Abstract
Africa is the most rapidly growing continent, and its growth (demographic, economic, cultural etc.) will inevitably influence the World System (and the further, the stronger). The growth of African societies will bring at the same time both challenges and opportunities. The authors discuss both of them in detail. They consider Africa as the main intrigue of demographic transformations in the twenty-first century. But they also think that this continent can constitute a very important intrigue in other respects (economic, political, ethnical etc.). No doubt, in the future, African countries will produce many surprises both positive and negative.
Notes
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Notes
1 African population growth and problems connected with it have been already touched upon in some reports to the Club of Rome though not separately, but rather in connection with the issues of the world population growth. However, it is worth to single out Aklilu Lemma’s report to The Club of Rome “Arica Beyond Famine” (Lemma, Citation1989) that considered the problems of population, urbanization, the debt of African states to world banks, desertification of the African continent and famine, affecting millions of people. The need for the development of local self-government in various communities is noted. Great hope was placed on the combination of the use of new technologies and traditional forms of agricultural production, which should contribute to resolving the most acute crisis situations in African countries.
4 In contrast to Northern and Southern Africa where fertility is much lower. However, in almost all countries of Tropical Africa, it is still declining. For example, in Niger in 2005–2010 the total fertility rate was 7.55 children per woman, and is currently 6.95 (UN Population Division, Citation2022).
6 E.g., Bilyuga et al. (Citation2016), Korotayev, Bilyuga, et al. (Citation2016, Citation2017a, Citation2017b, Citation2018), Korotayev, Vaskin, et al. (Citation2017), Vaskin et al. (Citation2018), Korotayev et al. (Citation2021), Korotayev et al. (Citation2020), Grinin (Citation2012, Citation2013), Grinin (Citation2022), Korotayev et al. (Citation2021).
7 See, for example, Moller (Citation1968), Mesquida and Wiener (Citation1999), Goldstone (Citation2002), Urdal (Citation2004, Citation2008, Citation2012), Korotayev et al. (Citation2011), Yair and Miodownik (Citation2016), Cincotta and Weber (Citation2021), Grinin (Citation2020b, Citation2020c), Grinin (Citation2020d), Korotayev et al. (Citation2021), Romanov et al. (Citation2021), Korotayev et al. (Citation2022), Korotayev and Zinkina (Citation2022), Sawyer et al. (Citation2022).
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Funding
This article is an output of a research project implemented as part of the Basic Research Program at the HSE University in 2024 with support of the Russian Science Foundation [Project # 23-18-00535].
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0278-2619
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