When faced with investors, demographics hardly benefit from being presented as a potential time bomb. Even when she is galloping. “We have the largest and most dynamic youth in Africa”praised the President of Nigeria, Bola Tinubu, in Berlin, at the end of 2023, in front of an audience of businesses gathered to explore the opportunities of this country of some 220 million inhabitants. “A gigantic market”argued the leader.
Rich in promise for some, excessive for others, Nigerian population growth is certainly dizzying. Each year, 5 to 6 million babies are born in Nigeria, more than in the entire European Union (EU). Its population has already increased fivefold since its independence in 1960. And by the middle of the century, it should dethrone the United States to establish itself as the third most populous country in the world, behind India and China.
The trajectory of the West African giant sums up to the point of hyperbole the demographic shifts underway, on the continent and beyond. While the birth rate is collapsing in rich countries, nothing of the sort south of the Sahara. The fertility rate (4.6 children per woman in 2021) is double the world average (2.26).
According to a study published at the end of March in The Lancet, the region should account for more than half of live births by the end of the century, compared to just over a quarter today. By 2050, one in four humans will be African and even one in three among young people aged 15 to 24, according to the United Nations. An unprecedented population growth, poised to disrupt the destiny of the continent.
“This demographic factor already appears behind almost all the major issues of the moment, from city congestion to difficulties in electricity provision to migration”notes Cameroonian demographer Perfect Eloundou-Enyegue, professor of sociology of development at Cornell University, in the United States.
During the years when strong growth (5% on average in sub-Saharan Africa between 2004 and 2014) fueled Afro-optimistic speeches, youth were perceived as one of the continent’s most beautiful assets. Thanks to it, a new class of consumers was to emerge, eagerly awaited by large multinationals. Alas, the repeated crises (counter-oil shock, Covid-19 pandemic, war in Ukraine, etc.), combined with the chronic difficulties of the region’s heavyweights (Nigeria, South Africa, Angola), have changed the paradigm.
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