South Africa's G20 presidency last year revived an old and uncomfortable question: If Africa has been “growing” for more than two decades, why has so much of that promise failed to translate into factories, jobs, exports and broad-based prosperity?
According to economists and investment thinkers, the answer lies not in the absence of opportunity, but in the continent's failure to convert that opportunity into productive capacity.
For Ghulam Ballim, chief economist and head of research at Standard Bank Group, this moment is not just another emerging market sales pitch. This is a crack in the global system that could push Africa closer to the center of the world's next economic map.
“The world is not going through a transition, it is a rupture,” Ballim told attendees of the Standard Bank Business Breakfast at Enlight Africa. He argued that the rules, institutions, and beliefs that governed the post-World War II order were being replaced by the weaponization of power, coercion, and economic instruments.
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This breakdown is forcing governments and companies to rethink global supply chains that were built for efficiency rather than resilience. For the past 30 years, globalization was organized around just-in-time delivery. Now, Balliem said, the world is turning to “just in case” thinking, where reliability, consistency and commercial confidence matter as much as price.
“Commercial trust is reviving itself as a major concern for corporates and governments across the world,” he said.
In Ballim's words: “I suspect that…