Most media coverage of the outsider’s future sees India as the best candidate. Nevertheless, Africa as a continent has proven to be a worthy contender.

Business leaders must pay attention to the African economy, digital trends and the direction of global development.

According to the World Bank, this will be a new group of knowledge workers from all over the world, especially from marginalized areas.

From Humble Beginnings to Humble Progress:

The World Development Report 2019 says a common future for global labor trends lies in countries moving away from “old” ways of working like manufacturing and moving towards more digital processes.

But the World Bank, in its Future of Work in Africa report, says: “Is this what the future of work looks like in Africa? The short answer is no.”

This does not mean that Africa will not experience a technological revolution on the digital front. With a small manufacturing base, automation is unlikely to displace many workers in the coming years.

Most of Africa The economy continues to see low demand for processed food and conventional products from other regions such as tourism, retail and hospitality services.

So while development is taking place technologically throughout Africa, it is beginning materially uniquely compared with the rest of the world.

Long-reaching market consequences of a digitized African economy:

The global consequences and reach of future of digital work evolutions in Africa is also unique in another crucial respect.

As the World Bank states, “a recent study has found that the arrival of faster internet in Africa increased jobs not only for workers who had attended university, but also for those whose highest level of education was a primary school.”

Digital tech lifts disaffected people out of poverty, and — as with most future work trends — what is occurring in the present is likely to become amplified a few years later.

That is precisely what the World Bank concludes about the African economy after its digital development.

As technology becomes more sophisticated in Africa, poverty will decrease as capital accumulates. More Africans will be able to enter the global economy as individual and corporate competitors.

Global institutional systems, such as the United Nations Building African Business Leaders Association, are already adapting to these changes.

Competition and capital accompany cooperation and complementarity, as the World Bank argues.

So, business leaders around the world need not necessarily turn a blind eye to India as the underdog of the coming world.

Instead, business leaders should do their due diligence on Africa as a competitor, as its economic influence is as vast as India’s.

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