Opinion: Africa's Solar Revolution Could Be Next Industrial Revolution
For quite some time now, I have been scouring the ideas landscape for a set of transformative technologies and associated industrial value chains that have the capability to enable the economy of the African continent to charge ahead at double-digit rates over the next 50 years, which is the absolute minimum required if the continent is to succeed in shaking off the destructive forces of poverty, hopelessness and despair, whose signs are already here for all to see.
It has finally dawned on me that such technologies and the industries they will spur must belong to the future rather than the past if they are to have the effect we seek, which is to bring about radical change in the livelihoods of Africans by creating jobs for millions of the continent's young population, by causing a momentous change in industrial and individual productivity across all manner of human endeavours and all the while, keeping the continent's environment and bio-diversity safe.
In other words, a 21st century industrial revolution right here in Africa. It sounds like a tall order but it is not only possible, it is the only way forward for Africa.
Jim Clark