Getting Africa right

Evaluations of the African continent were long focused on identifying the multiplicity of factors that could explain why the region was the laggard of global growth and the epicentre of security risks. This led to the ‘hopeless continent’ label and ensuing efforts to discover why Africa was ostensibly ‘cursed’.
Perceptions of the continent’s prospects, however, have recently been overturned with the advent of the ‘Africa rising’ narrative, based on its natural resource and demographic potential and the gradual emergence of an African middle class. But now the validity of the empirical assessments on which both interpretations are based has been put into question.