Megatrends and the Future of African Economies
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Agri-food systems, including those in Africa, are complex and interdependent systems with the following features : (1) they develop endogenously with broader demographic and economic changes in the broader economy, hence it is difficult or impossible to predict their specific growth and income distributional trajectories; (2) their future trajectories are highly dependent on policy choices and public investment patterns and hence can be molded by public action; (3) they evolve through interdependent decisions of many actors such that few emerging patterns can be linked to a particular agent within the system; and (4) the variables influencing their development change over time with the underlying structure of local, regional and international economic systems, and with changes in technologies and institutions. In this dynamic environment, notions of equilibrium may be very short-lived. Nevertheless, we believe that there are identifiable “megatrends” with a high probability of affecting African food and broader economic systems in the coming decades. This paper investigates the evidence of ‘megatrends’ shaping African economic, political and social landscapes and asks which ones depend endogenously on processes that are within the realm of policy influence and which ones are indeed exogenous.