In Africa the time of the rides to the outside must be gone

It often opposed the ageing of the population in the countries of the North, particularly in Europe, demographic runaway in the South. A more or less bright line separate two worlds: on the one hand, countries rich and aging, whose competitiveness is more affected by the reduction in the proportion of the workforce, and the other young country and poor which unbridled population growth thwarts development efforts and posed serious threats to the environment.

This dichotomous view does not account for the complexity of the demographic and economic developments today. Developed countries are aging together but at a differential rate which creates distortions of potential development between them. Aging has become a global phenomenon to which seem escape, at the present time, the countries of sub-Saharan Africa. The total population of sub-Saharan Africa will increase from approximately 800 million in 2007 to almost 2 billion by 2050. Is there for all that, as a relatively common idea, a real "African exception" to the universal process of demographic transition It would be risky to say so because, even if this has happened more slowly and with a delay of nearly twenty years behind the other developing regions, fertility began to decline in Africa.

However, the magnitude of the challenges require considerable resources that Africa did not. Aid to Africa must be substantially increased and redesigned in a balanced and demanding partnership. Proclaimed by all international partners but taken a beating as soon as it involves the geopolitical interests, good governance must be rehabilitated as a criterion of accessibility to development assistance. In Africa, the time of the rides to the outside must be gone. It is essential to impose new mechanisms to ensure the effectiveness of assistance from the international development goals. They must be reviewed in a new vision of cooperation towards development in the long term and, with regard to sub-Saharan Africa, based on the priority to be given to the development of human capital. Since the rapid growth of the youth in sub-Saharan Africa will decide with the population depression and aging that will see most of the regions of the world.

This is a historic opportunity that the black continent should not be missed and to prepare the future generation. If the right policies are adopted and institutional frameworks appropriate implemented, the growth that will be the active age population over the next decades will a tremendous stimulus to growth. Today, it is shown that the growth gap between the "Tigers" of the East Asia and the countries of South America from 1965 to 1990 is attributable to more than 40 to the more rapid increase in the number of the active population in Asian countries, and adequate policies that they were implemented, particularly in the field of human capital formation.

The judicious development of its human potential will enable Africa to begin the process of a real take-off economic and social, and take the best advantage of the international division of labour. It might be able to respond favourably to the growing needs in labour resulting from the decline of the working age population dans the other regions of the world. Alone, Europe would require 15 million additional workers by 2025.

But the size of the challenges and the importance of the issues exceed the possibilities of the continent and called awareness and response at the international level.