By Tendai Chitapi

The world loves a good growth story, and in the last few years, China, the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa have provided plenty of material to write and comment about.

Having returned to Africa after a nearly two-year stint in China, the main question being asked is whether Africa is the next China. It seems improper to put a country and continent side by side, but in terms of populations, which would represent a consumer market, China is actually larger than Africa.

Africa has over the last decade been growing at an average of 5.6% and China at 6.1% against global growth of 4%. Ironically, whereas forty to fifty years ago, Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) was in the throes of war and political upheaval, now it is the North that is war torn and politically unstable, and SSA that is now the focus of international investment. I think the Africa/China comparison has four critical elements that would need to be considered: policy, politics, domestic market consumption and institutions.

In terms of policy, I think China has, in the past two to three decades, adopted an aggressive economic growth policy, at all costs. But in fact, I think the costs have been rather high. After two years in China, I had to wait to come back to Zimbabwe to be in a place where I could breathe clean air, and drink water from the tap. In an era of growing importance and influence of the internet and mobile technology, the Chinese have increasingly made their concerns heard as far as economic policy is concerned.

The major question: economic growth, but at what cost? In this regard, I do hope that Africa will not be the next China. I do hope that economic growth policy will not compromise on environmental sustainability.

In terms of politics, I think the politics of China and those of Africa are incomparable. This is one of the dangers of juxtaposing a country and a continent. China has the political ability to declare and implement policy nationally with immediate impact, through the reach and influence of the Communist Party.

In Africa, you are dealing with a number of relatively new democratic constitutions, whose interests and objectives are almost never congruous, and this makes for a complex decision-making matrix in Africa, that is not of concern in China. In this case, I hope that SSA will find political alignment that will enable them to pursue growth and progress objectives holistically as a continent.

The domestic market has driven the entry of multiple Western brands into the fast-growing China, with its fast growing and high-spending middle class. The main reason many companies have now begun to take China seriously is simply one of market scale. If one can capture 10 per cent of a 1,4 billion strong market, that makes 140 million consumers, larger than almost every Western market besides the USA itself.

Africa has a similar benefit for businesses driven by large consumer markets, with its own growing middle class, and this is why many companies have begun to take Africa seriously as a consuming market. If African policy makers can get their policy right, this market presents a huge opportunity for African growth in a way that we have not seen in recent modern memory.

African institutions need to be as strong as Asian/Chinese institutions. China doesn’t have the headache of bureaucracy when it comes to making decision. Decisions are made and enacted. And although various channels exist to enable the masses to voice their opinions, they are not significantly present in policy making and this makes for more a nimble policy making environment.

Corruption has plagued both China and Africa, although to varying degrees, and it appears China has taken a more decisive stance at this stage. Institutions, ingrained and systemic, reveal the patterns of influence and decision making that have emerged with time, and the institutions in Africa do not tell a hopeful story.

The absence of professionalism and the ubiquity of shameless cronyism in the public sector need to be addressed, as it hinders FDI and the state’s ability to invest in development. Yet, despite this environment, major global technology companies like SAP and IBM are looking to Africa as their next growth driver, and investment in technological infrastructure is critical to enabling Africa to catch up in terms of development with the West. Industrialisation needs to be at the forefront of the discussion, leading to beneficiation, adding value to commodities.

Policy that demands that local resources are value-added or beneficiated before export, will ensure that Africa derives maximum value, and policy that enables local processing to retail would be the ideal. In addition, on the issue of governance, we need to move to a system of merit-based bureaucracy; let merit-based rewards replace cronyism. And in my opinion, the single greatest megatrend bringing hope for the African development growth story is a youthful population with a hunger for change.

In ten years, Africa will have the world’s youngest population living above the world’s largest resource base. If policy advances adequately to provide a transparent and enabling environment in the next decade, I believe the African growth and development story will be the story of the 21st Century.