In a speech to the Tilder Organisation in Paris earlier this week former President F W de Klerk said that the international community would no longer be able to ignore Africa in its global strategic planning.
Access to Africa's mineral and agricultural resources was becoming increasingly essential for Europe, North America and Asia. As a result, the continent was once again becoming an area of contestation as emerging economic powers led by China scrambled for a share of its enormous mineral and agricultural resources.
Africa was also playing a central role in the expansion of Islam. "Half of the countries of Africa - some 27 nations - are members of the Organisation of The Islamic Conference. They also comprise half of the 54 Islamic states. It is estimated that 45% of the continent's population are Moslems, compared with 40% who are Christians. Competition between Moslems and Christians is playing a significant role in conflicts in a number of countries - including Sudan, Nigeria and the Ivory Coast."
De Klerk pointed out that African Moslems were, on the whole, moderate and coexisted peacefully with their Christian neighbours. "However, Kenya and Tanzania were among the first targets of Al Qaeda terrorism and the collapse of state authority in Somalia is creating opportunities for Al Qaeda and other extremists".
This situation today differed markedly from the backwater in which Africa had found itself during the second half of the last century. After World War II, Africa was of interest to the great powers primarily to the extent that its newly independent nations were areas of contestation between the United States and the Soviet Union. European countries, for their part, took it almost for granted that they would be able to retain special relationships with Africa because of their former colonial ties.
With the ending of the Cold War Africa subsided into the global strategic background. African nations were no longer able to play one super power against the other in their efforts to promote their national interests. President Thabo Mbeki was shocked in 2000 when leading members of the European Commission told him that "the EU did not have any strategic perspective relating to Africa, as it did with other areas of the world, such as East and Central Europe, the Middle East and the United States."
However, all of that was now changing.
According to De Klerk, the central reality was that sub-Saharan Africa constitutes one of the largest areas of under-developed real estate in the world. "There are fewer people in its 24 million square kilometers than there are in the 3.3 million square kilometers of India. The continent is endowed with enormous mineral resources in a commodity hungry world. The Chinese - and other nations - have been rushing into the continent to tie up long-term contracts for Africa's iron, cobalt, coal, vanadium and oil."
Perhaps, more importantly, only a fraction of Africa's agricultural potential was being fully utilized. "The Food and Agricultural Organisation estimates that the land area for rain-fed crops could be increased from 150 - 700% per region - with a potential for the whole continent of 300 million hectares". This potential was attracting enormous foreign interest. The British newspaper, the Observer, recently estimated that up to 50 million hectares of African farmland had been acquired by foreign investors or was in the process of being negotiated. This area was more than double the size of the United Kingdom.
Although Africa's performance in the spheres of governance, human development, competitiveness and continuing dependence on aid was unimpressive, it was making impressive progress in other areas.
De Klerk referred, in this regard, to an article that had appeared in Newsweek earlier this year which had reported that Africa was becoming the new Asia - and could be compared to the emerging giants China and India. According to the article:
Most of the countries of east and southern Africa had economic growth rates comparable to those of China and India in 2007 and 2008;
Although the continent had suffered as a result of the economic downturn in 2009, its growth of 2% still outperformed much of the rest of the world except China and India;
Africa's economy was expected to grow by 4.8% this year and in 2011 - which was better than the expectation for Brazil, Russia and Mexico.
Surprisingly, this growth had not been based primarily on the continent's natural resources but by a surge in private consumption demand from the rapidly growing middle class.
There were signs that expats from the African diaspora were returning to their native countries and are contributing to economic growth. According to reports, 10 000 highly educated expats had returned to Nigeria.
Economic growth would be further stimulated by urbanization. The rural population still comprised two thirds of the total - but they were rapidly moving to the cities and were beginning to participate in the economy.
According to a recent study, the annual return of 954 publicly trade African companies between 2000 and 2007 was on average 65% higher than those of similar companies in China.

De Klerk said that whatever happened, one truth remained. "Global strategic attention will be increasingly focussed on the continent - because of its enormous mineral resources; because of its untapped agricultural potential in an increasingly hungry world; and because of the potential of its people."
He concluded by observing that perhaps Thabo Mbeki was right: "Perhaps this will be the African century".