population - Afrikan Heroes

Hard Times For Businesses In Zimbabwe Where A quarter of The Population Has Emigrated

August 7, 2019

For those doing business in Zimbabwe, this is a crucial time to tighten belts. The whole of the country is living daily without electricity for more than 18 hours and there are shortages of everything from bread to motor fuel.

To make it worse, Zimbabweans are now receiving food aid in cities for the first time and drought has necessitated the import of hundreds of thousands of tons of corn.

Here Is All You Need To Know

When Robert Mugabe was ousted after four decades in power in late 2017 his replacement, Emmerson Mnangagwa, promised economic regeneration and declared that Zimbabwe is “open for business.”

Things have however gone from bad to worse with the effects of rapidly expanding money supply through the sale of Treasury bills under Mugabe’s rule coming home to roost and this year’s outlawing of the US dollar in favor of a local quasi currency that can’t be traded outside the country causing panic.

“Zimbabwe is at a tipping point and if it falls over the edge it’s going to be quite a long way in coming back,” said Derek Matyszak, a Zimbabwe-based research consultant for South Africa’s Institute for Security Studies.

“The wheels are falling off. There is no way out of a Ponzi scheme other than a massive infusion of cash to pay off your creditors.”

The country with the world’s highest inflation rate after Venezuela also suspended annual consumer-price data for the next six months. The authorities need to collect comparable data since the introduction of the new currency in February.
That marked a return to 2009 when the country abandoned the Zimbabwe dollar in favor of the US dollar and other currencies after inflation surged to an estimated 500 billion percent.
If the more commonly used black-market exchange rate is used, Zimbabwe’s annual inflation is currently 558%, about three times the official rate, while Venezuela’s is 35,004%, according to Steve H. Hanke, a professor of applied economics at the John Hopkins University in Baltimore.

Scrapping the official annual rate is “no real loss from an analytical perspective,” said Jee-A van der Linde, an economist at NKC African Economics in Paarl, South Africa

“These elevated inflation readings did little more than create panic and damage what little confidence was left.”

‘‘A quarter of the population has already emigrated, more may follow’’

A de-linking of the country’s quasi-currencies from parity with the US dollar in February and the re-imposition of the Zimbabwe dollar overnight in June has fueled depreciation with the currency officially trading at 9.28 to the dollar on Aug. 2.

The black-market rate was 10.8, according to Marketwatch.co.zw, a website run by analysts. While the government has argued that in the face of foreign-currency shortages it has no choice but to reintroduce its own currency, Hanke disagrees.

“The Achilles heel is the introduction of the new currency to the exclusion of the dollar,” he said.

“They have decided to go in the completely opposite direction and claimed it’s the best thing since sliced bread and it’s going to be an absolute disaster.”

While the cost of basic services has climbed 400% this year, pay rises have been around 10%, said Japhet Moyo, secretary-general of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, which has 130,000 members.

“People are very angry” and even though a quarter of the population has already emigrated, more may follow, said Matyszak.

“The Zimbabwe I once loved has become a cemetery for my son’s future” said Ashley Randen, an unemployed single mother of a 12-year-old boy in Harare.

For Deep Insights on Zimbabwe’s migration click here

The Rate of Inflation Is So Bad That There Would Be No Statistics On Inflation In Zimbabwe Going Forward

Zimbabwe’s finance minister responded to the country’s worsening economic crisis last week by blacking out inflation statistics for the next six months, boosting the price of the little power that’s available five-fold and admitting what the International Monetary Fund told him in April: the economy will contract for the first time since 2008.

At the same time, he spoke of fiscal surpluses and relaxation in local ownership requirements for the key platinum industry.

Still, the decision evokes other countries in crisis. Venezuela halted publication of inflation data and while it periodically releases figures, it isn’t operating on a regular schedule. In 2013, Argentina was censured by the IMF for tampering with its data.

Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube tried to highlight the country’s first positive current-account balance in a decade as a sign of progress. Since his appointment last year, the government has sold only marginal amounts of Treasury bills.

And earlier this year, the Cambridge University-trained economics professor forecast that month-on-month inflation, which surged to 39.3% in June, would be close to zero by year-end.

The fundamental problem is that the government has failed to attract significant investment and hasn’t substantially changed the policies of the Mugabe era, said John Robertson, an independent economist in Harare, the capital.

Bloomberg

Charles Rapulu Udoh

Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based Lawyer with special focus on Business Law, Intellectual Property Rights, Entertainment and Technology Law. He is also an award-winning writer. Working for notable organizations so far has exposed him to some of industry best practices in business, finance strategies, law, dispute resolution, and data analytics both in Nigeria and across the world.

Facebook: https://web.facebook.com/Afrikanheroes/

You Can’t Fight Poverty Without Population Control

July 13, 2019

Africa has the largest expanse of arable land in the world. It has the highest number of young population. In fact, it is designated as the youngest continent in the world. Yet Africa cannot feed itself. The continent is filled with growing poverty, while the leadership waste time from one talk shop to another.

Why is Africa poor, and growing poorer and poorer? Because the poor produce their like; more poor people. Given that Africa is brimming with poor people mass producing poor offsprings with clueless governments with no concrete plans to address the issue. Africa will impede global efforts to eradicate poverty by 2050.

It is projected that the world’s population will continue to grow and will reach nearly 10 billion by 2050.

While population growth is slowing significantly in many parts of the world, Sub-Saharan Africa is witnessing the opposite as its population is projected to double by 2050, an expansion of nearly 10 times relative to 1960, from 227 million to 2.2 billion.

As a result, the share of Sub-Saharan Africa in the world’s population is projected to grow as well. In 1960, it was just 7%, but this has increased to 14 % in 2018 and is projected to reach 23 percent by 2050.

Globally, almost 1 in 4 people will be Sub-Saharan African in 2050, the ratio was 1 in 13 in 1960. This is a huge leap.

The global population was around 3 billion in 1960. By 1987, in less than three decades, it had surpassed 5 billion and there were around 7.6 billion people in the world in 2018.

This growth varies greatly across regions. Since 1960, the largest relative growth has taken place in Sub-Saharan Africa where the population expanded from 227 million in 1960 to more than 1 billion in 2018—a nearly fivefold increase.

This is largely due to continuously higher fertility rates in Sub-Saharan Africa compared to the rest of the world. Today, on average, women in Sub-Saharan Africa have 4.8 children per woman, compared with less than 3 children per woman worldwide.

The fertility rate in Sub-Saharan Africa is projected to remain substantially higher than in any other region for the next few decades. This can only be brought to check if governments embark on a massive campaign to achieve higher education rates for today’s girl child because the fertility rates of women drop with higher academic pursuits.

The interconnectedness between education and population growth cannot be overemphasized. The size of the world’s population is the result of fertility and mortality in the past years – births and deaths.

In fact, there is a strong correlation between fertility and mortality. Women tend to have more children where children are more likely to die and bear fewer children where their child’s risk of dying is lower. And maternal literacy remains a weapon against high infant mortality.

There is a clear correlation between rising population and a rising poverty rate. The poorer a society, the higher the population growth rate, bringing this down, you will also discover that even within a poor society, the poorest in that setting tend to have more children.

Another instructive but very curious correlation is between high population growth in Africa and security challenges. While a country like Niger has the highest fertility rate per woman in the region, Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo are driving the population growth in the region.

And the two are also experiencing some of the most destabilizing security challenges in the country, leading many to believe that there is a correlation between unbridled population growth and growing insecurity.

A new study by Population Action International (PAI), suggests a strong correlation between countries prone to civil conflicts and those with burgeoning youth populations.

Social scientists label this demographic profile “youth bulge,” and its potential to destabilize countries in the developing world is gaining wider acceptance among the foreign policy community.

The theory contends that societies with rapidly growing young populations often end up with rampant unemployment and large pools of disaffected youths who are more susceptible to recruitment into a rebel or terrorist groups. Countries with weak political institutions are most vulnerable to youth-bulge-related violence and social unrest.

Also when you take into consideration, the fact that more kids are born in internally displaced camps than in a normal environment. The dangers we face becomes clearer.

Going through all acclaimed pro-poor policies of this government, one wonders how they plan to tackle poverty while romancing population growth.

Kelechi Deca

Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry.

Facebook: https://web.facebook.com/Afrikanheroes/

More Millionaire Population Will Increase In These Regions By 2023

June 21, 2019

Although this is simply a report and does not bring this future into existence, current trends suggest more millionaire population would soon sprout across Asia, Africa, and Latin America. This is according to Boston Consulting Group (BCG)’s 19th annual analysis of the global wealth-management industry released this week.

Here Is How

BCG found that Global wealth grew by 1.6 percent in 2018. The fastest growth was in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia, Latin America.
“Strong inflows” into life insurance and pension funds in South Africa, Mexico, and Brazil buoyed growth in Africa and Latin America, BCG found.
Although BCG’s report found that gains in personal financial wealth slowed by about 5 percentage points in 2018 compared to the previous five years — due to factors like the fourth-quarter drop in major stock indexes, this new analysis predicts it will pick up again slightly over the next five years — with Asia poised to add new millionaires faster than anywhere else.
BCG expects Asia and Africa will see the highest growth rates between 2018 and 2023. By then, private banking revenue pools in Asia could even exceed those in Western Europe.
Presently, the greatest concentration of millionaires (measured in U.S. dollars) is currently in North America. But BCG projects that Asia will see the fastest growth in its millionaire population between 2018 and 2023.

After Asia, Africa, And Latin America

The report notes that the total number of millionaires around the world is expected to rise from 22.1 million to 27.6 million by 2023. Trailing Asia, the report predicts that Africa and Latin America will see the most growth in their respective millionaire populations.

Currently, half of all global wealth is held by millionaires according to the report. Analysts projected that wealthy individuals with assets between $20 million and $100 million will see the greatest increase of wealth through 2023, with an expected compound annual growth rate of 8.6 percent.

Targeting that group could be “a golden opportunity for wealth managers willing to tailor their service and coverage models to clients’ needs,” according to the report.

The Fluctuating Wealth In North America

The BCG found that in North America, wealth dropped by 0.4 percent in 2018. This was because high-net-worth individuals in North America and Western Europe were most affected by drops in major market indexes which affected equities and investment funds. However, unlike in North America, wealth did grow in Western Europe, but only by 0.6 percent as growth in some countries offset a decline in others.

BCG predicts the U.S. will see positive growth through 2023, with wealth in North America overall projected to grow by 5.4 percent to $118 trillion. They expect growth in North America will eventually outpace Western Europe and Japan.

Globally, the analysis projects wealth will grow at a compound rate of 5.7 percent between 2018 and 2023, which would still be slightly slower compared to recent years.

Charles Rapulu Udoh

Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based Lawyer with special focus on Business Law, Intellectual Property Rights, Entertainment and Technology Law. He is also an award-winning writer. Working for notable organizations so far has exposed him to some of industry best practices in business, finance strategies, law, dispute resolution, and data analytics both in Nigeria and across the world.