What Does a Future-Ready Africa Need?

In 1968, a story emphasizing how unprepared millions of people were for significant, imminent change captured the West’s attention. The Population Bomb, written by Stanford biologist Paul Ehrlich, claimed that population growth would lead to mass starvation across the world. Ehrlich, in fact, went as far as saying that he ‘would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000.’ Women defused the population bomb. In June, earlier this year, the UN revised its latest population forecast for this century down by 309 million people. This revision was thanks, largely, to declining birthrates in countries like Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda and India. Across the world, regardless of changes in income level, access to education or the expectations of Ehrlich and the UN, women are choosing to have fewer children. Add to this major improvements in global food production at the time The Population Bomb was being written, and it becomes clear that Ehrlich’s story of imminent change, of how ‘the stork had passed the plow’—that population growth had outpaced our ability to produce enough food—was, in fact, just a terrifying story of what could have been.