Africa is back on track for prosperity

Investors’ enthusiasm for Africa dwindled as commodity prices fell. But there has always been more to the Africa story than raw materials.

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Technology is speeding up growth in Africa
(Image credit: Credit: ton koene / Alamy Stock Photo)

In the 2000s, Africa grew by more than 5% a year and the financial media was full of stories about its potential. African stockmarkets are widely seen as a commodity play, so it's no wonder investors' enthusiasm has dwindled in the past few years as the bear market in raw materials took hold. But there has always been more to the Africa story than that and stronger global growth will bolster metals and food exports too.

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Andrew Van Sickle
Editor, MoneyWeek

Andrew is the editor of MoneyWeek magazine. He grew up in Vienna and studied at the University of St Andrews, where he gained a first-class MA in geography & international relations.

After graduating he began to contribute to the foreign page of The Week and soon afterwards joined MoneyWeek at its inception in October 2000. He helped Merryn Somerset Webb establish it as Britain’s best-selling financial magazine, contributing to every section of the publication and specialising in macroeconomics and stockmarkets, before going part-time.

His freelance projects have included a 2009 relaunch of The Pharma Letter, where he covered corporate news and political developments in the German pharmaceuticals market for two years, and a multiyear stint as deputy editor of the Barclays account at Redwood, a marketing agency.

Andrew has been editing MoneyWeek since 2018, and continues to specialise in investment and news in German-speaking countries owing to his fluent command of the language.