Africa is at a tipping point in 2016. Despite all the success the continent has achieved in recent years, new and old dangers – economic, political, and security-related – threaten to derail its progress. With sound policymaking, effective leadership, and enough foresight, however – Africa can meet and defeat these challenges as well as the many more to come.

In this year’s Foresight Africa, the Africa Growth Initiative and its colleagues discuss six overarching themes that place Africa at this tipping point and give their view on what they perceive to be key areas for intervention to keep Africa on its current rising trajectory. This year’s format is different from years past, encompassing viewpoints from high-level policymakers, academics, and practitioners, as well as utilizing visuals to better illustrate the paths behind and now in front of Africa.

In the first chapter, the authors cover the adverse effects of recent external economic shocks on Africa’s already slowing economic growth. While threats like the economic slowdown in PREFACE China and falling commodity prices may sound menacing to African economies, they actually provide opportunities in 2016 for implementing sound (and often innovative) policies for maintaining future growth.

Domestic growth and structural transformation is the theme of the second chapter, where the authors discuss jobs and the changing face of Africa’s economies. Despite Asia’s experience with industry as a driver of sustained growth, Africa’s growth is centered on the services sector – which raises a red flag for some experts. With the Sustainable Development Goals’ new emphasis on industry and jobs, 2016 is the perfect time to jump-start industrialization in Africa.

Human development in recent years has seen a myriad of successes and disappointments: Poverty rates continue to fall, but the number of poor in sub-Saharan Africa is actually rising. Malawi, Uganda, and others finally have agricultural sectors strong enough to support savings and investment by farmers, but the five countries with the highest food and nutrition security needs in the world are also in the region. Contributors in the third chapter cover these issues (as well as inequality, fragile states, women’s empowerment, and climate resilience) and what to do about them in 2016.

As Africa rapidly transforms both demographically and geographically, successful planning for urbanization must be on the agenda in 2016. The African population’s rapid move to cities is quickly creating megacities and huge population growth in intermediate cities before officials have the chance to implement good policies or finance robust infrastructure to support their inhabitants. In fact, the majority of urban residents in Africa live in slums, and access to electricity, sanitation, and clean water is not adequate.

2016 also brings a number of complex political and governance challenges, following on from the year before. While 2015 did see many successes (Nigeria peacefully transitioned to a new regime and the Tripartite Free Trade Agreement was signed), it also experienced upheavals (the civil wars in the Central African Republic and South Sudan raged on and the Nile riparian states continued their heated dispute). As the upcoming year could see a continuation of these trends, the fifth chapter covers how leaders might address the continuing obstacles to peace, prosperity, and good governance at both the national and regional levels in 2016.

With the signing of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, trade relationships the world over will drastically change in 2016 – just as African countries are taking major steps towards regional economic integration and enacting their own export-oriented policies. The sixth and final chapter explores the changes in and implications of the shifting global trade environment on Africa’s prospects for enhancing its own competitiveness and trade performance.

With our sixth annual Foresight Africa, we aim to capture the top priorities for Africa in 2016, offering recommendations for African and international stakeholders for creating and supporting a strong, sustainable, and successful Africa. In doing so, we hope that Foresight Africa 2016 will promote a dialogue on the key issues influencing economic development in Africa in 2016 and ultimately provide sound strategies for sustaining and expanding the benefits of economic growth to all people of Africa in the years ahead.

Over the course of the year, we will incorporate the feedback we will get from our readers and continue the debate on Africa’s priorities through a series of events, research reports, and blog posts. We look forward to this important conversation on how Africa might best flourish in 2016.

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Chapter highlights

Ch 1. Managing Economic Shocks: African Prospects in the Evolving External Environment

In this chapter, Amadou Sy explores the recent external economic shocks to African economies – including the economic slowdown in China, declines in commodity prices, and the likely continued U.S. Federal Reserve interest rate hikes – that have affected and will continue to affect growth trajectories in the region. With growth slowing across the continent in 2016, policymakers must take this opportunity to discuss and enact economic policy reform for both the short and long terms.

Ch 2. Sustaining Domestic Growth: Structural Transformation Depends on Jobs, Industry, and SMEs

Growth in Asia and elsewhere has shown that industrialization is crucial to job creation, a value that is enshrined in the new Sustainable Development Goals. In this chapter, John Page provides recommendations on how African governments and their international partners can revitalize the region’s stagnating industrial development and spur structural transformation.

Ch 3. Supporting Human Development: Triumphs and Challenges on the Continent

The region has witnessed remarkable improvements in poverty reduction in recent years, but persistent challenges in inequality, education, health, and violence, among others, still plague it. As the first year of the Sustainable Development Goals, 2016 provides the opportunity to be a jumping-off point for strong policies and efforts to accomplish these goals. In this chapter, Kathleen G. Beegle and Luc Christiaensen cover the assortment of opportunities 2016 provides for supporting human development efforts and argues for the central role that better data plays in addressing them.

Ch 4. Capitalizing on Urbanization: The Importance of Planning, Infrastructure, and Finance for Africa’s Growing Cities

With Habitat III in 2016, Jérôme Chenal takes the opportunity in this chapter to explore the consequences of Africa’s rapid urbanization. Africa is the second-fastest urbanizing region in the world, which historically has facilitated other regions' transition from a reliance on agriculture to industry and jobs. However, without strong policies to deliver services, finance and build infrastructure, and support the urban poor, Africa’s rapidly growing megacities and intermediate cities cannot deliver on their potential.

Ch 5. Maintaining Governance Gains: The National and Regional Agendas

2016 sees a number of governance milestones and obstacles, including elections across the continent (particularly in Uganda, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and for the African Union chairperson), as well as increasing regional integration and a seemingly stalled march towards good governance. In this chapter, Richard Joseph reflects on the region’s growth-governance puzzle and the complex institutional changes necessary to move from economic growth to economic transformation.

Ch 6. Expanding African Trade: Creating a Comparative Advantage and Strengthening Regional Partnerships

In this chapter, Joshua P. Meltzer explores the impacts on Africa of the changing global trade environment. In particular, the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement will transform global trade architecture, likely to the disadvantage of Africa. However, our viewpoint contributors believe that, if African countries can successfully leverage regional integration and better utilize the African Growth and Opportunity Act, they might be able to maintain global competitiveness.

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The Foresight Africa project is a series of reports, commentaries and events that aim to help policymakers and Africa watchers stay ahead of the trends and developments impacting the continent. Since 2011, the Brookings Africa Growth Initiative has used the occasion of the new year to assess Africa’s top priorities for the year.