Africa is by far no longer a dark continent – not by a long shot.

All over the globe, there are five things that are causing ripples in business and industry and shifting the fault lines of how urban and rural households organize their affairs. Social networks and smartphones are two such things. With higher internet penetration and a fall in the cost of smartphones, Sub-Saharan youth have found themselves thrust into cyberspace more by default rather than by design. Indeed, companies have had to re-organize their marketing approach to reach audiences faster.

Mobile money, curiously not just on smartphones but the entire array of phone types, has transformed the way payments are made, credit is advanced and other services (most of them essential services like electricity, water and education) are paid for. Finance in the next 5 years, with the necessary funding from savvy and risk-hungry investors with deep pockets, will be transformed by the increasingly interconnected world that we now find ourselves in.

The GSM Association predicts that there will be 735 million subscribers in Africa by the end of 2012, making it the fastest growing mobile market in the world and second largest after Asia. What is driving this growth is the very ubiquity of the mobile phone and the convenience it now offers individuals. Africa is quickly transforming into a continent staring into the little mobile phone screens.

Anyone can dismiss green energy at their own peril – indeed it is almost irrelevant whether global warming is a looming disaster or a fantastic conspiracy – the bottom line is, green energy, sustainable, waste-free, recyclable living is all the rage on a global scale – a rage that will transform how societies eat, fuel their cars, entertain themselves, teach their children and even how they work. Frost & Sullivan place investment in renewable energy in Africa by 2020 to hit the $57 billion mark, with wind and solar power being the key engines of growth.

The UNEP Headquarters building at Gigiri is a shining example of how architecture can be tailored around energy efficient heating and lighting, solid waste management – and stands as a beacon of what many African households ought to adopt to bring the continent’s carbon footprint down.

They no longer call it rural-urban migration – now they call it urbanization as in this smaller and globalized world, rural areas are quickly being morphed into urban dwellings with the provision of two potent ingredients – piped water and electricity. Add to that connectivity to the internet and phone networks through mobile phones that are more affordable now than they have ever been in history, Governments are no longer afraid of rural folks moving to the city, they now have to cope with the capacity pressures that face these far flung young cities. And with urbanization comes greater access to education, a deeper human resource pool and a more vibrant working class. Indeed urbanization and the challenges that come with it has been known to inspire entrepreneurship and spur growth.

**********************************************************

10 Year Predictions

My predictions are that Africa will see a big shift in economic growth once the Euro debt crisis fizzles out by 2016 – noting that even Japan and China (which have almost singlehandedly held up the global economy in the last four turbulent years) are also facing slowed growth as a large chunk of European banks’ loan book is dedicated to commercial and industrial projects in the East.

I further predict that if this continent is able to harness the efficiencies that come with the digital age – such as mobile money and the interconnectedness of social media – Africa can make a quantum leap into the future in practically every sphere of life. The digital age may indeed be the cure to our perennial fight with poverty as it lifts the unbanked majority from financial exclusion.

A shift to green energy would mean greater forest cover around the continent, and a restoration of biodiversity as rural communities rely less on wood as a source of fuel – as they get connected to the national grid coupled with an increased reliance on solar energy. What the continent must guard against is the ominous trend towards green farms, where arable land is used to grow jatropha for biofuel as opposed to food crops.

Finally, I see an implosion of cities away from the main cities as improved infrastructure allows the working class to live and raise their families outside the cities in which they work. This urban-to-rural migration will help ease capacity pressures in traditional cities – leading to improved housing, sanitation and longer life expectancy.

So if you intend to be here for the next 10 years, there’s 5 things to look out for.