Today, African leaders agree that Africa has a great opportunity to reap economic benefits from strategic investments made in the continent’s current large youthful population. The “demographic dividend” is the accelerated economic growth that can result from improved reproductive health, a rapid decline in fertility, and the subsequent shift in population age structure. With more people in the labor force and fewer children to support, a country has a window of opportunity—but only if the right social and economic investments and policies are made in health, education, governance, and the economy. 

Over the past 25 years, economic and political demographers have documented how declines in fertility rates have preceded improvements in state capacity, income, and political stability in much of East Asia, Latin America, and, most recently, in the Maghreb region of North Africa (Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria). Nonetheless, social scientists still debate over where and when this “demographic dividend” will occur in the youthful, low-income countries of sub-Saharan Africa.  Elizabeth Leahy Madsen of the Population Reference Bureau and I find that, for most youthful countries—like those in sub-Saharan Africa—changes in population age structure provide a means to gauge the timing of their future development.

“Investing in youth is a recipe for success,” said Elizabeth Dawes Gay, senior policy analyst at the Population Reference Bureau (PRB), during a webinar on June 22, 2017, organized by PRB’s PACE project on the connections between the population, health, environment (PHE) approach to international development, and achieving the demographic dividend.

Cities in sub-Saharan Africa are growing rapidly. But will this lead to economic growth? According to a recent World Bank report, Africa’s Cities: Opening Doors to the World, the low level of regional and international trade is one of the main reasons why African cities are relatively poor.

Scientists agree that many countries in tropical, subtropical, and arid regions should expect changes to water availability and supply from climate change. The U.S. intelligence community has likewise warned of water-driven challenges not only for countries directly affected by water changes, but indirectly to various U.S. national security interests. Perhaps not surprisingly then, the popular literature has been quite clear about prophesizing wars over water.

Why is Malawi, one of the poorest countries in the world, so peaceful? According to the country’s first female president, Joyce Banda, women get the credit: “When women are in charge, when women control the land, when the children belong to the women, when domestic violence is minimum, then you find more tranquility and peace,” said Banda, now a Wilson Center Distinguished Fellow, at an April 25th event co-sponsored by the Wilson Center’s Women in Public Service Project and Plan International USA.