The Irish Times: We may be witnessing an African economic miracle
... By almost every measure – of health, wealth and education – and for most of its people, life in Africa is getting better.
All of these developments are perhaps best encapsulated by the UN’s Human Development Index. Over decades, that organisation has measured health, education and poverty indicators across the world to assess people’s quality of life. Since the turn of the century, human development has not only improved in every one of sub-Saharan Africa’s 45 countries but gains were bigger in the 2000s than in any previous decade.
In many ways, Africa remains the world’s most miserable place. None of its longstanding problems can be declared solved and it faces some new ones, including rising global food prices and climate change, issues discussed this week in Dublin.
The scale of challenges cannot be underestimated. But Africa’s prospects are improving. The dashed hopes of the post-independence decades now stand a better chance than ever of being fulfilled.
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