Jeune Street

BRIC is Goldman Sachs-inspired shorthand for the emerging economies that are powering global economic growth: Brazil, Russia, India, China. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Managing Director at the World Bank (and former Nigerian Finance Minister), argues that sub-Saharan Africa is ripe to join the exalted company of the BRICs:

Let me start with a riddle: What trillion dollar economy has grown faster than Brazil and India between 2000 and 2010 in nominal dollar terms and is projected by the IMF to grow faster than Brazil between 2010 and 2015? The answer may surprise you: it is Sub-Saharan Africa!

The Big Idea is that sub-Saharan Africa is on the verge of joining the ranks of the BRICs. As the world gets out of the global recession, forecasts made by the IMF and the World Bank stress that given the need for fiscal retrenchment in the advanced countries, some rebalancing of global demand is needed to sustain economic growth. Africa can serve as a new source of global demand. It’s only a matter of time before its population rivals that of China and India. As Bob Zoellick noted in a recent speech, we must start thinking about a “multipolar growth world”, where Africa can take its rightful place.

Her colleague, Shanta Devarajan, sympathizes with the point while disagreeing with the comparison:

First, Africa is not a country, whereas each of the BRICs is.  Africa is 47 countries, some of which are quite small (20 countries have populations less than 5 million).  The distinguishing feature of the BRICs is that they are both middle-income and large.  So it’s not clear how any individual African country can aspire to being a BRIC. Countries such as Malaysia or Chile may be more appropriate models for most African countries.

Shanta is right, of course. Such comparisons are facile, and can mask more than they reveal. But the broader point that sub-Saharan Africa is emerging from a long period of decline is one that is not often appreciated. Poverty rates are falling by at least one percent a year (by some accounting), and projections of population growth (including in the middle classes) indicate that Africa will become an increasingly important consumer market  ... not just a producer of raw materials for rich countries. Furthermore, while poverty is endemic in Africa, there are more poor people in India (and probably in China, although I haven't seen the numbers). What we have is a perception problem about Africa, and at least the World Bank is trying to shift it.