The Africa Business Center: Towards Sustainable Development

VENTURES AFRICA – Since 1800’s the world has seen two great middle class expansions, and in Africa we are trying to grow and live through a third.

As a result of the nineteenth century industrial revolution created a substantial Western European and American middle class. This growth continued post the WWII – a trajectory that included Japan. Today this is happening in the emerging markets (EMs).

In Asia alone, 525 million people can already count themselves middle class — more than the European Union’s total population. Over the next two decades, the middle class is expected to expand by another three billion, coming almost exclusively from the emerging world.

By 2030, so many people (we hope) will have escaped poverty that the balance of geopolitical power will have changed completely, and global trade patterns will changed based on the new shape of things transpiring in global politics, affecting global business. read more