Africa’s populations by 2050: challenges and potentials

This online Bordeaux Summer School is designed for graduate and doctoral students as well as professionals involved and interested in the unique challenges and opportunities facing populations in Africa in the coming decades. By 2050, it is estimated that 2.4 billion people will be living on the African continent, 50% of which will be aged 25 years or less. Challenges include: rapid urbanisation within a context of limited economic growth, increasing vulnerability to climate change, uncontrolled road traffic and the expansion of polluting industries. Youth in Africa also carries huge potential for innovation and entrepreneurship, increased political stability, and environmental sustainability.

Course content will provide participants with a critical and complementary analysis of the evolution of population in Africa over the past 20 years, as well as the challenges and opportunities for the next 30 years in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) agenda.

Throughout the summer school, participants learn in a variety of ways thanks to:

• Lectures and discussions with experts on major development and sustainability issues for African cities over the next 30 years;
• Multi- and interdisciplinary discussions and debates on diverse policy and development sectors (health, food security, urban gouvernance, technology, climate and environment, etc.) and on interventions towards reaching the SDGs in these fields;
• Collaboration within a multidisciplinary group on an interdisciplinary project (health, demographics, economics, political approaches) that addresses a key topic for sustainable African cities.

Participants will have access to the most recent data and knowledge, as well as fresh insights into public policy processes, development challenges, and interdisciplinary interventions aiming to reach the SDGs in African contexts. They will also have the opportunity to interact and connect with the experts, researchers and professors present.