Mega trends in Africa

To address this very important issue amongst its customer base, Frost & Sullivan Africa embarked on an ambitious project to identify the top eight Mega Trends relevant to the 54 countries on the African continent. The result was an insight into how these trends will change the pace and scenario of life as we know it, as well as the repercussions of these trends in business. The eight African Mega Trends that were identified are:

Urbanisation in Africa

By 2020, Africa will account for 15 per cent of the world's urban occupants and urbanisation will primarily be resource driven. This mass migration will result in the formation of mega cities (with a minimum population of 8 million and a GDP of $250 billion in 2025), mega regions (a combined population of more than 15 million) and mega corridors (transport corridors joining two or more major cities or mega regions at least 60 kilometres apart and with a combined population of 25 million or more). In addition, the mass migration will result in mega slums, as 70 per cent of urbanised Africa will live in informal settlements.

The result: a continent burgeoning with opportunity in "enabling" infrastructure such as energy-efficient and resource-efficient technologies that were previously unavailable. These regions will create new engines, paths and regional divisions and will unlock the economic potential of landlocked countries thus improving inter-dependence among cities leading to regional economic growth. Furthermore, mega slums will open up opportunities into untapped markets as well as recycling, water purification, cell phone advertising, low cost housing, and tourism.

Regional Integration

Within Africa, regional integration is being driven through three major areas:

• Regional electricity integration through the development of the African Power Pools
• Transport integration through large scale investment into road and rail infrastructure
• Trade integration through the establishment of a unified African free trade zone in the development of the Tri-Lateral Free Trade Agreement.

As one looks towards 2020, the development of a grand free-trade zone and the strengthening of the regional power pools are expected to significantly increase the size of the consumer market for large-scale infrastructure investments. Infrastructure investment is expected to be developed primarily within key regional economies that have the potential to export product to surrounding countries cheaply. In addition, growth in demand from over 800 million people within the proposed free trade zone will drive international imports, particularly from the east. As stronger policy ties are formed between the BRICS members, imports into Africa from developing countries are expected to increase significantly. These decreased barriers to trade will assist in the upliftment of larger and smaller African economies. Electricity trade to these countries will further provide a level of electricity supply security these countries would otherwise be unable to establish alone due to both funding restraints and availability of skills

The development of Africa into a fully integrated continent will assist in the sustainable, holistic economic growth of the continent. The establishment of these platforms will create an environment to assist in the delivery of basic services and products to some of the most crippled economies on the planet.

Connecting the Unconnected

Connectivity in Africa is primarily driven by the landing of additional undersea fibre-optic cables and mobile technologies. The growing demand for connectivity by both consumers and businesses in Africa is expected to achieve a 90 per cent mobile penetration level and 27 per cent broadband penetrAir Jordan I High