Aaliyah O. Ibrahim
Africa-Press – Eswatini. In the face of cuts to global aid funding, it’s easy to focus on making up the shortfall of money. But, as Aaliyah O. Ibrahim writes, this is a short-term solution to a long-term problem.
After the Donald Trump administration began upending development initiatives worldwide by slashing USAID funding, 2025 featured one dominant narrative on Africa: Africa must grow, and Africans must lead this push for economic growth.
This narrative is incomplete.
Africa must be resilient. A resilience agenda rather than a growth agenda acknowledges the unique set of forces shaping Africa today as well as the subnational variations that drive a historical push for progress. Africa currently has the world’s youngest population, members of perhaps the most restless generation, ongoing conflicts that are increasingly fragmented, and yet, some of the most exciting opportunities for markets.
The resilience agenda recognises the complex interplay among these three forces—youth, conflict, and markets—and seeks to provide pathways for long-term prosperity in the region rather than short-term economic growth with uneven effects.
By 2050, a third of the world’s youth, people aged 15 to 34, will be living in Africa. This demographic transition, the ‘youthquake’, presents an opportunity. But it is only an opportunity that will translate to gains through resilience programming.
African countries will have to foster the right industries to accommodate increasing demand for youth employment. Evidence from the East Asian tigers, such as South Korea, shows that parallel investments in education and public health solidified the demographic dividend as a gain alongside comprehensive economic growth strategies. Especially in post-conflict contexts such as Liberia and Rwanda, where key education and health infrastructure remains limited, resilience programming tightens the link between the much-needed GDP growth tomorrow and urgent human capital investments today.
This relationship between investments today and outcomes tomorrow is what distinguishes a focus on resilience from a pure focus on economic growth. Although there are many potential economic benefits of a demographic bulge, there are also political dangers—specifically, the consequences of unfulfilled dreams.
ACLED has documented an increasing spate of small armed conflicts across regions. Beyond the significant and life-altering wars in Sudan and the DRC, across the Sahel and into the Central Africa corridor toward the Indian Ocean, a belt of political violence sustains itself. Youth participation in these conflicts is upheld by historical grievances with the spate of progress. Resilience programming through investments in community social development acknowledges current grievances while mitigating future ones. Hence, discarding development programs that foster peace, inclusivity, and justice—or pushing for alternative investments with only so-called ‘tangible benefits’—risks throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
In relatively stable countries on the continent, resilience further trumps growth as the connection between international markets and sound national policies becomes more prominent. Globalisation has ensured access to markets for African countries, and industrialisation on the continent can be a by-product of that potential.
In countries such as Côte d’Ivoire and Kenya, where recent macroeconomic actions to stabilize currencies, de-risk investments, and create enabling environments for businesses have been somewhat successful, a resilience agenda will ensure that these successes are entrenched and replicable. Evidence from China’s investments in Africa shows that the consideration of countries’ “absorptive capacities” makes the difference in whether FDI translates into industrialisation gains.
Hence, a push for African-led growth must include a reasoned understanding of resilience in policymaking. National actors inviting investors into emerging and frontier markets must do so with a dual focus on ensuring long-term resilience for people, the planet, and businesses. From a resilience perspective, the idea that creating enabling environments is good for business becomes clear, and the case for investing in Africa becomes even more compelling.
Ultimately, Africa’s growth must be channelled through lessons from the past. A resilience agenda cuts through the current noise around partnerships and aid by clarifying the connection between today’s actions and tomorrow’s gains. The greatest risks of this century are not about what we can build, but what we can maintain.
Examining how a young population will interface with fragmenting conflict and market opportunities is just the beginning. At a higher level, a resilience agenda for Africa is about investments that are peace-positive, results-driven, and ultimately long-term.
At the end of last year, the African Development Bank’s Africa Resilience Forum (ARF) 2025 invited engagement with the continent through this lens of resilience. By bringing together policymakers, development practitioners, and investors—actors who are often siloed—the Forum made clear that Africa’s future depends on a resilience-building strategy.
As ODA declines accelerate, a resilience agenda does not discriminate between where aid ends and economic growth begins. Rather, when an economist at the World Bank interfaces with a former USAID director, and a microfinance expert engages with a senior analyst on African transformation, the value of a resilience agenda becomes clear. Resilience programming points us all toward a new narrative for Africa, one in which the continent’s future is built on a durable platform and the capacity to withstand shocks is embedded into every intervention.
LSE
