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Loic De Canniere, "The Future of Employment in Africa: Demography, Labour Markets and Welfare" (Anthem, 2025)
01:07:47
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- [00:00]
Marshall Po
Go beyond the verses and achieve a deeper understanding of Scripture with the Rebind Study Bible App. An audio experience of the Bible interwoven with expert commentary. The Rebind Study Bible App reads Scripture to you, enriching your comprehension with insights from the world renowned New International commentary on the Old and the New Testament in an accessible podcast episode format.
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Bible Reader
Be not therefore anxious for the morrow. Matthew chapter 6 each day will have.
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Luac de Konier
Its troubles, but by God's grace they can be survived.
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Marshall Po
Use the Rebind Study Bible App's chat function to ask questions and get answers in real time. That's thought provoking discussion and analysis rooted in decades of research and wisdom from more than 40 scholars at your fingertips. The Rebind Study Bible App is a new way to experience the Bible with enhanced depth, at your own pace in the moments you have. Search the Apple App Store for Rebind Study Bible or go to rebind app.com newbooks network for a free seven day trial. Hello everybody, this is Marshall Po. I'm the founder and editor of the New Books Network and if you're listening to this, you know that the NBN is the largest academic podcast network in the world. We reach a worldwide audience of 2 million people. You may have a podcast or you may be thinking about starting a podcast. As you probably know, there are challenges basically of two kinds. One is technical. There are things you have to know in order to get your podcast produced and distributed. And the second is, and this is the biggest problem, you need to get an audience. Building an audience in podcasting is the hardest thing to do today. With this in mind, we at the NBM have started a service called NBN Productions. What we do is help you create a podcast, produce your podcast, distribute your podcast, and we host your podcast. Most importantly, what we do is we distribute your podcast to the NBN audience. We've done this many times with many academic podcasts and we would like to help you. If you would be interested in talking to us about how we can help you with your podcast, please contact us. Just go to the front page of the New Books Network and you will see a link to NBN Production. Click that, fill out the form and we can talk. Welcome to the New Books Network.
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Alfred Marcus
Welcome to the New Books Network. I'm Alfred Marcus Edson Spencer professor of Strategy and Technological Leadership at the Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota. My podcast series sits at the intersection of strategy and ethics, exploring how organizations, governments and societies navigate complex challenges. Today, I'm delighted to speak with Luac de Konier Author of the Future of Employment in Demography, Labor Markets and Welfare, published by Anthem Press in 2025. I'm particularly interested in this topic because I did do a book with my colleague Mazar Islam on demography and I became aware, much more aware, of population dynamics that are occurring in Africa, which are quite different than the rest of the world and will require a substantial amount of new employment opportunities. So this book, the Future of Employment in Africa, takes on one of the most pressing issues of our time. How Africa, home to the world's fastest growing population, can generate enough jobs, prosperity and hope for the coming decades. So let's start with your background and motivation. Tell us a bit about your background. You've worked for many years in finance and impact investing across Africa. How did these experiences motivate you to write this book?
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Luac de Konier
All right, so by education, I'm economist, macroeconomist and in the 90s I worked as chief of staff for the Belgian Minister of Economic affairs and I was in charge of employment policy. That was a period of high unemployment. And then later I shifted to a marine engineering company working in Africa. I was in charge of project finance for a big infrastructure projects in Congo, in Gabon, in Nigeria, in Ghana. And in 2001, indeed I decided to join Incofin, which is an impact investment fund manager, investing in Africa, Latin America and Asia in companies that have a positive social and environmental impact. And that's what I have been doing for 25 years, investing more than half a billion in Africa, in 23 countries, in 120 companies. And after 20 years I wondered, well, do these investments actually matter and are they just a drop in the ocean or do they really contribute to more development? Also being challenged by reality on the ground, there's still a lot of poverty. And I wanted to have like more holistic view on what is happening in this continent, where it is heading to, and how our investments fit in this environment. And that's actually what's the book about? It's an analysis. It's a combination of economic analysis with description of on the ground experiences in investment. And at the same time, it is an optimistic book because here in Europe, our mainstream media mainly provide a very negative image of Africa. It's a continent of hunger, of unrest, of war. And there is very little reporting and documentation about what is going very well in the continent. And I wanted to emphasize that. And finally, it's a book about the future. Here in Europe, we struggle with the colonial past. There is much of discussion about the past and about the responsibility of Europe but there are not many books and studies about the future of Africa. And that's what I wanted to do in this book.
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Interviewer
Could you tell our readers a little.
- [06:21]
Alfred Marcus
Bit more about impact investing itself?
- [06:23]
Interviewer
I think that would be. My listeners might want to know more about that.
- [06:28]
Luac de Konier
So I think it's a relatively new universe of investors who want to combine financial profit with social and environmental profit. And so in our case, we want to include people at the bottom of the pyramids or fragile people into the economic system and make them benefit of the economic system. And we do that by investing in, like microfinance institutions, SME finance institutions, agri, food companies, water companies. That's the type of investments we are doing. And actually in Africa, just to give you an example, we are reaching out to like 10 million Africans. So it's quite substantial.
- [07:12]
Interviewer
So Africa is often written about in.
- [07:15]
Alfred Marcus
Fragmented ways, focusing on crisis aid or migration. Your book instead looks holistically at demography, employment, poverty and climate change as part of what you call the prosperity Pentagon.
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Interviewer
Why did you feel it so urgent to put these pieces together now?
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Luac de Konier
Yeah, well, indeed, I think Africa is often being approached in a very fragmented way. And I wanted to understand the interdependence between the key parameters impacting the continent, sticking to measurable parameters. And so I selected like five parameters which in my view are absolutely key for the future of the continent, which is demography, employment, poverty, climate and migration. And those four parameters interact with each other. And actually the inspiration for the Pentagon came from the fact that as a macroeconomist in the past, we used a Pentagon tool to look at the economic situation of rich countries, but that was more about GDP growth and inflation and balance of payments and this kind of things. And I was wondering which are the relevant parameters for Africa? And that's how I selected those. Those parameters. So it's a tool I developed myself, actually.
- [08:36]
Interviewer
Excellent. Can you tell us a little bit about demography? We can go through each one of these, I guess, in turn. It is something in the book that I did on demography. I came to understand this surge that's occurring, and especially the youth surge, and how unbalanced the world is, because developed countries, I assume Belgium, but even Southeast Asian countries are aging very, very rapidly. And we seem like we need to somehow migrate a lot of people successfully into developed countries. So can you talk a little bit about the use of population, supposed to double, I guess, by 2050, and there could be a demographic dividend, which is an important idea indeed.
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Luac de Konier
Demography is the key parameter to understand the Future of Africa and the economic dynamics of the continent. So looking only at sub Saharan Africa, so not the Maghreb, not North Africa, there are 1.1 billion Africans today. That number is going to double by 2050. It's going to triple by the end of the century. 3.4 billion. 3.4 billion. If I compare this number to Europe, in 2100, there will be 350 million Europeans. So for each European, 10 Africans, that's huge. And on top of that, of course, indeed it's a very young population. The median age In Africa is 19 years, whereas it is 44 years in Europe. So there is an age gap of 25 years between both. And I think this is something that can indeed generate a kind of demographic dividend for the continent more in terms of a young generation that is creative, dynamic, it savvy. I'm more skeptical about the mechanical demographic dividend as described by macroeconomists. So if you look at east Asia, between 60 and 90 of previous century, there was this demographic dividend. And economists would say that Asia's economic miracle came from the demographic dividend because the proportion of non active people as compared to active people is decreasing. So there is more room for wealth generation, for income generation, for added value. So theoretically that will also happen in Africa. However, that only works if there are jobs, if there is an environment that enables job creation. And I think this is the big challenge for Africa.
- [11:29]
Interviewer
Otherwise there could be more violence with so many young people. And, and I guess the institutions for this demographic dividend to occur, the institutions have to be in place, things like education and even markets, et cetera. Could you comment a little bit about that as well?
- [11:48]
Luac de Konier
Yeah, correct. So what is a bit worrisome is if you have this demographic evolution, what will happen in the coming 30 years is that every year there will be an inflow of 20 million, 20 million new job seekers per year on the labor market for a period of 30 years. So 600 million young people will join by between today and 2050. And of course then you need job creation. Otherwise there is instability on the labor market, there is more unemployment, there is more migratory pressure, which is a very sensitive topic in Europe. And so of course you need the institutions that are able to make sure macroeconomic conditions are there to create jobs. I looked at the numbers in the past and Africa has never been able to create more than 9 million jobs in one year. And so it's now facing the need to create 20 million jobs in 30 years of time, which is incredible. 600 million jobs. And that's worrisome. That's worrisome.
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Interviewer
Employment rates like in the various countries especially youth unemployment must be quite high. Can you tell us a little bit about the unemployment rates that exist right now in various countries?
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Luac de Konier
That's interesting question. So the official unemployment rate is quite low. So it is only 7, 8%. Why is this? Because Africans have created their own jobs. I mean they are all active in informal economy, they are microenterpreneurs, they are smallholder farmers. There is hardly a formal economy, so very little salaried workers in banking or in industry or in government, most of them have created these small enterprises which are the buffer or the cushion to absorb the increase in job seekers in Africa.
- [13:48]
Interviewer
That's really a main, that's the main theme of your book is entrepreneurship and bottom up growth where you highlight the micro small, medium sized enterprises as laboratories of innovation and growth. Tell us a little bit more about that. Even specific examples would be very interesting.
- [14:05]
Luac de Konier
I think it's interesting to look at microfinance industry because microfinance industry has demonstrated that it is possible to work with people at the bottom of the pyramids, people who were supposed to be unreliable or unbankable. And impact investment industry has massively invested in microfinance industry over the past decades and that has worked. So the microfinance industry has been like a kind of laboratory for informal economy showing, yes, you can work with people at the bottom of the pyramid so you can do business with them, they are investable. And so what we see now, and this is so interesting, that impact investment sector is expanding to other sectors such as agri foods, to small drinking water companies, to off grid renewable companies, to waste recycling, that type of things.
- [15:06]
Interviewer
There is a real receptivity among the capability that you're finding among the youthful population of Africa. They're eager to get involved in this. Can you provide some concrete examples of that? I think that would be interesting, yes.
- [15:25]
Luac de Konier
So I've seen quite impressive examples. I recently was in Kenya, I saw a young company that is sourcing macadamia nuts, which are high quality nuts from a few thousands of smallholder farmers. This company is now an aggregator. It's trading macadamia nuts, it's exporting macadamia nuts to the rest of the world. And yeah, this kind of initiatives is growing, attracting young people and creating employment.
- [16:02]
Interviewer
Are there larger businesses that are involved or can they be involved? I know kind of the bottom of the pyramid idea has not advanced or progressed as quickly as people hopes.
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Luac de Konier
I think what we see now is it's quite recent, but it is. African industrialization groups are growing mainly in the agri foods industry. There is a famous group called Dangote Group from Nigeria. It's a stock listed company building sugar refineries. In the past Africa was importing sugar from the rest of the world. Now it's starting producing it themselves. And this is modern industry. So yes, I think that the seeds are there for more industrialization and for more African grown.
- [16:58]
Interviewer
Industry companies like Bayer or Cortiva or even Chinacam, you know, Syngenta, are they involved? I've taught the cases about them. So I'm just kind of curious because it would seem like there would be some. This would be a real opportunity for them.
- [17:20]
Luac de Konier
So in general, of course the Chinese presence is very strong in Africa. Yeah. So Chinese are very active in mining and in refining of critical minerals. They have access to most of the critical minerals of the continent. DRC Congo is a continent I know very well. They have access to like 90% of Cobalt's mining which is key for the production of batteries. And of course they are also, they create employments but they also tend to work with Chinese workers.
- [18:06]
Interviewer
So they actually import Chinese workers to do these, to do this and they export them if things get tough, I guess. Can you give it. You know, I think different countries have different prospects. Can you like speak specifically about different countries? I think Nigeria is going to be one of the world's biggest countries in the world by second or third, I think by the year 2050. That's the projections. Right. Can you talk about different countries a little bit?
- [18:37]
Luac de Konier
I think there are indeed strong locomotives like Nigeria, like Kenya, Ivory coast, even Rwanda. And of course you have also the much weaker countries like in the Sahel countries, Mali, Mauritania, the Central African Republic, which are really weak. So there is indeed there are two different types of economies in Africa. You have the strong countries and then you have the ones that are still extremely weak. But the strong countries are contributing to the growth of the entire continent, which I think is.
- [19:22]
Interviewer
Migration within Africa. It's not just to Europe. So are the people moving towards the stronger countries? Is that what is. And are they receptive to how does this work or doesn't work? It doesn't work.
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Luac de Konier
I had a closer look at migration and if you look at migration, most of the migration within the continent takes place for people escaping violence. That's actually what. And the typical case is refugees from East Congo where you have this rebellion, the M23, they are fleeing to Uganda, which is a neighboring country also because Uganda Is a country that accepts and hosts refugees from other countries. There are more than 3 million refugees from other countries in Uganda. They are also hosting refugees from Sudan. So the movements within the continent are mostly determined by violence and escaping violence. On the other hand, you have within the countries a movement from rural areas to urban areas. Congo, for instance. The population growth in general is 2.5% per year. But the growth of Kinshasa, the capital, is 6% per year because there is another 3.5% per year of people coming from rural areas going to the cities because they hope they will find education for their children, healthcare, et cetera. And that will. By the way, there is a study now. Kinshasa would become the biggest city in the world. Can you imagine?
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Interviewer
Wow. Incredible.
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Luac de Konier
Yeah.
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Interviewer
What is your sense about violence in general? Is it in Africa? Is it. I guess if we looked at Sudan, there was a headline today and the newspaper sounded very, very bad. But I mean, in general, do you think is it getting worse or better or stabilizing in any way, perhaps?
- [21:30]
Luac de Konier
Well, if you mention the case of Sudan, let us not forget that the violence in Sudan is mainly imported from other countries. Emirates, Egypt, Turkey are the key players, unfortunately, in Sudan and the situation is just horrible. And I agree that there's so much conflict and so much news about conflict in Africa that this is really not helping to attract foreign investors come to Africa now. Is there more violence than in the past? I don't think so. I think there is in general. There's a long trend, long term trend of more democratic institutions. This is also thanks to young people, the Gen Z, who wishes and who requires their leaders to be democratic, to be accountable. So I still think that the long term trend is quite positive. But yes, there is violence. I was talking to the Kenyan ambassador to the European Union recently and he said our biggest problem is still conflict. So if we would not have conflict, Africa would be much better off. Which is of course regrettable.
- [22:53]
Interviewer
What are the origins or the roots of the. It's a big question that what are the primary driving factors?
- [23:04]
Luac de Konier
I'm afraid that this has to do unfortunately with colonial times where colonial powers. So my own country and other European countries destroyed what was there in terms of African kingdoms which were evolving into nation states and they were all destroyed. Then European powers redesigned the borders of African countries. And so there is a lack of identification with the existing nation states, which does not help in terms of avoiding violence or in terms of peace building. I'm afraid that's part of the reason. Of course, the past does not explain everything. That's also clear. There is a big responsibility with leaders who are irresponsible, who just pursue their own benefits, which is a disaster.
- [24:04]
Interviewer
Some of the listeners to this podcast also teach in business. What do business schools be doing? Just raising awareness. I think the typical business student knows very little about Africa and yet they. When I give them assignments, sometimes I'll get students saying Africa, you know, big opportunity. But I don't know how much detail there is in these student assessments of Africa.
- [24:35]
Luac de Konier
I think there is a big opportunity and I've been mentioning conflicts and poverty and all these kind of things. But there is also a middle class we should not forget. There are like 350 million Africans, middle class, well educated. My company has an office in Nairobi with outstanding engineers, mathematicians, financial specialists. They are very IT minded. And I think that's where the opportunity is to support and encourage these kind of young people to think about, well, more. Yeah, more prosperity for the continents.
- [25:23]
Interviewer
The educational institutions in Africa, have they been expanding and growing and creating more professionals of various kinds? What's your sense of that?
- [25:35]
Luac de Konier
Yes, definitely. I think that I would not say that education is up to standards, but at least higher education has improved a lot. We have seen the emergence of more universities, high quality universities. However, in general, the education, primary and secondary, still very poor. If you look at Africans up to the age of 14, 15 years, so lower secondary, only 40% of them is attending school because there are not enough schools, because the teachers are not being paid, because school fees are too expensive. But on the other hand, to have these young people emerging from middle class which have the capacity to go to school, to pay schools, which have the capacity to go universities, they are very well trained. So it's a bit of a dual society.
- [26:34]
Interviewer
Of course that sounds a little bit like India, you know, in that there is an incredible middle class, extremely well educated, and yet there's a huge population, it's still quite poor. And behind is that a pattern? That and also the diversity of India I think is similar to the diversity of Africa in the same ways.
- [26:57]
Luac de Konier
And on top of that, of course, India is one country, so this is happening within one country. In Africa you have these 54 countries with very different levels of education. So when I'm talking about high quality, high education, I'm talking about countries like Kenya, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, I'm not talking about, well, poorer countries like Mali or Central African Republic, which is still a disaster.
- [27:29]
Interviewer
What about migration to Europe and even to the United States, et cetera. How much of it is occurring and Is it? How should global policymakers approach this?
- [27:44]
Luac de Konier
So, you know, this is a very sensitive topic in Europe. It is as well in the US I assume.
- [27:52]
Interviewer
Europe gets more Africans, I think ultimately than the US going through.
- [27:56]
Luac de Konier
The numbers in Europe. Europe is 450 million inhabitants. We have 11 million Africans, first generation Africans only first generation. So if you would count second generation, third generation, you can double or triple that number. But still it's relatively low. And I think my recommendation would be looking at what is attracting migrants to Europe from Africa is not so much this traditional push pull theories that migrants are fleeing from poverty or they are being attracted by wealth in Europe. But if you look at the labor market in Africa, the low quality jobs, those that are dangerous, demeaning and dirty, the three Ds, they are what we see. There are a lot of Africans. So it's an issue of labor demand in Africa. So it's Europe itself that is creating migration by not wanting to do those jobs themselves and looking for foreigners, for migrants to do that kind of jobs. And so there is an inherent problem with the labor market in Europe itself.
- [29:12]
Interviewer
I think it's not that different, I think than in the United States. But of course the United States also attracts very highly educated and talented immigrants. At the same time, it's attracting people to do jobs that nobody else otherwise would do, like in construction and agriculture and so on.
- [29:35]
Luac de Konier
But I think the solution could be to, rather than making a fortress Europe to rather look at the issue of labor mobility, which is necessary. I mean, this is something we will need and certainly with an aging population. So rather than having migrants crossing the borders illegally, it would better to come to an arrangement about labor mobility between the continents. I think that would be much wiser. But of course there is no political will to do that so far right.
- [30:09]
Interviewer
The politics are so against it. I guess if you compare that, I guess with how does the EU, what are the EU's policies? Do they recognize this and are they.
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Luac de Konier
Yeah, they adopted a new migration policy which is toughening. It's rather closing the borders rather than opening them. Making access to Europe much more difficult. Retaining migrants already at the borders of European Union or even before trying to convince North African countries to retain the migrants so that they would not cross the Mediterranean Sea and come to Europe. That's what they are doing. At the same time, in those documents you find general statements about we have to improve labor mobility. But I think it's more an intention if it's not really translated into real facts.
- [31:08]
Interviewer
Politics right now are so negative towards immigration in general, do you have any wisdom as to how to change that? That's a big question.
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Luac de Konier
I think that if one would find a way to identify the type of laborers that we need in Europe, and we would in one way or another find an arrangement with African countries to indeed let those people come in in Europe in a legal way, I think that would help. And yes, then the other type of migration would be illegal migration, but at least labor mobility would be something that is legal.
- [31:54]
Interviewer
Let's go back to impact investing itself and some of the companies. I'd love you to talk a little bit more about some successes and some failures and some lessons that you've learned with regard to impact investment and, and even the whole controversy about the base of the pyramid or the and, and, and whether how you think about it today because you've had a lot of experience. We've had a lot of experience since those ideas so first arose. And holidays are coming up and that.
- [32:28]
Marshall Po
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- [33:29]
Bible Reader
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- [33:58]
Interviewer
I often read very critical comments about it.
- [34:03]
Luac de Konier
I realize that. Well, of course we have been facing failures, fraud cases for instance. But I'm writing in my book that I think there are no more fraud cases in Africa than we experienced in other regions of the world where fraud is perhaps more sophisticated than in Africa. So yes, that have been failures. I mean we lost a complete microfinance institution in Tanzania that was robbed more or less by the management. But on the other hand, success stories. Yes, I think mainly in the agricultural agri food sector. We have been very successful financing coffee plantations, cocoa plantations like the macadamia nut factory that I was describing in the beginning of the podcast. That has been very successful. That has definitely been very successful and has provided jobs to thousands of African people like it.
- [35:25]
Interviewer
Even the use of telecommunications and how that has what impact has that had and what promise does it have?
- [35:34]
Luac de Konier
Sorry, there was an interruption. Sorry.
- [35:37]
Interviewer
Like the I'm thinking about technological leapfrogging. So for example, in the area of energy and in the area, another one would be, I guess telecommunications. I've heard that there are lots of workers in Africa who are doing training for these AI LLM. So what is the role of technology in general?
- [36:05]
Luac de Konier
And so indeed interesting to talk about technology and for instance energy and leapfrogging. And that's quite remarkable to see what is happening in Africa in terms of technological evolution where the African leaders are willing to cooperate in terms of clean energy, renewable energy and the continent has the natural capacity to generate 40% of the planet's renewable energy in terms of hydropower, in terms of photovoltaic power. And you indeed see this leapfrogging. Kenya again is an example of a country where power generation is already produced by renewable energy sources for 90%. So this is quite impressive. 90% of the it's geothermal power and hydropower mainly. And then indeed what you say about AI is very interesting. So there is an emerging sector of IT companies. What I saw is companies that are providing remote IT services to European companies based from Ghana, from Rwanda. So people who are well trained engineers who don't need to move to Europe because they can do this remotely. It's quite great. So they are copying the Indian Bangalore type of hub to Africa. And then recently indeed AI is emerging. However, there is a bit of an issue about this requires so much power generation that there is a concern that there is not enough power capacity to use AI Extensively. So I'm reading well, I'm even involved in an initiative to foresee more AI capacity in Africa.
- [38:18]
Interviewer
How's people can use AI in Africa too if they have access to the Internet, just like anybody anywhere in the world would have that access. What about in terms of the process of democratization and stabilization among countries? How do you see those trends moving forward or I think right after decolonization it was quite bad, but I think there's been some progress actually made in some countries.
- [38:51]
Luac de Konier
I'm very glad that you say this because not everybody agrees, but I think there has been improvement. If you look at Nigeria, which were dictatorships, military dictatorships, that has evolved into democracy, you can criticize the level of democracy, but at least there are elections. And I mean they are correct. Same happened in Ghana. So I think yes, on the long term there is a positive evolution. Now more recently in the so called Sahel Belt you had a number of military coups, but with the support of the population. So there have been countries, Mali for instance, where military took over power has to do also with the way France was behaving in this country. France was supporting the previous government which was highly frustrating to the population. And so young people have actually supported this military coup. Now the military says that they will return to democracy, but of course the way is rather bumpy. It's quite obvious it's rather bumpy.
- [40:07]
Interviewer
The Chinese influence is that overall positive, negative or that's too gross. But what is the overall influence of China and China investment?
- [40:22]
Luac de Konier
Well, first of all, of course the Chinese behave very differently from let's say European countries or European Union as such, looking mainly at their own benefits. And so that's why they are mainly investing in mining, access to mining and everything which has to do with transport to mines and so to secure their own need for critical minerals. On the other hand, they have often been key in providing infrastructure or have paid countries in terms of in kind in providing infrastructure. They have done that in an efficient way. I do not belong to those who only criticize China. I think there are also positive things about China's presence in Africa. They have been Investing more than 180 billion in infrastructure, which is substantial. And so yeah, Africans would say if Europeans come to Africa and they want to support some infrastructure projects, they first start by making a feasibility study which takes five years and then they might decide to invest or not. Whereas the Chinese are much more rapid in providing this infrastructure with much less conditions than Europeans.
- [41:54]
Interviewer
Yeah, in general, I think the Chinese act quickly in the west and In Europe, in the United States, we are bogged down and we reverse ourselves, have this stick. We don't stick to it as well.
- [42:11]
Luac de Konier
There is an ethical issue, Alfred, I think in terms of, of course, the whole thing of corruption. For Chinese, corruption is part of the business. And so this is also a reason why they are more rapid than Europeans who would refrain, I hope so from. From corruption, which. Which slows down, of course, some of the. Of the processes.
- [42:35]
Interviewer
Corruption is a big problem, I think, especially when you talk about critical minerals and actually handing over the rights to these critical minerals, often to non Africans, through deals that. Is there any way to. What are the trends? I mean, is it getting worse or is it not with regard to corruption? And.
- [43:03]
Luac de Konier
I think what is improving is that a number of African leaders realize that just granting concessions to foreign companies, Chinese or Western companies, is not the way to contribute to more prosperity in the continent. And so they start copying what Indonesia has done with their critical minerals, which is imposing the foreign powers that are purchasing the minerals to also invest in local capacity to transform and process minerals, which is happening in Indonesia because you have Korean and Japanese companies investing in battery companies in Indonesia, even in electric vehicles. And African leaders start to copy this and you see the first results of this happening with positive result, of course, which is beneficial to the continent.
- [44:07]
Interviewer
You put a big emphasis on agriculture and on mining, and those are like traditional sectors. So are there other sectors, let's say commercial sectors, banking? I mean, the other elements of what we consider modern or advanced economies, are they also emerging? Are there some technologies specifically that you found, technological innovations that are coming out of Africa?
- [44:42]
Luac de Konier
So it's true that banking has developed a lot and so call it indigenous African banking, big banking companies, Nigerian, Kenyan banking companies, which did not exist or hardly existed 10 years ago, which have become Pan African financial institutions or really robust growth in financial sector. Let me draw your attention on everything which has to do with creative industries. Very, very interesting in terms of fashion, arts, music, film industry, the Nollywoods in. In Nigeria, film industry, one million people working in that industry. So then everything which has to do with the blue economy, aquaculture is growing. You see tourism growing. Yeah, yeah. So, yes, there are other sectors. It is growing, yes. But often these are smaller companies developing apps, making fintech. Companies are growing as well, but in terms of employment, they are rather limited. However, of course they can have an impact in terms of the efficiency of the economy and the productivity of the economy.
- [46:08]
Interviewer
I have encountered people who were Africans, who were trained, who became immigrants to the United States who are working in very high level positions in it. So that's probably a net. This is hurting Africa itself when they leave. I guess.
- [46:28]
Luac de Konier
That'S really a problem. I mean, so the brain drain from Africa is an issue, as you mentioned in it also in medical care. I don't know whether you heard that story that 90% of doctors in Ghana actually work in London rather than in Ghana. So this is really, of course this is problematic for the continent. Absolutely.
- [46:59]
Interviewer
Are there some really good medical schools? The United States is desperately in need of doctors. There's a real shortage of doctors. And are we stealing the best doctors from Africa as well?
- [47:18]
Luac de Konier
I'm afraid we are also the nurses.
- [47:22]
Interviewer
Right. Well, caretakers of all various kinds of.
- [47:26]
Luac de Konier
There are websites in Ghana with adverts from European health institutions looking for nurses from Ghana offering them permits to live in Europe, offering them a labor contract, et cetera.
- [47:44]
Interviewer
Do you have any ideas how to reverse these trends or prevent them from happening at the level that they are happening?
- [47:56]
Luac de Konier
Yes, I think that is something where of course authorities like European Commission, European Union should intervene and prohibit this kind of practice. I think it's just not acceptable.
- [48:13]
Interviewer
Climate change, it plays a big role in your analysis. And how does climate disruption intersect with job creation in Africa?
- [48:23]
Luac de Konier
So the main impact is on agriculture again, but agriculture is 60% of the economy. That's why I'm mentioning agricultural so often. That's how it is. At least 60% of the employment, not in terms of added value, is much lower, but so there are different impacts. There is soil deterioration. 10% of the arable land has already been affected by climate change. There is this change in rain patterns because the irrigation is not mechanized. It's still agriculture depending on rain. 95% of the African agriculture is dependent on irrigation from rain, not from mechanical engineering irrigation. And so you see a big impact also on grasslands that are reducing. So this is really a shame because Africa is only contributing 3% of global greenhouse gas emissions, but is the most affected continent by climate change. There is a great study, not the same university in US showing how the world is impacted and mainly focusing on Africa, which is really difficult. So in terms of wheat production, 10% is affected. In terms of coffee, it's 25% like this kind of things. And then we have all these funds that are supposed to remediate or to invest in climate adaptation or the COP conferences have foreseen like 100 billion US dollar per year for the global South. There is a loss and damage fund that has been created of 300 billion US dollar but it's just not enough. Just not enough.
- [50:23]
Interviewer
The population growing so rapidly and the harm caused by climate change to agriculture. What are the prospects of food self sufficiency in the long run? Food insecurity? How much malnutrition is there right now and will it increase and is it growing? Is this an incredible threat OR so.
- [50:47]
Luac de Konier
The UN report just came out about malnutrition. It's 20% of the population. That is something. It's huge. No, it's huge. And then you have this incredible contradiction that the continent is still importing in gross numbers 75 billion US dollar of agricultural products and food products per year. Whereas it could be the position to produce it on African soil by expanding arable land that's actually. Or by becoming more efficient in terms.
- [51:23]
Interviewer
Of productivity, organization, automation could greatly increase agricultural productivity where it could be a net exporter. Are there any specific, specific crops even that we might not be aware of that like sorghum or you know, that might be available to the rest of the world in some sense?
- [51:47]
Luac de Konier
There is quite an interesting example of a Nigerian company. It's called the Flour Mills of Nigeria. It's a big company. It's a really big company and they are producing flour based on wheat imported from the US which really doesn't make sense. It does make sense. And so they are now replacing it by Nigerian wheat progressively. But still it's a challenge because the US wheat is cheaper than the locally produced wheat in Nigeria. So there's still a lot of work to do in terms of becoming more productive, more efficient in own cultivation of Nigerian wheat.
- [52:25]
Interviewer
That kind of a core issue then to improve agricultural productivity, to meet the growing population needs and even to create jobs and expand the economy. Especially as people, I guess, who are leaving and going to urban centers. All these things are occurring simultaneously.
- [52:48]
Luac de Konier
Exactly, Exactly. Yes, indeed. Yes indeed.
- [52:52]
Interviewer
Yeah. So how do you see that evolving? Do you see, is there enough recognition of this issue and are there programs in place to that are trying to deal with it in a serious way?
- [53:08]
Luac de Konier
I find that I'm quite positive. I see a growing self awareness of African governments also at the level of the African Union African Development Bank. I attended the General assembly in Ivory coast in May and I was quite amazed to see how self confident the continent is about self sufficiency and about the own capacity to grow and to finance their own needs. And it was at a time when USAID cut its support to Africa and they said, okay, we are not going to beg on our knees for help from abroad. We can do this ourselves. And they presented a whole plan of how they could increase their self financing capacity of the continent. It was quite impressive to see, probably too optimistic. But I'm just mentioning this because I'm seeing this growing self awareness of being able to become independent of the rest of the world.
- [54:19]
Interviewer
Are there specific sectors where the productivity has gone up substantially? Are countries or examples where the innovations have been widespread enough so that you can see them possibly adopted elsewhere?
- [54:40]
Luac de Konier
I saw figures about increasing productivity in agriculture. Better use of fertilizers, better knowledge of how to plant at the right moment in time. That is sometimes driven by the way mobile phones and information over mobile phones directly to smallholder farmers. So all these things are happening? I think that's positive, yeah.
- [55:13]
Alfred Marcus
Are there large.
- [55:15]
Interviewer
I mean you need an infrastructure. Agriculture is not just the farmer planting seeds, but it's where the farmer obtains the seeds, where he or she obtains the chemicals that are needed and the machinery Are. And are those things happening as well? Is there an infrastructure? You also need government support, technical support? If we think about it, I'm certainly not an expert in this area, but agriculture, there's a lot to developing an agricultural sector that's really productive.
- [55:49]
Luac de Konier
I think in general you can say that at least transport infrastructure is improving. You see it on the ground. I mean, I really see it on the ground. So farmers are better positioned to sell their produce on central markets, there are better warehouses. Even the cold chain is improving. So I think these improvements take place. The coaching of farmers by authorities is still weak. One of the things I saw is that certainly in smallholder farming it's often the women that are taking care of the farm more than the men. But women do not have access to training in agricultural techniques and these kind of things. So there's still a lot of work to do.
- [56:42]
Interviewer
If you had a magic wand, how would you use it to accelerate these processes?
- [56:49]
Luac de Konier
Do I have the magic.
- [56:51]
Interviewer
Sorry, magic wand. If you had a magic wand, if I made you the benevolent dictator. Okay, okay. What would you do to get to move it forward more rapidly?
- [57:05]
Luac de Konier
I would certainly take advantage of critical minerals as a source of rapid wealth creation for the continent, but do it in a serious way, probably renegotiate all the contracts that are in place and make sure that the benefits are being reinvested in the country and not going to Swiss bank accounts. I think that's a major issue. But of course there is complicity by these foreign companies that are all involved in that. And I would certainly work on a more efficient agriculture, more efficient productive Agriculture make sure access to finance for farmers is much better organized. The physical value chains are better in place. Yeah, that's what I would do.
- [57:59]
Interviewer
Playing out by the year 202050 seems to be the key year. The population imbalances are going to be so severe at that point in time. And as you pointed out Africa the numbers are just going to be so much different than the way in. The way we think about the world will probably be very different. I'm not sure where we. I'm not sure most of the world is prepared for this and really understands it. How do you think it will shake out? I mean if I asked you to create scenarios I guess you could create a very positive one and a very negative one.
- [58:37]
Luac de Konier
The very positive one would be. What I'm observing is that African big African entrepreneurs I mentioned this dangote group from Nigeria, they're very self confident. They say we can industrialize Africa and it will happen within the coming 15 to 20 years. That's what they're saying. And I mean these are serious people. I mean they are not just saying whatever but that's a positive side. But it would mainly come from Africa itself. I strongly believe in the need for Africans themselves to organize this future. Not being dependent on foreign, foreign powers. But worst case scenario is dramatic. It's really dramatic. Nothing happens. The inflow in labor market continues. There is no employment, there's massive migration, there is violence. It could be a disaster, could be a real disaster. I think it's. We are underestimating the risk of this. This being said, I found a document from NATO apparently the research center from NATO from the alliance that identified Africa as one of the biggest risks for stability in Europe. It was quite interesting to see that.
- [59:59]
Interviewer
And that risk arises because there's chaos in Africa and the pressure to. For people to leave will become much greater and it will pinch on the rest of the world. It will be possible to ignore and.
- [60:16]
Luac de Konier
Mixed with Islam fundamentalism. We observe that very poor people then tend to join Islamic rebellion groups, et cetera which make the danger even more serious for.
- [60:35]
Interviewer
For Europe it's a huge middle class is a promising factor. But as you said it's not India because it's not united. There's so much division.
- [60:46]
Luac de Konier
So one of my colleagues is saying one of the problems of Africa is this 54 countries. There should be more unification within the the continent. That would help. That would help.
- [60:59]
Interviewer
So we should probably begin to bring this to an end. What are you working on right now? What are your current projects?
- [61:07]
Luac de Konier
I'm working on two projects. On the one hand, I just joined an initiative, it's called Afsen African Climate and African and Energy Nexus has been created by a former special envoy of the UN Kenyan for Climate. And his ambition is to massively invest in climate and energy initiatives using massive data, using AI, by the way, to turn this information rapidly into bankable plans and approach investors with this kind of plan. So this is one of the things I'm doing. I'm working on it with former staff from the European Commission, with former investors, et cetera. I think it's quite interesting with a team in Kenya of AI specialists also collecting all the data which are necessary to understand. For instance, if we install photovoltaic infrastructure, where should we do that? Where is the best location to do that? And the second is that I became chair of a platform of researchers and it's called ipis, the International Peace Information Service. They are based in Belgium, but it's an international team also based in Congo, in Tanzania. They are collecting information which is essential for peace negotiation and peace processes. For instance, they are collecting information on artisanal mining in East Congo, where there is a direct relationship with, of course, the rebellion and the rebel groups M23. And they are supplying this to authorities involved in negotiation, among others, by the way, to the us, to the UK government, to the European Commission. And I think this is extremely interesting.
- [63:07]
Interviewer
Because it's clean energy. Could Africa actually be a net exporter of clean energy and at the same time grow its own use? I guess the amount of energy used per capita, given the amount of climate change contribution, has to be much, much lower than most of the rest of the world. But is there a lot of. Yeah, tell me, what is the potential?
- [63:30]
Luac de Konier
The plans are there. I mean, there are plans. There are. Like Morocco has that idea to do that based on color. I understand. I'm not an engineer, but I understand that technically it's not so easy to.
- [63:43]
Interviewer
Send the energy.
- [63:44]
Luac de Konier
Yeah. However, hydrogen is a possible solution. Production of hydrogen in Africa based on solar, which is then becoming an energy source which can be transported to other regions of the world.
- [64:02]
Interviewer
Again, with regard to business schools, what, what we. I know there's been some greater interest and there have been some conferences. Part of this organization, which I'm a part of the Academy of Management. There's been greater interest in Africa, but I still think the. It's. It's given very little consideration in a typical business school curriculum. The awareness, I think, is very low. What could be done to overcome that?
- [64:38]
Luac de Konier
You mean the awareness in business Schools in the us in schools?
- [64:42]
Interviewer
Yeah. I think it's off the radar too, largely Africa, China is on the radar, India is on the radar, Southeast Asia is on the radar, certainly Europe. But when it comes to Africa, I think it's like there's a huge gap in even acknowledging that it kind of exists.
- [65:07]
Luac de Konier
Yeah, no, no, I fully agree. And, and, and if you get world economic outlooks, et cetera, it does not speak about Africa. It speaks about us, China, Asia, but never or hardly mentions Africa. So how to create more interest for Africa by business schools and by stakeholders? This is a very good question. I think there are a number of good business schools like Kenya. I've seen one. So I don't know whether partnerships between existing business schools in the US and business school on site somewhere exchanging like in seat in Paris. What they do is they train like senior officials from central banks, for instance, so they can go on a training in Paris, that is perhaps, or high government officials or whatever. Providing trainings in Western business schools is something that could work.
- [66:20]
Interviewer
As we wrap up, by the year 2050, what percentage of the world's population will be African? And what percentage of the population of people under, let's say under 30, will be African? I think that recognition in and of itself would change a lot of people's ideas.
- [66:41]
Luac de Konier
So it's 30% of the world population because we will have 3.4 billion on a world population of 11 billion.
- [66:49]
Interviewer
Okay, right.
- [66:51]
Luac de Konier
In terms of young people, I don't know. But of course that will be, that will be a huge number.
- [67:00]
Interviewer
Today. That percentage says it'll be about 30 to 35% by the year 2050. And today, what is the percentage today of young people, of Africans to global population?
- [67:14]
Luac de Konier
So today they are 1.1 on a population of 8.1. So it's only 15% or so.
- [67:21]
Interviewer
So it's going to double. It's going to double by the year and it'll be much higher among young people. This has been great. I've really got a lot out of listening to you, Laak. The Future of Employment in Africa is.
- [67:37]
Alfred Marcus
A compelling on the ground perspective of how Africa's future will shape the global economy and geopolitics. For listeners of my new Books Network series, this book exemplifies the theme I often emphasize how strategy and ethics converge.
- [67:53]
Interviewer
In the choices organizations and societies make under uncertainty. If you have any comments about the podcast, you can always email me@amarcusmn.edu. and if you have suggestions for books, you can also use the same email.
- [68:12]
Alfred Marcus
Address to send me suggestions. I'm Alfred Marcus. Thank you for joining me. Please subscribe to the New Books Network to hear more conversations at the intersection.
- [68:22]
Interviewer
Of strategy, innovation and ethics.