ISS Launch Addis Ababa: Launch of the New ISS Addis Ababa Office and Monograph: African Futures 2050

Date: 2011-03-23

Venue: , 5th Floor , Get House Building , Africa Avenue , Bole , Addis Ababa

RSVP:
Mrs. Beakal Bisrat.
Tel +251 11 515 6320
Fax +251 11 515 6449
E-mail: [email protected]

The Executive Director of the Institute for Security Studies cordially invites you to the launch and cocktail of the new ISS Addis Ababa Office and the Launch of the ISS African Futures 2050 Monograph.

Major transitions are rapidly reshaping Africa. Populations are growing substantially and urbanizing. Economic growth has accelerated over the last decade. New technologies, including mobile phones and solar cells, are sweeping across the continent. Longstanding conflicts have been or are being addressed. On the broader stage, but with important regional implications, the rise of China, India and other major emerging countries are changing our trading and investment patterns.

Yet major uncertainties face us. How rapidly will we bring communicable diseases under control and advance the education of our citizens? Can Africa diversify its economies and employ its growing population in manufacturing and services, as well as successfully managing the wealth generated by its raw materials? Will climate change increase pressures on agriculture or will Africa have its own green revolution? How will the continent build the extensive infrastructures that it desperately needs? What will be the quality of our governance? How will external actors, both government and firms, approach and affects Africa.

With this monograph the Institute for Security Studies and the Pardee Center for International Futures provide an extensive study of Africa’s current course. Combining the deep and wide knowledge of Africa within the ISS with extensive use of the IF’s modeling system, this discussion goes beyond past work in a number of ways. It looks across most major issue arenas: demographics, economics, sociopolitical change, the environment and human development itself, including health and education. It explores further into our future than perhaps any other extensive study of African futures has ever done. While not pushing forward specific policy initiatives, it provides a context within which those who pursue sustainable human development can consider our policies. While providing broad set of insights concerning where we may be going, clearly this study leaves room for much future work. No one can predict the future and we do not pretend to do so. Instead this publication provides one possible future, shaped by recent and likely future developments. The intention is to build in the near future and in collaboration with other African institutions, other visions, rooted heavily in alternative choices and actions across the continent. Clearly, the story of Africa’s future has only begun.

The support of the Goverment of Canada to the African Futures 2050 project is gratefully acknowledged.