Notes on NCFCA Demographics is Destiny Topics

Learning a foreign language helps us better understand and appreciate the workings of our own language. Similarly, researching the dynamics and demographics of either of two proposed NCFCA topics, Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) or the European Union (EU) will help us better understand and appreciate these dynamics in the United States.

To start, a major advantage enjoyed by Americans is living in a giant free trade zone. Not only free trade but open investment and migration. Americans face few political barriers to work, invest, move, and exchange with 325 million people across almost 4 million square miles.

Those living in the European Union, some 512 million people, can exchange goods and services relatively freely, as well as invest and migrate across 1.7 million square miles.

The European Union was formed to reduce trade and migration barriers that put European businesses at a huge disadvantage to firms in the U.S., and especially after the formation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) which expanded trade and investment benefits to millions more people and firms in Canada and Mexico.

Years ago, before the E.U., an article profiled  a truck driver in Sweden headed to Spain. The truck was full of goods and in the passenger seat was a stack of documents two feet high, all needed to document those goods as they crossed borders. Formation of the European Union ended trade barriers within E.U. countries, bringing huge gains to firms, workers, and customers.

But the European Union bureaucracy steadily expanded creating ever more regulations plus launched a central bank and currency (the Euro), Some problems were solved some many new problems and regulatory burdens were created. Truck drivers again face complex regulations, that try to address the very different average wage rates of Western Europe and Eastern Europe. Controversial EU labour rules tackle truck drivers’ pay and working conditions (Euractive, May 31, 2017):

Under the Commission’s new proposal, truck drivers can travel outside the EU member state where they live and still be paid according to their home country’s rules for up to three days. After that, drivers will fall under local rules of the country where they deliver goods.

The Economic Community of West African States was intended to bring gains from reducing trade and investment barriers across

West Africa, an area of 2 million square miles with a population of 360 million people. Nigeria has by far the most people (185 million) and it’s economy is nearly ten times the size of the next most populous country, Ghana.

2050: 3.5 Times more Africans than Europeans
Lets look ahead to 2050, just over thirty years. Who will have the larger population then, the EU or ECOWAS? LOOKING AT YOU, 2050 (Foreign Policy, January 16, 2017) notes world population is projected to increase from 7.3 billion to 9.7 billion. And much of that population growth will be in Africa:

Consider the most basic demographic metric of all — population size. By midcentury, the world’s fastest-growing region, Africa, is projected to see its population more than double, while the slowest-growing region, Europe, is expected to see its population decline by about 4 percent.

This means that in 2050 there will be around 3.5 times more Africans (2.5 billion) than Europeans (707 million). In 1950, there were nearly twice as many Europeans as Africans. Demography is a drama in slow motion. But tick by tock, it transforms the world.

WHAT THE WORLD’S POPULATION WILL LOOK LIKE IN 2050: BY THE NUMBERS (Newsweek, August 25, 2016) citing the Population Reference Bureau, reports Romania, an EU country with low fertility rates has 20 million today but is projected to have just 14 million by 2050. Italy and other E.U. countries also have low fertility rates.

Populations in West Africa will expand significantly over the next thirty years, even as fertility rates fall. Demographics is destiny they say, and the median age in Nigeria is just 18. That is, half of Nigerians are 18 or over and half are under 18. The median age in Italy is 46 and across the EU is 42.6. So far fewer women in the E.U. are or will be of child-bearing age over the next 30 years. And of those that are, fewer women in Europe will have children, and likely fewer children than in West African countries.

For Christian homeschool debaters considering the EU and the ECOWAS topics, the demographics is destiny theme applies to social, political, and economic futures of both regions. Demographers disagree on and population projections can be wrong, but many are worried. See, for example:  The U.S. fertility rate just hit a historic low. Why some demographers are freaking out (Washington Post, June 30, 2017).

In 7 facts about population in Sub-Saharan Africa (Africa Can End Poverty/ World Bank, October 29, 2015) looks at the “potential for a demographic dividend”:

The population of sub-Sahara Africa has grown from 186 million to 856 million people from 1950-2010.  By 2060, the population of sub-Sahara Africa could be as large as 2.7 billion people. Compare this demographic shift to Europe’s projection of a declining population—from 738 million people in 2010 to 702 million in 2060.

Here is two minute video on African demographics and the “demographic dividend (from above article).

Views on demographics tend to depend on people’s understanding of economics as well as their views about people. Linus in the Peanuts comic strip was accused by Lucy of hating mankind. Linus replied: “I love mankind’ it’s people I can’t stand.”

Much U.S. and European foreign aid has been poured into misguided economic development schemes. See, for example, Misplaced charity
Aid is best spent in poor, well-governed countries. That isn’t where it goes (Economist, June 11, 2016). Other foreign aid funding goes to education, family planning, and sustainable development. But foreign aid for government schools,  family planning clinics, and energy programs has been badly misdirected especially in poorly governed countries.

Economists argue that legal and property rights institutions are key to development. On education, consider the benefits of small entrepreneurial schools compared to foreign aid funded government schools. This segment Victoria’s Chance, looks at a small fishing village in Ghana. People are the world’s ultimate resource, so West African countries should prosper in the coming decades. (Link to Izzit.org site with DVD and teacher resources.)