Africa’s economic prospects depend partly on a demographic shift: a growing share of working-age adults relative to children and older dependents. In a new Foreign Affairs essay, Jakkie Cilliers, who founded the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) and has spent decades studying Africa’s long-term development, argues that policy choices today will shape when that shift translates into faster growth. 

In "Africa Can't Afford to Squander Its Demographic Opportunity," Cilliers makes that case with analysis from International Futures (IFs), the Pardee Institute's open-source, integrated forecasting platform. Cilliers heads the ISS African Futures program in Pretoria, South Africa, which has partnered with Pardee since 2010 and uses IFs to analyze development across all 55 African countries. The essay is adapted from his book Africa's Road to Prosperity: 10 Things to Know. 

What the IFs analysis shows 

Citing IFs for his analysis, Cilliers identifies a ratio of at least 1.7 working-age people per dependent as a favorable condition for faster economic growth. Africa’s continental average today is about 1.4. IFs forecasts put Africa at that threshold around 2053, with northern and southern Africa and several island states reaching it much earlier. With the right policies, the forecasts suggest the window could be brought forward by about a decade. 

Cilliers’ book is grounded in the realization that this opportunity depends on policy choices made today, many of which take decades to pay off. Better child survival and girls’ education can contribute to declining fertility, gradually raising the share of working-age adults. Education, health care, and employment opportunities then help determine whether that shift produces higher incomes.  

Jakkie Cilliers's new book, Africa's Road to Prosperity: 10 Things to Know, draws on data and scenario modeling from International Futures (IFs), the Pardee Institute's open-source, integrated forecasting platform, to ask which choices could most improve development outcomes across the continent.  

Cilliers is the founder and former executive director of the Institute for Security Studies (ISS). He chairs the ISS Board of Trustees and heads its African Futures and Innovation Programme in Pretoria, South Africa. Cilliers and ISS are longtime partners of the Pardee Institute. 

Ten priorities, examined over the long term 

The book identifies 10 priorities for Africa’s development, including infrastructure, energy, regional trade, employment, land management, and income convergence with wealthier regions, and examines the forces that shape them. 

These priorities interact. Expanding electricity access can raise productivity and support new jobs, while a faster-growing workforce needs education and job opportunities to translate demographic change into higher incomes. Using International Futures (IFs), Pardee’s open-source forecasting platform, [Jakkie] Cilliers examines how these relationships unfold over time and how different policy choices could strengthen or constrain Africa’s prospects for prosperity. 

Access the book

Keisuke Minai. (2026, April 12). Qatar's mediation diplomacy strength: An analysis of reactions to Israel's September 2025 attack. The SAIS Review of International Affairs. https://saisreview.sais.jhu.edu/qatars-mediation-diplomacy-strength-an-analysis-of-reactions-to-israels-september-2025-attack/

Keisuke Minai used the Formal Bilateral Influence Capacity (FBIC) Index and Global Power Index (GPI) from the Pardee's Institute's Diplometrics research program to explore Qatar's use of mediation diplomacy following an air strike in its capital in September 2025. According to Professor Minai, their advanced statistical analysis "confirms that Qatar’s mediation activities are positively associated with its international influence in the long term, while its national power plays a role in the short term."

Sellers, S. (2020). Cause of death variation under the shared socioeconomic pathways. Climatic Change. doi:10.1007/s10584-020-02824-0

Climate change will create numerous risks for human health, including impacts associated with temperature extremes, diarrheal diseases, and undernutrition. Such risks, along with other socioeconomic and development trends, will affect cause-of-death patterns experienced in the coming decades. This study explores future mortality trends using the shared socioeconomic pathways (SSP) framework, a widely utilized tool for understanding socioeconomic development trends in a world with climate change. Existing projections for GDP, urbanization, and demographic trends based on SSP narratives are incorporated into an integrated assessment model, International Futures (IFs), in order to project mortality levels by cause of death for all countries from 2020 to 2100. Under more optimistic SSPs, non-communicable diseases (NCDs) rise as a proportion of all deaths, particularly in low- and middle-income countries, while more pessimistic SSPs suggest a continued high burden of largely preventable communicable diseases. In highincome countries, significant continued burdens of NCDs are projected for the remainder of the century under all SSPs. Comparisons are also made to recent cause-of-death projections from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) to assess how the IFs and IHME models vary.

Anenberg, Susan C., Joshua Miller, Ray Minjares, et al. 2017. Impacts and Mitigation of Excess Diesel-Related NOx Emissions in 11 Major Vehicle Markets. Nature 545(7655): 467–471.

Cantore, Nicola, and Massimiliano Cali. 2015. “The Impact of Temporary Migration on Source Countries.” International Migration Review. doi:10.1111/imre.12178.

Hillebrand, Evan, and Stacy Closson. 2015. Energy, Economic Growth, and Geopolitical Futures: Eight Long-Range Scenarios. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

McCauley, Dan. 2014. “U.S. – Iran Rapprochement: A Counterintuitive Alternative to Thirty-five Years of Distrust.” Small Wars Journal. Posted January 19.

West, J. Jason, Steven J. Smith, Raquel A. Silva, Vaishali Naik, Yuqiang Zhang, Zachariah Adelman, Meridith M. Fry, et al. 2013.

“Co-Benefits of Mitigating Global Greenhouse Gas Emissions for Future Air Quality and Human Health via Two Mechanisms.” Nature Climate Change 3 (10): 885–889. doi:10.1038/nclimate2009.