Africa’s quest for a bigger role in global markets

For decades the 55 nations of Africa have lagged in the highly competitive race for world market share. Taken together their economies made up just 4.3% of global trade in 1970, a share that sank to 2.4% by 2018. The Netherlands, with a population about the size of Zambia’s, accounts today for about 3.5% of global trade, more than all the countries in Africa combined.