Prospective de l'Afrique subsaharienne. Une synthèse des travaux de prospective récents

At the request of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, an overview of the last ten years’ research into and about the future of sub-Saharan Africa has just been completed by CERED/CERNEA (Centre for Research on Development Economics/Centre for Research in New Applied Economics) at the University of Paris X-Nanterre.
Philippe Hugon, who co-edited this survey with Olivier Sudrie, shares with us the main lessons to be learned from these exercises in the prospects for sub-Saharan Africa. After giving a brief outline of the different approaches adopted in these studies, he highlights:
-the most important trends, distinguishing the exogenous (depending on external factors) from the endogenous (depending on factors within the African continent), and stressing the disparities at sub-regional level;
-the main strategic issues in the medium and long term, the principal actors and their possible strategic options;
-the scenarios generated by these studies, some of which are related to possible social and economic developments, while others are concerned rather with the region’s geopolitical position.
This masterly survey of recent future-oriented research about black Africa reveals the scale of the problems currently facing the region, but also usefully indicates which factors are responsible for inertia and what room for manoeuvre is available to the actors concerned.