52. Sub-Saharan Africa is now 43 percent urban, with the figure for the whole continent likely to exceed 50 percent by 2030. This flood into the cities makes perfect sense, especially when you consider that urban centres within Africa tend to provide "improved access to services, jobs and infrastructure" according to the African Development Bank.

With that said, even the cities are unable to provide most of its residents with jobs, harkening back to this overriding issue of a lack of formal employment. 83 percent of employment in Africa is informal. Informal work is carried out in the black economy through unregistered businesses and doesn't normally show up on official payment systems and tax records. Informal work and informal businesses are only 25 percent as productive as formal businesses, while formal, above the table firms that subsequently face competition from informal companies are only 75 percent as productive as those without such competition.

This weighs down growth across the continent. This is the case because the lack of record keeping and verifiable data available amongst them makes it more difficult for banks to assess their creditworthiness. Which in turn limits informal traders access to more affordable credit at greater quantities. As a result, many are unable to leverage debt to acquire the kind of productivity boosting machinery, tech and other forms of capital needed to truly grow and make money. Hence, the near synonymous association between informal trade and 'small time', low-level, precarious enterprises, better known as 'hustles'.

Furthermore, while informal firms rely on public services and infrastructure like roads, clean streets and sewerage works just as much as anyone else, their economic invisibility makes them more difficult to tax, creating a shortfall in tax revenues that African governments are increasingly looking to indirect, consumption based taxes (that disproportionately affect low-income earners and the poor) to fill.

Relatively large markets and the better infrastructure of cities and surrounding towns in Africa might be contributing to a 'bright lights' effect, where more people leave farm work in their villages behind for a better quality of life in the city, albeit in unproductive, informal economic activity.

Higher quality and more extensive infrastructure stock also both increases the appeal of urban areas and facilitates more rural-urban migration. As more road, rail and airport connections more effectively enable travel between the countryside and the city.

Going Beyond Insanity

Put another way, much of the continent has borrowed a lot to bolster goods producing capital, only to attract more inefficiently deployed labour, leaving it bereft of the sufficient jobs needed to sustain growth and the tax receipts necessary to service, and eventually pay down debts. Formal employment is a must for Africa, one common source lies in manufacturing - a sector that most of the continent has failed to expand, but has to if it ever wants to escape the low-income trap. In my next few articles, I will attempt to tackle the million dollar question as to how the region does this.

Kenyans are right to be angry and frustrated about these proposed taxation measures. Real wages are declining in Kenya, so these taxes will only make people poorer, especially when it comes to the wananchi of the country.

A conversation needs to be had about the underlying issues at play here though. Under the Uhuru government, piles of debt were taken on in order to build and improve infrastructure, among other things. Examples include the construction of the country’s 700km long Nairobi-Mombasa standard gauge railway (SGR) line in 2017. The bill for this is about USD$5 billion, with the bulk of it financed by borrowing. Over 9,000km of tarmacked road was also built from 2012-2022. Kenya's debt-to-GDP ratio grew from around 40 percent in 2012 to about 70 percent in 2023 as a result.

Kenya’s economy has been growing, but not fast enough to account for population growth. Productivity rates have failed to keep up with debt growth, preventing the country from growing its way out of it all.

It's safe to say that the infrastructure spending didn't generate the returns we were all expecting. I have to admit that I was once firmly in the infrastructure over everything camp, and now realize that it's not a silver-bullet, nor even a sure shot to economic development and success.

So this brings us to the hard question of how exactly is Kenya going to repay all of this debt? The money has to come from somewhere, where do we propose?

Economist David Ndii seems to have had the last laugh here. As he might be on to something when he argues that more resources need to be invested in education and skills training, along with agriculture. As someone who spent nearly three years living in Kenya, I have some insights of my own to provide here.

From what I know and have experienced of my time there, I think that the Kenyan government and other African governments need to reduce state involvement in the economy. This would at least help reduce the size of the civil service wage bill over time. This is something I have written on in the past in my article on why Free Markets in Africa are Integral to Growth and Levelling up.

It also needs to be made easier for people and foreign investors in particular, to set-up businesses on the ground across the nation. While I was in Kenya, I wanted to collaborate with my family and friends abroad in the UK, the USA and elsewhere to launch businesses and different initiatives in the country, but the immigration restrictions, rules on foreigners doing business in Kenya, along with the general lack of clear info and transparency on the rules concerning everything ended up discouraging me from seriously pursuing anything.

This is not just about an individual president, it's bigger than that. African governments have been relying on publicly financed big infrastructure and energy projects to generate high growth, but such efforts will continue to be undermined if little is done to promote private sector development.

Private businesses and jobs fund the government, not the other way around. Expect to see more of these protests and rebellions spread across Africa in the next couple years, as governments continue to impose a succession of taxes on their citizens in order to repay their debts amidst a macroeconomic environment of low growth and depreciating currencies.

The point of the quote goes beyond mere trivia though as it shines a light on the rationale behind the point of the closer of this article series: the twins of learned helplessness and the victim mentality.

The concept of Learned helplessness is best illustrated by the experiment that gave birth to it in the 1960’s. In this study, dogs were placed inside a shuttle box divided into two by a small barrier. The first half of the barrier was free of any interventions, a harmless, innocuous sectioned space which the dog would jump over. However, once the dog made its way to the second half of the shuttle box it would receive a painful electric shock. Afterwards, the same affected dogs would be placed into another shuttle box that was split into two - only this time, no electric shock was applied to the second half. The results were that the dogs, traumatized by their past experiences, refused to ever venture into the second half for fear of receiving another shock. Their past experiences went on to define their current, and future trajectory.

We could argue that a similar phenomenon can be seen in some people, who unfortunately find themselves prisoners to their trauma in spite of what things have come to be now. Learned helplessness feeds into self-victimization, as some individuals go on to believe that their fate is largely decided by circumstances beyond their control, with them increasingly looking at life through the prism of an external locus of control. This tends to leave the person looking outward, rather than inward, for solutions to their problems. But, in doing so they’re probably less likely to successfully tackle their problems resulting in more shortcomings. Subsequently serving to confirm and even justify their learned helplessness, setting off a vicious, self-reinforcing cycle.

The opening quote highlights the fear that we all exhibit at times when it comes to fulfilling our human potential and pursuing our dreams. Looking at ourselves in the mirror and admitting that we might be the problem is hard to do. It’s difficult to acknowledge failure and the fact that we can, and more importantly, aren’t necessarily doing better. But, such introspection and self-accountability serves a purpose in that figuring out your failures and weaknesses better positions you to identify how you can succeed moving forward. In order to bounce back and get back on your feet, you need to first find them.

This is where the internal locus of control comes into play, enabling you to understand, identify and find ways to bend the universe to your will, and adapt your environment to your needs. It’s this ability that is the lifeblood of the human spirit and it is what sets us apart from the rest of the animal kingdom. All the way back to our days of making and manipulating fire, to today where we have gone on to occupy outer space and innovate medicine that regrows human limbs.

With that said, we still have individuals and communities out there who unknowingly subscribe to a mindset which comfortably rests in the external locus of control. This includes one too many of the people who look like me: African descendants.

The last 500 years have not been kind to us: slavery, the slave trade, colonialism and racial discrimination have reared their ugly heads in, defining much of our existence for many of us, consequently leaving us battered, bruised and traumatized. Nonetheless, bruises eventually form into battle scars, and carry with them lessons for the future.

And the longer those of us refuse to embrace them, take ownership of our lives, and begin the journey of rehabilitation and reform by becoming the captains of our ships and the masters of our fates, the longer the words of mine and countless others fall on deaf ears and we continue to wonder, what happened?

Since the 1960’s, as African nations began the march to liberation and independence on one side of the ocean, and black people and black descendants won the battle for full equality under the law on the other side, a peculiar narrative has formed and come to dominate the popular imagination.

The narrative of racism and the black plight has inculcated the minds of a lot of African descendants, as well as others. More than a few of us have adopted it as our worldview, with us viewing almost everything through the lens of race, racial hierarchy and white supremacy.

This mindset has too many followers to count. It is also supported and propelled by a vast expanse of industries ranging from music and entertainment, media and journalism, academia, political and social activism, and corporate CSR repackaged under the terms ESG (environmental, social and governance) and DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion). Each year, billions of dollars are thrown into advocating this message.

A message that not only divides and separates us from other ethnicities, but from ourselves. African descendants who openly oppose this view, or are not seen as speaking out for it are usually ostracized in ways that are both big and spectacular, and smaller, and more pernicious in nature too. In particular, black conservative voices, the racially oblivious among us, and even those who may pursue hobbies or interests that fall outside of what has been deemed the ‘black experience’ can end up falling victim to this. This, in turn has the bleak effect of restricting the human ingenuity that we can tap into for mobilization, collaboration and development.

For instance, black conservative voice Candace Owens has the largest podcast of any woman in the world. She founded the Blexit Movement, and is dedicating her life to creating an alternative space for black people to engage each other and cooperate in. And time and time again, she has shown a willingness to make inroads with her many black detractors, most recently seen in her interview with popular US urban radio station and media platform, The Breakfast Club earlier this year. With all that said, in a stunning example of how Black Excellence is selectively applied, you will not hear much about her in the black mainstream, and what little you do hear is usually seasoned with condescending speech laced with racial epithets.

It serves to highlight what has been aptly put by black American commentator for the Wallstreet Journal, Jason Riley as wartime thinking. Too many African descendants - especially those inhabiting the Western World - navigate through life under these presupposed conditions. The result being that precious energy and time that could be better directed to capacity and community building is instead expended on preparing for battle and confrontation with the ‘other’. And ethnic members seen as not being entirely onboard are then culled as a means to reinforcing the troops.

Now, it somewhat made sense for many of us to take on this doctrine in yesteryears, when that was all a lot of us knew as that was what we had so extensively been exposed to.

However, over half a century has elapsed since then. We are now in a period of relative peace. Indeed, in that time, we have seen an African descendant twice elected to lead the most powerful country in the world, millions upon millions of us can now be found in all professions, trades and fields everywhere on the planet. Our musical heritage is the soundtrack to humanity, and we’re just getting started.

We, 1.8 billion souls in all corners of the globe, bound together by our African ancestry, are not victims, together, we are powerful beyond measure. Our time is now!

And right now, our present and future is fought between two competing narratives: Africa Rising and the foreboding spectre of neocolonialism. The former is rooted in Africa and African descendants taking the reins of business and enterprise, technology, and arts and culture to etch a bright existence for its abundant youth. The latter, insists we relive our traumas by preoccupying itself with the past, and seeking salvation in vague political and institutional solutions, working to minimize the role that we as individuals, families and societies have in shaping our own destiny.

I would argue that nothing better sums up the chasm between these two competing narratives than a video produced by YouTuber Mr Beast that recently went viral. The White American social entrepreneur traveled to multiple parts of Africa, donating money and equipment to build 100 wells in rural villages. Access to fresh water supplies is the basis of life. Those villages are now in a position to use clean water without fear of contracting fatal diseases. It will also be directed to irrigating local farms, helping to improve food security and raise the incomes of the locals. Irrespective of what Mr Beast’s underlying intentions may have been - this should be viewed as a hand up, not a hand-out.

While many (likely those more amenable to the Africa Rising narrative) cheered this initiative on and took it as inspiration to do more to make changes in whatever way they can, there were also the usual naysayers and haters. A lot of these were African descendants, who were mostly stationed abroad and/or led relatively comfortable lives. They threw the usual attacks of him being a ‘white saviour’, only concerned with exploiting Africans for his own personal gain. It was a disappointing sight to see, even the more cynical among us should at least use it as motivation and research material for similar initiatives of our own. But what we got instead were crabs in a barrel pulling down the few who are actually doing something.

Change starts from within and shapes everything we interact with thereafter. The twins of the victim mentality and learned helplessness have to be absolutely obliterated away from our cultures. Because by externalizing the causes of our misgivings, we also unknowingly externalize the solutions. Fortunately, a ray of hope amongst us shines through, that possesses the power to part the dark clouds and open our horizons. And it’s the Africans of the Motherland themselves.

With a median age of 19, which is 11 years below the global median and 25 years below (or more than half) that of the European Union’s, most Africans are growing up in what many of us would deem as a post-racial world. Most of them don’t even remember when Barack Obama was elected to the presidency, they were entering their teenage years when the first Black Panther was released. The date of birth for a 19 year old in 2024 is 2005, the same year that arguably the biggest female popstar of the 21st Century in Rihanna, first debuted into the Big Time. What was seen as exceptional for older age cohorts is simply normal for most Africans.

Not only that, as I have touched on in past articles, the average African is a 21st Century kid. Or, what I like to call the Smartphone Generation. Therefore, the Africa that they’ve lived through and experienced is worlds away from the one that older Millennial, Gen X and Boomer generations witnessed, whether from up close or from afar. Africa now has its own billionaires, tech giants, investment gurus, global popstars and actors and big-time social media influencers. Again, I really have to reiterate that this is not the Africa of the 1990’s and 1980’s.

Not only that, the Smartphone Generation within Africa also only knows what was - until very recently - a globe in which the United States ruled as the sole world superpower. The English speaking African youth speaks it with an American twang, consumes American music and film and educates themselves with mostly American educational and training content. Polls also show that Africans largely view the USA very positively, there are four million members of the African Diaspora in the United States too.

My experiences interacting with African youth during my travels across the continent imparted on me an impression of a culture that has inherited the American can-do attitude, their slight naive sense of optimism, along with the belief that everything can be made into a business. They believe that they can do anything and that life is about the pursuit of happiness. The African youth flick on their smartphones and laptops and only see a world of opportunity and manufactured riches emblazoned across their WhatsApp, Facebook and TikTok feeds - they’re young, hungry and bursting at the seams with energy. They’ve learnt not to expect anything from their governments, get it how you can is the motto. In other words, the African Smartphone Generation doesn’t have time for pissing and moaning about past gripes and historical injustices and distant politics.

I think that African youth are firmly in the Africa Rising camp. Maybe, as Africa’s prominence on the world stage continues to elevate, this narrative will overpower the countless grains of sinking sand that help the misguided beliefs of neocolonialism and racial injustice spread and survive, and pull us under.

Bearing this in mind, with all their energy and initiative, youth still need guidance and preparation for the world ahead of them. The African Diaspora can fill these shoes, I really do believe and almost feel like I know this, the question is, do you?

The African Diaspora needs to take the lead in promoting the continent’s business and investment prospects around the world. This means more social media content, community initiatives, talks and workshops dedicated to dispelling myths and enlightening the broader public about the African continent as it now stands.

Selling Africa abroad

While we’re beginning to see a slow reversal and reform of global perceptions of Africa as a whole, so many non-Africans - and a significant share of Africans themselves - have come to internalize an image of a Godforsaken, war-torn, poverty-stricken and helpless region.

Decades of negatively slanted media coverage and fundraising campaigns led by international charities, have inked the pictures of poor, desperate families cradling wailing, malnourished babies with oversized heads and stomachs in the popular imagination. My generation in the Millennials and others before us throughout the globe have only been exposed to this narrow, and rather crude narrative surrounding Africa for the most part.

Such depictions were most prominent throughout the 1980’s and 1990’s. The Volcker Shock period of the 1980’s was marked by high interest rates in the US and globally, as well as an appreciating dollar. This spelt bad news for many African nations who had racked up large US-dollar denominated debts in the post-independence years of the 1960’s and 1970’s. At the time, new African governments undertook milestone national projects and pursued a rapid, and targeted expansion of schools and hospitals, in response to the demands and needs, of a freshly liberated electorate.

A lot of these projects were financed by government borrowing from abroad. As rates rose globally throughout the 1980’s, the continent fell further and further into economic despair. By 1987, the external debt to GDP average calculated for Sub-Saharan Africa’s most affected countries was 81%. Today, only one small island in Africa has an external debt to GDP percentage hovering within that range, while the average for the region as a whole is now only about 27%.

Back then, debt distressed governments turned to the international community for debt relief, and were presented with Structural Adjustment Programs aka SAPs. SAPs required recipient governments to agree to World Bank and IMF (International Monetary Fund) macroeconomic policy prescriptions. These included heavily curtailed spending on public services, the stripping away of business regulations and protectionist measures, as well as pushing for lower tax rates for private firms. The idea was that such tweaks would boost growth and decrease the real burden of the debt over time.

Nevertheless, external debt continued its upward trajectory. It seemed as if silver bullet emblazoned SAPs didn’t make much of a difference to anything, but they did make a world of a difference to Africans on the ground. They had become victims of the abandoned social programs and services inflicted by cash-strapped governments. A lot more of Africa subsequently became more vulnerable to economic and political shocks. Throughout the 1980’s and 1990’s, horrible famines in Ethiopia and Somalia, the breakout of an AIDs epidemic, and a barrage of military coups and civil wars, contributed to the development of extremely negative perceptions of Africa by people and communities the world over.

Indeed, many of us still look at the continent through these lenses. But, perception and reality are not always one and the same. In the late 2000’s, we saw the inception of a new, ‘Africa Rising’ narrative. Rising commodity prices that were supported by an Asian growth and trade boom in the 2000’s, widescale debt forgiveness, and improved macroeconomic management across the Motherland, have created a prospering Africa. A lot of us outside the continent weren’t - and still are not - up to speed with this new Africa and need educating.

Put simply: this is not the Africa of the 1990’s or 1980’s. We are worlds away from that. And we have to inform and reassure the global public about this. Economic growth has been consistent across the continent as a whole for nearly 30 years. With each passing decade ever since then, Africa has only become richer, healthier and more technologically advanced.

I know, this sounds a lot like a “things will be different this time.” kind of piece, but perhaps they are. What makes me say this? Well, even over the last couple decades, shocks that would have had the power to completely debilitate Africa in the past, fail to snuff out the flame of a rising Africa today. The continent has been hit with multiple civil wars, the headwinds of the 08' Global Financial Crisis, Ebola and then the effects of a global pandemic and cost of living crisis. The sky isn’t falling down, we’re still yet to see the region descend into the same scale of chaos and disarray of that earlier age, as it enters a new chapter in its growth story.

Again, this is not the same Africa that you grew up with. The Africa of the 1980’s and 1990’s was home to newly formed, independent nations. Prior to that, the overwhelming majority of Africans lived as farmers, within smaller ethnic groups and communities out in the villages. The harsh geography of the continent also made it difficult for people to gather and organize on a large scale, all the while isolating different groups from one another and the rest of the world.

Independence thrusted a lot of Africa into a modern and mechanized world, with tools alien to it and its way of life, as part of a unit of randomly paired members. The period of rule that followed it needs to be remembered as a learning phase for and introduction to survival in the globalized, rules-based and market-orientated New World Order.

Africa was much more vulnerable to external shocks and political instability because, back then, its foundation was untested and immature, and much weaker as a result. For instance, in 1975 universities in Sub-Saharan Africa had 181,000 students enrolled for study. 181,000 students on the path to receiving a tertiary education to help them serve the needs of a continent bursting with nearly 340 million people at that time. A lot of governments and businesses across the continent seriously lacked the quality manpower that the successful operation of complex economies are contingent upon.

But that was the Africa of old, it’s a completely different story today. Sub-Saharan Africa’s student population alone has grown fiftyfold (to about 9 million since the 1970’s, with the population only witnessing a fourfold increase over the same period.) In addition to this, 430,000 Africans (Sub-Saharan) are also studying abroad.

The Africa of today has a much vaster pool of high quality labour to support growth and development. People with exposure to alternative systems within and beyond the continent abound. Businesses have evolved and are multiplying to expand and create different markets. The management expertise, understanding of systems thinking and systems planning, handle and application of science and technology found within the continent today is simply more capable of carrying out the vision of leadership, and working to new and evolving decision-making mechanisms.

Zambia’s recent renegotiation of its Chinese debt exemplifies the evolution in African leadership and governance well. For those reading who may not know, Zambia has been experiencing quite a lot of debt issues as of late. They’re one of the only African nations to default on their foreign debt obligations, but if you were not told, you really would not be able to catch on. Growth for the last two years has been over five percent, plus its stock market valuation recently hit an all-time high. And it’s no wonder, Zambian leadership somehow managed to restructure its debt to deliver a deal that was widely hailed as ‘historic’. The country renegotiated down interest repayments on what could be close to half of its total debt from an average of 3.9% to one nearing 1%.

Quite the feat it was, demonstrating how much more attuned Africa’s leaders have become to the world of economics, business and finance. Hakainde Hichilema, the President of Zambia, is an economics graduate who formerly served as CEO of the Zambian branch of Price Waterhouse Coopers, and is listed as the country’s second largest cattle-rancher after all. He used his excellent business and management skills to identify the pressure points in the arrangement, and exploited any leverage that was available to him. He understood that Zambia exports billions of dollars worth of raw materials and products to China. He was very likely also wise to the fact that China is heavily reliant on copper to fuel its manufacturing and infrastructure building, and as the ninth largest producer of the resource on the entire planet, Zambia has lots of it.

More of the world is also beginning to take note of an Africa Rising. Africa was admitted into the G20 last year, as world leaders, corporations and us ordinary folk everywhere engage with Africans with a new sense of hustle, curiosity and optimism. Indeed, as Africa’s population (its young, urban population in particular) continues to surge, its appeal as a big consumer market, and an even bigger labour market - complete with over 600 million English, French and Portuguese speakers - in an ageing world, will position the continent as a major geopolitical battleground in the decades ahead.

This is particularly apt in light of a global order that’s increasingly fragmenting into one defined by multipolarity. Western European nations and once colonial masters like the United Kingdom, France, Italy and Germany are now ramping up their political, economic and cultural efforts throughout Africa. But, they’re increasingly having to contend with rival great powers such as China, Russia and India. While countries across the Middle East like the UAE and Saudi Arabia are also beginning to emerge as big players across the African landscape.

Global Investor and business appetite for the continent is deepening. With more foreign investors, companies and nation states expressing their interest in Africa, organizations and individuals within the African Diaspora have a key, incomparable role to play in how this new energy is channeled. Exposure to different cultures and business practices abroad, anchored by the development and knowledge of new networks and languages, reserve a crucial role for the Diaspora in brokering global partnerships and cooperation that creates good business for all stakeholders involved.

In my lifetime, I have only had one conversation with an African about anything relating to Africa’s dozens of stocks and bonds markets. The other occasions when I have had the pleasure to chat with others about it, have been with non-Africans. It’s difficult to become wealthy if you’re not privy to the vehicles of wealth. Stocks and bonds are perhaps the greatest creators of wealth in history, everyone within the African Diaspora would do better to take heed to, and act on this reality, here’s how.

Inspire national action via African bond markets

As of July 2020, nearly 40 African governments were active in global sovereign bond markets. In total, local currency denominated sovereign bonds and foreign currency denominated sovereign bonds throughout the continent were valued at $1 trillion over the same period.

Why can’t the Diaspora become more invested in African bond markets? Competitive returns within a fast-growing, urbanizing region can increase Diaspora wealth while also promoting development for the continent. For instance, the Ethiopian Diaspora contributed over $50 million to Diaspora bonds used to finance the $5 billion construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam. This national project has turned into a great success for Ethiopia, to the point that they now export surplus electricity to other African countries. Indeed, electricity is now becoming so cheap and available that a rising number of Bitcoin miners are relocating to the country.

On top of this, the nature of bond purchases and the market overall could help get the Diaspora more invested and more pro-active in regards to the state of affairs of the homefront. It’s one thing to give money away to family members in instant remittances, the tempo changes when your savings or part of your pension pot are invested in the bonds of your country of origin. Now there’s more skin in the game, as more people begin to take a liking to those annual checks. Passive income necessitates active engagement.

Channel funding for African entrepreneurs through African stock exchanges

Speaking of passive income, this brings us on to one of the most potent and accessible forms of passive income known to humankind: the stock markets. In fact, in 2023 global equities markets' value of $109 trillion actually exceeded that of total global GDP for that same year. It’s worth remembering that the companies listed on stock exchanges all over the world only represent a tiny, tiny modicum of all enterprises on the planet, speaking to the potency and ingenuity of flotation and the public limited company.

While stock exchanges have been in existence for over 200 years, it wasn’t really until the 1980’s that they began to typify the corporate world, the world over. Deregulation, deindustrialization, globalization, and waves of privatization across the globe left banking and finance with a boatload of free real estate, waiting to be parked up in equity markets.

For some perspective, total market cap for all publicly traded stocks in the world was $2.5 trillion (or approximately $10 trillion when adjusted for inflation) in 1980, it’s now over $100 trillion.

With the right legal framework and relaxation of capital controls, stock exchanges serve as an excellent vehicle for financing and guiding enterprise growth and development. The African Diaspora can access African stock exchanges, and tap into listed companies as a new, budding source of wealth while also providing a financial springboard for African leaders of industry.

As we speak, Africa is in the midst of an urbanization boom. As more of the population shifts from the countryside into the cities, wage workers with disposable income multiplies. The consequences of such consequential changes are a burgeoning construction industry and elevated consumption levels. Anyone who has visited anywhere in Africa, within its urban expanse over the last ten years can attest to the sight of houses, apartments, skyscrapers and malls erected everywhere. Every city and ambitious town has plans for hosting new property developments, tourism centers, luxury hotels and schools and universities. And it’s companies who will have to make all of this happen - more will increasingly look to local stock markets to fund such ventures.

As they grow, their company shares will move in a similar direction. That’s why it’s of no surprise to see that the Nigerian Exchange Group (NGX) registered as the 4th best performing stock index in the world. The value of the Malawi Stock Exchange has grown by 143% over the course of two years. Even when you factor in the national rate of inflation, along with the fact that the Malawian Kwacha has depreciated against the USD by approximately 60% over the same period, valuations still comfortably rest in the green. Similar effects are at play with the Egyptian and Zambian stock exchanges too.

Such rapid growth makes sense as you prod further and further into the numbers as well, as a catch-up process is currently at play. African stock exchanges - when taken as a whole - are valued at about $1.6 trillion. $1 trillion of that value, or over 60%, is swallowed up by one stock exchange alone: South Africa’s JSE (Johannesburg Stock Exchange). The second largest stock exchange in Africa is Morocco’s Casablanca Stock Exchange at $60 billion. The gap between first and second place here is massive, especially when you consider that South Africa only has a population of 60 million. Implying humongous room for growth for all of Africa’s stock exchanges.

The Diaspora can be a part of these breakneck developments. As we have already mentioned, they can plug more capital into these exchanges, supporting their growth while enjoying the fruits of their investment. Not only that, The Diaspora can use their international networks, banking and legal expertise to help facilitate the sustainable expansion of the continent’s exchanges.

One last point to add, as the profile of numerous African stock exchanges go up, their role in efficiently allocating resources throughout different African economies will increase as well. In the future, the health of these exchanges will serve as very important indicators for the shape of a country’s economy. With this having the potential to influence the consumption and investment decisions of individuals, firms, institutional investors and governments alike. Diaspora investment at the early stages would leave the community in a strong position to exert pressure on governments or other institutions they feel happen to be going in the wrong direction.

If you enjoy well-researched and thought provoking content on a rarely covered region of the world, then please join my Africa Discussions Telegram group. Here, you can chat with and learn more about everything happening on the continent from other likeminded people and thinkers.

In the prior instalment of this four part and nine piece series on how the Diaspora can awaken Africa’s sleeping giants, we explored how the Diaspora’s $100 billion annual remittances could be further leveraged and monetized. Now, we venture beyond the world of remittances and get stuck in cryptocurrency, and the need for a modern, more organized and multi-pronged approach for Diaspora political engagement and advocacy.

Cryptocurrency and Web3 for Africa

Blockchain mechanisms and Web3 tech provide the African Diaspora with a toolkit apt for organizing on a large scale across borders, and wealth accumulation. Cryptography ensures that all transactions under a particular cryptocurrency or token cannot be duplicated, are irrevocable, and are difficult to fake. Key transaction information is also stored on different blockchains, which can easily be accessed on the web for verification.

Web3 refers to a new ecosystem of activities and services where everything is stored on the blockchain. dApps (decentralized apps) enable transactions to be conducted in Layer-2 tokens, which can then be exchanged for Layer-1 cryptocurrencies like Ethereum, Polygon and Solana. Layer-1 cryptocurrencies are relatively simple and cheap to exchange for fiat currency (money) on centralized exchanges like Coinbase, Binance and Kraken, or decentralized exchanges such as Metamask.

The Diaspora has an opportunity to pool its money and expertise into organizations and movements underpinned by crypto infrastructure. dApps, smart contracts and the tokenization process is relatively straight-forward practically speaking. Indeed, this explains the upsurge in memecoins over the last few years.

Crypto is a nascent technology that might hold the keys to Diaspora expression of cultural, social and artistic thought in relation to Africa and beyond.

Create tactical voting blocs as a means to influencing policy and electoral outcomes

In African countries where overseas nationals enjoy the privilege of registering to vote from abroad, their diaspora should vote, and vote with intention, as often as they can. African states that are yet to extend such a right to their nationals overseas, like Nigeria for example, should be held to task and made to reconsider.

Africans overseas can combine their votes with their considerable finances to lobby for changes and new solutions in domestic politics. Options could range from using the Diaspora’s considerable financial resources and networks to field and support local candidates, and set-up new political parties and movements on the ground across Africa. This could extend to creating and financing new political ecosystems in respect to the development of policy think tank. Helping to sharpen and expand the policy toolbox and vocabulary both local politicians and citizens rely to inform governance and implementation.

The follow-up piece to this spends time exploring Africa’s bond and stock markets, which arguably represents the most effective, and lucrative way for the Diaspora to yield transformative change.

If you enjoy well-researched and thought provoking content on a rarely covered region of the world, then please join my Africa Discussions Telegram group. Here, you can chat with and learn more about everything happening on the continent from other likeminded people and thinkers.

Let’s get down to business. The New African Diaspora (whom we will refer to as the African Diaspora or Diaspora from now on) has more options than it seems to know what to do with. As we will see, the energy and resources are there in abundant supply, but a clear policy framework for converting resources acquired abroad into sustainable development at home in Africa is missing. Whatever this framework ends up looking like, it needs to centered around the three pillars of economic success, where global trade (gt) and foreign direct investment (fdi) integrated with technological adoption (t) leads to growth (G).

The follow-up on this framework is not just political, but also commercial in nature. Currently speaking, a lot of engagement on the front of the African Diaspora is state-led. Whether it relates tourism campaigns, relaxing visa requirements for African non-nationals, and the general acknowledgement of the Diaspora and their importance to the growth and wellbeing of the continent, African governments are making efforts.

We can’t say that they aren’t, nonetheless, it isn’t feasible, nor is it wise, to wait around for governments anywhere to initiate substantive change or action. Furthermore, even if they wanted to, most African governments already have their hands full on the domestic front. African nations are busy fighting terrorism, climate change, and poverty - the political, intellectual and technical bandwidth necessary to get things off the ground right now is stretched.

Change and activity has to spring at the grassroot level, from the bottom up, by the tens of millions of African Diaspora found all over the planet. The Diaspora has the technology, expertise and networks to make it happen, let’s examine how:
Exercise more of the leverage tied to Diaspora remittances.

The $100 billion sent by the African Diaspora back home each year in remittances is 2x the amount given to the continent in international aid. And with each passing year, as more Africans from the cities and villages continue to migrate within and outside of the continent, the annual sum of remittances will only continue to grow. Indeed, $40 billion was sent in remittances in 2011. The figure was as small as $20 billion in 2001. I predict that the figure will grow to $200 billion by the time 2040 rolls along, and judging by the trends, potentially sooner.

Based on Diaspora remittances spread across a population of 40 million, if you took the Diaspora as a country then it would be the 8th largest in the whole of Africa. Ahead of African nations like Angola, Tanzania and Ghana. In the case of Sub-Saharan Africa, $53 billion worth of remittances earns the region more foreign currency than that of its gold, copper and rhodium exports combined.

The sheer importance of Diaspora remittances to the survival and stability of Africa cannot be understated. It’s for this reason that the Diaspora should consider using such funds to leverage more accountability from governments and national institutions. A burden of performance of sorts should be tied to the receipt of all of this cash. Make it count for something and value it.

Monetize Diaspora remittances.

This can be done in two ways: by incorporating fractional reserve banking into mobile money platforms and infrastructure, and by venturing into the wild world of cryptocurrency.

The first approach would arguably be the easiest from the standpoints of technicalities and user familiarity. Fractional reserve banking refers to the practice of banks taking a portion of your deposit and lending it out to others, typically with interest. The recipient of the loan your bank deposit is funding will then have their account credited - or paid into - this debt financed cash now sitting in the borrowers account will be lent out, and the cycle will repeat itself over and over again.

Mobile money providers across Africa should integrate this core banking practice into their payment platforms and business models.

Africa leads the world when it comes to mobile money. According to the Global System for Mobile Communications Association (GSMA), Sub Saharan Africa alone has nearly 250 million active mobile money account users spending $912 billion annually. This number will only continue to grow moving forward, and there may come a time where the number of Africans holding mobile money accounts will outnumber those with traditional bank accounts

Right now though, the most that mobile payment providers can do to monetize such monies is charge payment fees. Even in the case of the world’s largest mobile payments system provider, Safaricom, their overdraft, money-lending program (known as fuliza) has been co-opted by the traditional banking system.

This has to change, a significant portion of that $912 billion spent by means of mobile money across different parts of Africa probably has no contact with banks whatsoever. It’s 2024 - this is what modern banking and money management has come to be for Africans in a continent (where the median age is approximately 19).

In a world where this $912 billion is opened up to reserve banking, trillions of dollars are injected into the continent’s credit ecosystem. Furthermore, because mobile banking is used a lot more often on a daily basis by Africans, mobile payment providers have data and knowledge of overall consumer and individual spending patterns and behaviours in a way that traditional banks can only envy. Arguably leaving them better positioned to efficiently finance and support African businesses and consumers.

The African Diaspora can help make this happen by incorporating fintech platforms which speak to this gargantuan-sized gap in the market, as some are already doing. Remittances can also be tied to lobbying efforts on behalf of bringing fractional banking to mobile money.

In the next article of this series, we expand into how the African Diaspora can utilize cryptocurrency and blockchain technology and infrastructure to better engage with the continent. We will also explore how the Diaspora can use the game of politics to influence policy on the ground.

If you enjoy well-researched and thought provoking content on a rarely covered region of the world, then please join my Africa Discussions Telegram group. Here, you can chat with and learn more about everything happening on the continent from other likeminded people and thinkers.

Now, let’s get to the heart of the series in what is the black man’s, or more broadly speaking, the overseas African’s burden, to lead Africa into an economic nirvana. If not you - as a New African Diaspora - or me - as an Old African Diaspora - then who? The African Diaspora seems lacking in intention and a call to arms. And the longer this goes unaddressed, Africa’s emergence as a great economic power, finally awoken from its deep slumber, will continue to be deferred.

Let’s start off by parsing together what we mean when we speak of the African Diaspora. The term is sometimes used broadly or quite specifically, depending on the context of the conversation and the listening audience. Within different fields of African studies, the African Diaspora tends to be split off into two groups: the Old African Diaspora and the New African Diaspora.

The Old African Diaspora are those whose ancestors were forcefully removed from Africa, and were subsequently relocated to several far-flung corners of the world to work as slaves. These involuntary migrations can be split into two groups.

The more recent and more well-known of the two is the Transatlantic Slave Trade. It first began in the mid-1400’s, with the Portuguese, in later centuries over 10 million African slaves would be shipped off to New World. Virtually every country throughout the Americas and the Caribbean (including my ancestral country of Jamaica) practiced slavery at some point or another. The vast scale, geography and ecology of the Western Hemisphere led colonial powers and independent republics to extensively rely on slave labour for developing and building land, infrastructure and cities across the region.

The second, less spoken about arm of the Old African Diaspora are located across the Middle East, North Africa and Asia. Their ancestors were instead victims of the Arab Slave Trade - a trade in which 10-20 million human bodies were trafficked, that lasted for over a thousand years. Discussions around this trade aren’t visited upon as often because many of the female African slaves (who constituted as the majority kidnapped) procreated with local Arab men, with their descendants assimilating with ethnic Arabs. While male African slaves were castrated and made into sterile eunuchs. Thus, the visibility of African slave descendants across the region is much less prominent, and easier to overlook.

Furthermore, to really come to grips with the Arab Slave Trade is to confront some uncomfortable truths. These include the fact that many white Europeans (likely at least 1 million) also fell victim to this trade. Indeed, the seemingly controversial lines, “Britons never ever shall be slaves.” that are valiantly uttered in Rule Britannia might actually be alluding to past conflicts with Barbary pirates from North Africa. We would also have to acknowledge that the Arab Slave Trade largely came to an end as a result of Western (mostly British) political, economic and naval pressures. For instance, Leaders of the Ottoman Empire signed the Brussels Conference Act of 1890, which aimed to "put an end to Negro Slave Trade by land as well as by sea, and to improve the moral and material conditions of existence of the native races". The shortest war in history - fought in Zanzibar between the British and Omani descendent colonialists - did lead to the end of slavery in that part of Africa shortly thereafter.

The total population of the Old African Diaspora is probably over 200 million. A realistic estimate once you factor in over 40 million African Americans and more than 100 million African descendants scattered across Central and South America. You can go and visit countries like Brazil, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic and this quickly becomes apparent.

Then there is the New African Diaspora, who are the main focus of this article series. These are Africans living overseas with direct, and much more recent ties to Africa. They voluntarily migrated, and continue to do so in larger numbers, to different parts of the planet from the first half of the 20th Century onwards. With them numbering close to 40 million according to recent estimates. By 2050, estimates point to this number rising to 100 million, increasing its share of world population from 0.5 percent today, to 1 percent. Because of their strong familial, ethnic and linguistic ties to Africa, coupled with the fact that many are already passport holders or are eligible for citizenship in a given African country, the New African Diaspora are best placed to lead an African business and cultural renaissance.

Next, we will look at what actions the community can take right now to improve prospects for the continent, and grapple with the hard questions surrounding the lack of urgency and cohesiveness found among much of the Diaspora.

Taiwan is an island of 24 million people, consisting almost entirely of Mandarin speaking, Han-Chinese. Taiwan also boasts an extensive history of manufacturing, specifically in computer chips and computer devices and electronics. A lot of this is owed to Japan, who colonized and occupied the island for 50 years, from 1895 to 1945. While Japanese rule was brutal and suppressive at times, and positioned Taiwan lower along the economic value chain in order to generate larger spoils for Japanese colonialists, transformative changes still took place.

By building out Taiwan’s infrastructure, investing in public health and education, along with introducing new farming techniques to the local population, Japan industrialized and modernized the island. Here, we see another case of expansion of an economy’s foreign direct investment, global trade and technology through global partnership and sharing (admittedly, by means of colonial subjugation).

Furthermore, Japan itself would probably not have been in a position to yield such modernization for Taiwan if it was not for its prior exposure to, competition, and collaboration with the Western World. In 1854, US General Matthew C. Perry led several ships towards Japanese shores and forced the kingdom to end its 200 year+ period of isolationism from the rest of the world. Japan, like China shortly before it, would have to open its doors to global competition and trade. Unlike China, Japan adopted a different tact in response. It chose to embrace - rather than resist - Western influence and hegemony, striving to synergistically integrate it into Japanese culture, thinking and customs. The result of this was a philosophy known as Wakon Yosai, Japanese Spirit, Western Learning.

Taiwan learnt and acquired the ways of the Japanese that were productive and conducive to the growth and prosperity of their society. This led to rapid industrialization of the island in the Post-War period, spawning a manufacturing giant throughout the 1980’s and 1990’s. Indeed, before Made in China, there was Made in Taiwan. Once Mainland China broke from the shackles of communism and finally embraced market capitalism, Taiwanese companies also began to partner with the Mainland and induct them into the global marketplace.

And the rest was history: between 1991 and 2023, 45,523 Taiwanese investments were made in China, averaging more than 1,400 a year. Equating to a total of over $200 billion invested. The Taiwanese also played a crucial role in laying down the building blocks for China’s early industrialization and continued upwards trajectory. For that matter, look no further than major assembler of electronics Foxconn. This Taiwanese company, whom the largest tech company in the world in Apple outsources most of the production of its smartphones, tablets and laptops to, has many of the largest of its factories located on the Mainland. Its largest is based in Longhua, Shenzhen, and employs between 230,000 to 450,000 depending on global demand patterns.

China even hosts a ‘Little Taiwan’ or ‘Little Taipei’ in Kunshan. A city with one of the highest, if not, the highest income per head in the whole of China, that is a city of 1.6 million people, home to 100,000 Taiwanese people and thousands upon thousands of Taiwanese businesses.

As we learn more about China’s development story, a clear pattern begins to emerge that reinforces the virtuous and growth inducing relationship between foreign direct investment, global trade and technology. People, as the dynamic organisms that activate the three pillars of economic success, are constantly partnering with complementary organisms across families, villages, towns, cities and nations as a way of unlocking big gains. The Taiwanese and Hong Kong Diaspora of sorts, acted as a necessary bridge between China and the rest of the more modernized, business enterprise world.

I see no reason why Africa’s Diaspora of over 30 million cannot play a similar role. More of Africa needs to fully tap into and exploit the potential of its people and networks locally and globally as a means to maximizing wealth accumulation and improved quality of life.