by Lionesses of Africa Operations Department
PwC brought out a report on five ‘Megatrends that would impact the world, in 2013, and then updated it in 2022, and all that they wrote about 10 years ago is not only relevant today but even more of a concern. These ‘Megatrends’ are “… characterized as deep and profound trends, global in scope and long-term in effect, touching everyone on the planet and shaping our world for many years to come.” (here). They go on to say and certainly show that not only have these Megatrends transformed the world faster than they had thought, but the interaction has in their words “…turbocharged both the speed and pervasiveness of change.”
So what are these Megatrends? If we know what they are perhaps we can prepare our own businesses better for the future.
No surprises for the number 1 - Climate Change.
For individuals, PwC says this means the potential of losing homes to flood and other such weather-related issues, increased cost of living, and healthcare risks. On that last point alone it is estimated that up to 80% of the illnesses, injuries, and deaths of children are attributable to climate change (McMichael et al., 2004, here). For businesses we are looking at business failure and supply chain disruption and for the world as a whole, amongst other things, global food security problems and mass migration.
Number 2 - Technological disruption.
No surprise there either - the speed of the world we live in now! There is an excellent chart in this report that shows the speed that it took for new products to reach 50 million users.
Planes took 64 years, cars 62, the telephone took 50 years, credit cards 28, with television 22 years, but then the speed increased exponentially - mobile phones 12 years, with the internet 7. Facebook raced up to 50 million users within 4 years, with something called ‘Pokémon Go’ taking a mere 19 days. With perfect timing that only comes with being a global megastar, Taylor Swift and her cat’s endorsement of Kamala Harris took a crazy 13 minutes to reach 1 million likes, so that’s just under 11 hours for the big 50, and given it has been reposted and shared thousands of times, she would have reached that milestone we are sure, perhaps not in 11 hours, but it would have been close!
Although we should not compare products such as planes with users and social media with ‘likes’ and views, the reality is that as PwC points out: “Technology has serious unintended consequences; [such as] mental health issues, especially among youth”. Kids suffering again.
For individuals there will also be massive disruption of work following automation and of course AI. The loss of privacy; increasing disinformation and misinformation and of course, growing mental health issues. Businesses will be a large trouble if they cannot keep up with the Tech world. Then there is the increased cyber risk - just think of the panic we go through when we mislay our phones, now think if you lost all your business information, customer records, etc. Yes, concentrates the mind, doesn’t it? It is going to happen.
…and for the world we are seeing Governments failing to keep up, often resulting in either no regulation or knee-jerk ones resulting in unintended consequences. Election interference, disinformation, and misinformation spread fast (although we have not yet personally fact checked what’s going on in Springfield USA, we have been ‘reliably’ informed by one US President hopeful that it’s not good for cats!).
Third in our hit list is one that we have been shouting about for ages, Demographic Shifts.
Yes that’s where we in Africa look in awe at the average age of Japan, Germany, and others and wonder how that’s even possible. As PwC states: “Several demographic factors, including gender, ethnicity, and origin, impact the world, for example by changing the composition of the workforce or driving polarisation. But two factors stand out as potent forces that can accelerate the dynamics and negative consequences of the other Megatrends: age and population growth.”
So whilst the Global North struggles to pay for its retirees out of a falling number of actively working ones, we in Africa are struggling with the opposite - how to feed, house, educate, and employ an ever-growing youth population. Youth unemployment is way over the sustainable level in so many African countries (and that often brings with it social unrest). And once educated, how to stop them emigrating to ‘pastures greener’ which in turn weakens their home countries? It’s the perfect storm.
Number 4 - A Fracturing World.
Polarisation has been happening for the past 10 years at a speed we never thought possible. As PwC reports, in many countries this results in a drop in personal safety, loss of freedoms, and a horrific rise in human rights abuses. For your business, supply chain issues will only get worse. Regulations will become more difficult to understand and will change overnight (to say nothing of the unintended consequences). Obviously, as we have seen there has been a dramatic rise in global conflicts with the old order being unable to bring a stop to these, whereas in the past they would have had more influence. Bad news for women and children who are so often the first and by far the largest number of casualties in conflict situations.
Emphasised by the ‘America First’ drive, “[t]his local-first approach, however, while beneficial in many areas, makes it difficult for the world to tackle the massive challenges that can be addressed only at a global level, for example, climate change and mass migration.”
This all brings us to the last Megatrend - Social Instability.
A decent life is becoming more difficult to attain as wages stagnate, whilst houses and other assets rise. If you can only just about make ends meet, you cannot accumulate wealth, and along with declining trust in governments and institutions, daily fuelled by social media, so personal safety continues to fall.
Social instability also impacts businesses directly as they no longer follow the Friedman doctrine, which states that a business’ responsibility is to increase profits for shareholders, but instead “[t]hey need to deliver value to customers, invest in employees, deal fairly and ethically with suppliers, drive for environmental sustainability, and support the communities in which they work, all while generating long-term value for shareholders.”, all whilst protecting reputational risk and having a greater responsibility towards the life needs of their workforce such as health and pension. We would argue that dropping the Friedman doctrine is a great thing, especially when adding up all the improvements as above, however it does add to the uncertainty. As business owners will confirm, at least you knew where you stood with Jack Walsh!
All of this is impacted by the erosion of trust, in our institutions, in our governments, in the management of our companies (who are under ever increasing scrutiny by regulators, staff, journalists and social media) and so on, which in turn makes it more difficult for them to remain relevant. All this loss of trust also means that even good moves by governments and institutions is often greeted with scepticism, in turn making it far more difficult to push through meaningful change. This in turn increases mass poverty in certain nations (Global North is not immune, just look at the rise in food banks in the UK), which in turn brings about social unrest and political instability.
What is interesting for us, given that at least four out of these five stated increased mass migration as a result and the fifth we would suggest too, is that there is a solution (at least for many of these issues) near at hand.
So much of what our incredible membership of over 1.8 million African Female Entrepreneurs do, such as create meaningful jobs, good pay, and a greater emphasis on female employment, also feeds through to their local communities. With a healthy and growing local community comes meaning and a reason to stay to build one’s own communities further and from one’s region and country.
As Melinda (surely with such a global icon, her first name is all that is needed!) herself writes (here):
“When women succeed financially, they and their communities are more resilient to the kind of health, security, and climate shocks that come more frequently each year. They invest their earnings back into their families’ health and education, accelerating social progress and economic growth. They create jobs for other women, breaking down gender barriers in the workplace. And collectively, they have the potential to help lift entire countries out of poverty.”
For any CIOs of VC funds that may happen to be reading this. Is it not time to move the dial on that very sticky and shamefully low 2% level of funding (here) that goes to women-owned and founded businesses?
Stay safe.