Robert Rotberg 
Africa Emerges 
Consummate Challenges, Abundant Opportunities

Sub-Saharan Africa is no longer a troubled ‘dark
continent.’ Most of its constituent countries are now
enjoying significant economic growth and political progress. The
new Africa has begun to banish the miseries of the past, and
appears ready to play an important role in world affairs. Thanks to
shifts in leadership and governance, an African renaissance could
be at hand.

Yet the road ahead is not without obstacles. As world renowned
expert on African affairs, Robert Rotberg, expertly shows, Africa
today maybe poised to deliver real rewards to its long suffering
citizens but it faces critical new crises as well as abundant new
opportunities. Africa Emerges draws on a wealth of empirical
data to explore the key challenges Africa must overcome in the
coming decades. From peacekeeping to health and disease, from
energy needs to education, this illuminating analysis diagnoses the
remaining impediments Africa will need to surmount if it is to
emerge in 2050 as a prosperous, peaceful, dynamic collection of
robust large and small nations.

Africa Emerges offers an unparalleled guide for all those
interested in the dynamics of modern Africa’s political,
economic, and social development.

Table of Content

Acknowledgements viii

Introduction: A Continent on the Move 1

1 Myriad Challenges and Opportunities 5

2 A Demographic Dividend or Just More People? 21

3 Tropical Dilemmas: Disease, Water, and More 35

4 Educating Future Generations 55

5 To War Rather than to Prosper 69

6 Accountability and the Wages of Corrupt Behavior 91

7 The Infrastructural Imperative 116

8 Harnessing Mobile Telephone Capabilities 134

9 China Drives Growth 151

10 Strengthening Governance 173

11 Creating Responsible Leadership 189

Notes 216

Select Bibliography 244

Index 252

About the author

Robert I. Rotberg is the Founding Director of the Harvard Kennedy
School’s Program on Intrastate Conflict and President
Emeritus of the World Peace Foundation. He is a Fellow of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences, was a member of the US
Secretary of State’s advisory panel on Africa, and in
2012-2013 was the Inaugural Fulbright Research Chair in Political
Development at both the Norman Paterson School of International
Affairs at Carleton University (Ottawa) and the Balsillie School of
International Affairs of the University of Waterloo (Canada).