If you are an Afro-pessimist, this book may help to change your mind. If you are not, it may provide you with new and realistic perspectives. Loïc De Cannière is not a dreamer but writes out of decades of field experience with investments in many different African countries – and in other continents too. In 2001 he became the manager of Incofin, an impact investor in Africa, Latin America and Asia with a portfolio that has grown over the years to an amount of 1.1 billion USD. He perfectly knows what he is writing about, and he identifies the levers to address the huge challenges the African continent is confronted with. He focuses on the central issue: funding, and what it is intended to support.
The continent’s limited global prosperity can be attributed to the interplay of five key factors: demography, employment, emigration, and climate change, which contributes to the degradation of agricultural land.
Among these, the most important challenge is demography. The population of sub-Saharan Africa, the fastest growing in the world, is estimated to amount to 2.1 billion in 2050 and 3.4 billion in 2100, surpassing in 2050-2060 the Asian continent. This in majority young population is inventive, dynamic, alert, but also the poorest in the world. Securing employment is the most basic requirement for escaping poverty. Across the African continent, an estimated 20 million new jobs are needed each year to absorb the growing youth population entering the labour market. In the absence of sufficient job opportunities, many people see migration — within Africa or abroad — as an alternative path out of poverty.
Therefore, states the author, the only way to create more prosperity on the African continent is to create jobs. Why then are there not enough jobs?
Among the structural factors explaining the much slower economic development of the African continent compared with other regions are major disruptions, including the legacy of slavery, colonization, colonialism and more recently the effects of climate change. Colonial patterns of plunder, if they ever went away, now come back into the open, as is obvious with the international quest for natural resources, most of all minerals. According to the author, international and national elites are concerned primarily with access to minerals rather than development.
Africa also faces unfair treatment under international policies aimed at combating climate change. Requirements imposed on the African continent to reduce carbon emissions put a heavy economic burden on a continent which is least responsible for climate change.
These limitations, writes the author, can be overcome, for example by an adequate organization of African agriculture and food industry, by integrating sustainable smallholder and family agriculture into the wider environment of agriculture and food businesses, and by improving key elements as e.g. education and training, monitoring and follow-up of smallholder farmers.
The agricultural sector has the potential to employ young job seekers and stimulate bottom-up initiatives for developing and marketing local production. Other potential areas of job creation are local processing of minerals, infrastructure, the creative arts, tourism, the digital economy (spectacularly appropriated at bottom level) etc. Above all, drawing on his extensive experience, Loïc De Cannière emphasizes the significance of the informal economy at the grassroots level as a fertile ground for remarkable initiative, creativity, imagination, and expertise in small-scale trade and production. Obviously, the informal economy is not a magic recipe for development. Structural economic and political conditions are necessary for it to thrive and lead to bigger initiatives. But it is an important lever to stimulate development from the bottom up.
The biggest hurdle for this development is access to finance. The specific contribution of this book lies in its fact-based advocacy for increased funding of MSMEs (micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises), with a particular focus on supporting micro-enterprises to grow into small and medium-sized businesses. The author provides numerous examples of successful funding initiatives, showing that positive outcomes are achieved when certain key criteria are met. He is a firm believer in impact investments, i.e. investments that aim to achieve both financial and positive social-ecological returns.
Impact investments make up just 3.7% of all sustainable investments, partly because EU regulations restrict public access to these higher-risk products. Obviously also, as the author’s personal experience with his investment firm shows, investments in Africa represent more risks than in other continents because of a less stable environment. Opportunities abound—especially in digital services—and with sound risk-mitigation strategies, the potential impact could be substantial. Making impact investment accessible to the public could help channel support toward sustainable, job-creating activities.
An important section of the book criticizes top-down initiatives. Despite a positive evolution within the European Union with much more focus on support for private sector initiatives and job creation, implementation of this new policy remains more than inadequate. The problem is partly structural – for every new initiative, a consensus between all member states must be reached before it can be presented to the partner countries, whose own input will then be very limited. It is partly linked to the new ‘win-win’ policy of partnership, in practice very much focused on the EUs interest rather than the needs of the partner countries. Even highly publicized initiatives such as the Global Gateway do not necessarily respond to the needs of the ‘partner countries’.
The most convincing argument of this book is based on the author’s direct experience with funding for successful (and less successful) initiatives with a positive social or ecological impact, and most of all with the dynamism of the informal sector which may be able partially to absorb the future explosive demographic growth on the African Continent.
It could be the start for several other books about questions naturally left unanswered.
The first is about the necessary institutional and economic environment for local and small initiatives to prosper. What can be done if the environment is less than supportive?
A second aspect worth exploring is resistance. Examining experiences from other communities and countries may reveal valuable lessons about how individuals and societies pursue their own advancement.
A third theme could explore China’s projects and activities, whose vision for Africa’s development differs in some respects but not necessarily in practice. How can African countries engage with China while maintaining control over their own natural resources for development purposes?
Finally, Loïc De Cannière’s book calls for a practical guide for potential impact investors, identifying networks, institutions, contacts, experiences one can learn from in a world which is not easy to penetrate.
In a sense the title of the original Dutch edition is more accurate than the English one: ‘Africa, a future worth dreaming for.’
This review was written by Dr Erik Kennes, Senior Research Fellow – Africa Programme at Egmont - Royal Institute for International Relations in Brussels.
The book is available in hardcover and paperback via various sources, depending on your location: North America, Australia & New Zealand, or any other location.
Loïc De Cannière, The Future of Employment in Africa: Demography, Labour Markets and Welfare, Anthem Press, London-New York, 2025, 159 pages
