Central Africa · COD · country brief

DR Congo

Three plausible conditions in 2031 and 2036, built from DR Congo's own recorded history. Not a prediction — a stated set of assumptions you can check, disagree with, and recompute.

New here? This is one of 54 country briefs on Africa 2036 Intelligence, an evidence-based foresight instrument. Values marked with a year are measurements; values attached to a scenario are projections computed from this country's own history. Where a value is missing it is shown as missing, never estimated.

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EACSADCCOMESAECCAS Evidence: Considered Deep country review

How much weight this outlook bears

The evidence base is reasonably complete, current and stable enough to reason about. Still a scenario, not a prediction.

Core indicator series are close to complete.
Most recent observation is from 2025 — current.
Growth has been variable (sd 4.4); the band is wide for good reason.
Country-specific policy and project evidence has been reviewed and cited.

Why this matters

The same seven questions are asked of all 54 countries, and every answer below is computed from DR Congo's own evidence and model state — nothing here is written by hand, so nothing here can drift away from the data it rests on. 7 of 7 questions can be answered from the evidence held for DR Congo.

What could materially change by 2031

Conditional projection

Household electricity access moves from 22.5% of the population (2024) to between 26% and 31% by 2031, depending on the scenario. Simple continuation gives 28% — a rise of 5.7 percentage points.
In people rather than percentages: about 97.3 million would still be without it in 2031 under continuation — 9.8 million more than in 2024, because the population grows as the share improves.
Internet use moves from 19.7% of the population (2024) to between 26% and 34% by 2031, depending on the scenario. Simple continuation gives 30% — a rise of 9.9 percentage points.
In people rather than percentages: about 95.4 million would still be without it in 2031 under continuation — 4.7 million more than in 2024, because the population grows as the share improves.
Output per person spans $749 to $1,161 by 2031. The $412 between them is wider than half today's $807.
That spread is the distance between scenarios, not a margin of error — and it is a national average, which does not identify whose income moved.
The population reaches about 135.4 million — roughly 22.6 million more people than in 2025, about 70.5 million of them of working age.
This figure is the same in all three scenarios. Most of the people who will be alive in 2031 have already been born.

What could materially change by 2036

Conditional projection

Household electricity access moves from 22.5% of the population (2024) to between 29% and 36% by 2036, depending on the scenario. Simple continuation gives 32% — a rise of 9.6 percentage points.
In people rather than percentages: about 105.7 million would still be without it in 2036 under continuation — 18.3 million more than in 2024, because the population grows as the share improves.
Internet use moves from 19.7% of the population (2024) to between 31% and 43% by 2036, depending on the scenario. Simple continuation gives 36% — a rise of 16.2 percentage points.
In people rather than percentages: about 99.8 million would still be without it in 2036 under continuation — 9.2 million more than in 2024, because the population grows as the share improves.
Output per person spans $705 to $1,573 by 2036. The $868 between them is wider than half today's $807.
That spread is the distance between scenarios, not a margin of error — and it is a national average, which does not identify whose income moved.
The population reaches about 155.7 million — roughly 42.9 million more people than in 2025, about 83.7 million of them of working age.
This figure is the same in all three scenarios. Most of the people who will be alive in 2036 have already been born.

Who may benefit

Interpretation

Young people entering a labour market that has been prepared for them
Smallholder farmers, if input costs, storage and roads improve alongside prices
Households and small businesses reached by new connections
The public finances, when prices are high
People connecting for the first time, who move from no access to some — a larger step than any later improvement in speed or price
Construction, transport and services workers in growing cities
the 61% of people aged 15 and over with neither a bank nor a mobile-money account in 2024, if payment access widens before the projected connectivity does
rural households carrying a 22-point electricity gap, who have the most to gain from any of it closing

Who may be excluded

Interpretation

A cohort that reaches working age faster than jobs, training places or clinics are built
Rain-fed farming households, first and hardest, in a bad season
A state that must regulate technologies it has too few trained people to assess
Off-grid communities, whose wait lengthens if capital concentrates on urban and industrial load
Everyone dependent on public salaries and services when prices fall
Rural, older, poorer and less literate people, who are last in every connectivity sequence
Households already spending most of their income on food
New urban arrivals without tenure security, water or transport
Firms whose expansion depends on credit, in an economy holding little of it relative to output
Civilians in contested areas, for whom no economic scenario on this page is the operative question
Displaced people, and the host communities absorbing them without additional resources
rural households, 22 points behind on electricity in 2024 — a gap that closes last in every scenario here because access improves fastest where it is already highest
the 80% of people not online in 2024, for whom every digital projection on this page is a statement about somebody else

What must happen for this to be plausible

From the evidence

Grand Inga / Inga 3 remains in the planning and preparation phase and is an African Union Agenda 2063 flagship project. Recorded as proposed: it still has to find financing before it counts as capacity.
The World Bank cancelled support for Grand Inga in 2016 and re-engaged with Inga 3 from 2024; construction is expected to take…. Recorded as proposed: it still has to find financing before it counts as capacity.
DR Congo is identified as being at the drafting stage of a national AI policy. Recorded as proposed: it still has to be adopted before it counts as a change in how things work.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo launched a free maternity care scheme in September 2023, initially piloted in Kinshasa and…. Currently uncertain. Nothing downstream of it can be assumed while it stays that way.
For the Acceleration band to describe the decade, growth per person has to hold near 6.3% a year. This country has reached that rate before — its best year in the window was 14.1% — but has not sustained it across the 15-year record the band is drawn from.

What could invalidate this outlook

Interpretation

Political instability & conflict — Onset or escalation of armed conflict. The modelled band is drawn from economic history and contains no war; if this occurs, disregard the quantitative path entirely.
Commodity dependence — A sustained move in the country's principal export price of more than roughly a third. The band averages across a cycle and understates both tails.
Climate exposure & disaster risk — A multi-season drought or a major flood event affecting the main producing regions. Discrete climate events are outside any band built from recent averages.
Energy availability — Either a step change in generation and transmission delivery, or a sustained supply failure. Both break a projection built on gradual access gains.
Population pressure & the youth cohort — A significant revision to the UN World Population Prospects for this country. The population path here is carried through unchanged and is the least uncertain input on the page.
Education & workforce capability — A sustained collapse or expansion in enrolment, or large-scale emigration of trained professionals.
Digital infrastructure — A step change in device or data affordability, or a major submarine cable landing.
Institutional capacity & regulatory reform — A change of government that materially alters delivery capacity, in either direction.
Food & water systems — A regional harvest failure, or a change in the affordability of food imports.
Sovereign debt & fiscal distress — A missed sovereign payment, a disorderly restructuring, or loss of market access. None of these appear in a trailing growth average until after the fact.
Urbanisation — A major change in land, housing or transport policy in the principal city.

What to watch now

From the evidence

Real GDP per capita growth sustained above 6.26% for three consecutive years → The Acceleration band would be the better description of the decade.
Real GDP per capita growth below -1.22% for two consecutive years → The Disruption band would be the better description of the decade.
Electricity access above 30.9% by 2031 (momentum path reaches 28.2%) → Energy access is running ahead of the momentum path.
1 recorded item here rests on a source this platform has not confirmed against the issuing institution. Confirmation or contradiction of it would change what can be said.
Political instability & conflict, Commodity dependence, Climate exposure & disaster risk, Energy availability, Population pressure & the youth cohort, Education & workforce capability, Digital infrastructure, Institutional capacity & regulatory reform and Food & water systems are assessed as binding here. Movement on them would change the outlook faster than movement inside the growth band.

The three futures

The assumption, stated in full

Annual real GDP growth minus annual population growth, 2011–2025 (15 years). Mean 2.52%, standard deviation 4.4. Scenario rates are mean ± 0.85 sd, clamped to this country's own 5th–95th percentile and to [-6%, +9%].

Momentum — 2.52% a year

Present trajectories broadly continue.

Policy, investment, institutions and demographics carry on behaving as they have. No collapse, no breakthrough. This is not a forecast of what will happen — it is the shape of the recent past extended forward, which is the baseline every other scenario should be judged against.

The recent past, extended. The question it asks is whether that is enough.

For DR Congo this is 2.52% a year per person, drawn from its own 15-year record (2011–2025), not from an outside view of what this country might do.

What it is good at

Predictability. Institutions, tariffs, procurement and delivery capacity behave as they already do, so plans made today mostly survive contact with the decade. Existing programmes finish. Nothing has to be rebuilt.

What it costs

Everything that is currently too slow stays too slow. Where a gap is closing at two points a year and the population is growing at three percent, continuation means the absolute number of people excluded rises even as the percentage falls.

Who it reaches last

Whoever is already last. Continuation preserves the existing sequence of who gets connected, treated, schooled and paid — it does not reorder it.

What it quietly assumes

That the conditions of the last fifteen years hold for the next ten: no default, no major conflict, no discrete climate event, and no external shock large enough to break the trend the band is drawn from.

How it is usually misread

Momentum is routinely read as the safe or neutral case. It is neither. It is the case in which nothing is done differently, and for several countries on this platform that is the most consequential choice available.

Measure	2026	2031	2036
Population (same in all scenarios)	116.5m	135.4m	155.7m
Working-age population (15–64) (same in all scenarios)	59.5m	70.5m	83.7m
Real GDP per capita	$827	$937	$1,061
Electricity access	24.2%	28.2%	32.1%
Internet use	22.6%	29.6%	35.9%

Acceleration — 6.26% a year

The country sustains the pace of its own better years.

Reform, investment, regional trade, energy build-out, education and institutional capacity perform above the recent average — at a rate this country has actually reached before, held for a decade rather than a year or two.

Not a miracle — this country's own good years, held for a decade instead of a season.

For DR Congo this is 6.26% a year per person, drawn from its own 15-year record (2011–2025), not from an outside view of what this country might do.

What it is good at

Compounding. A rate held for ten years does something a rate held for two cannot: it changes the level, not just the direction. Access gaps close inside the horizon rather than beyond it, and the working-age bulge arrives into an economy that has grown to meet it.

What it costs

Speed is unevenly distributed by default. Growth concentrates where infrastructure, credit and skills already are, which in most of these economies means the largest city and the formal sector. Faster national numbers can coexist with a widening internal gap, and this platform cannot see that gap because the indicators behind it are national.

Who it reaches last

Rural, informal and non-connected populations, unless something specific is done to reach them. Acceleration reaches them faster in absolute terms and no sooner in sequence.

What it quietly assumes

Sustained implementation capacity — the same institutions delivering at their best, continuously, for a decade. It is the strongest assumption on this platform, and the historical record for holding a peak rate that long is thin everywhere, not only here.

How it is usually misread

Acceleration is routinely read as the target. It is a description of a pace, not of a distribution, and it says nothing about who the growth reaches.

Measure	2026	2031	2036
Population (same in all scenarios)	116.5m	135.4m	155.7m
Working-age population (15–64) (same in all scenarios)	59.5m	70.5m	83.7m
Real GDP per capita	$857	$1,161	$1,573
Electricity access	25%	30.9%	36.4%
Internet use	24.1%	34%	42.7%

Disruption — -1.22% a year

The country runs at the pace of its own worse years.

Debt service, weak implementation, instability, climate shocks, capital flight or external shocks hold performance at the low end of realised experience. Note the limit: this band is drawn from recent history, so it does not represent a war, a default or a catastrophic climate event. Those are listed as named risks instead of being given a false number.

Not collapse. The low end of what this country has already survived — which is the point.

For DR Congo this is -1.22% a year per person, drawn from its own 15-year record (2011–2025), not from an outside view of what this country might do.

What it is good at

Clarity about what is load-bearing. The commitments that survive a bad decade are the ones with financing already closed and construction already started; everything at announcement stage is what disappears first. Disruption is the scenario that separates the two.

What it costs

Time. Gaps that would close inside the horizon move outside it, and a cohort passes through school, into work and into household formation while the conditions do not improve. That cost is paid by specific ages of specific people and is not recoverable later.

Who it reaches last

Nobody new is reached. The people this scenario hits first are those with the least buffer — households already spending most of their income on food, workers in rain-fed agriculture, and anyone whose access depends on a service that gets cut before it gets extended.

What it quietly assumes

That the bad years look like the bad years already in the record. It does NOT model war, sovereign default or a catastrophic climate event — those are outside any band built from realised history, and this platform names them as risks instead of giving them a number it cannot support.

How it is usually misread

Disruption is routinely read as the collapse case. It is the opposite: it is bounded by what has already happened, which makes it the most conservative of the three about how bad things could get.

Measure	2026	2031	2036
Population (same in all scenarios)	116.5m	135.4m	155.7m
Working-age population (15–64) (same in all scenarios)	59.5m	70.5m	83.7m
Real GDP per capita	$797	$749	$705
Electricity access	23.6%	26.3%	28.9%
Internet use	21.6%	26.3%	30.6%

GDP per capita paths are expressed in constant present-day dollars — a real-output path, not a forecast of prices or exchange rates. Population comes from the UN World Population Prospects and is carried through unchanged, which is why it does not vary between scenarios: ten-year demographic momentum is close to fixed.

Early signals

Thresholds derived from the model itself. You can check which band reality is tracking without waiting for us to tell you.

Real GDP per capita growth sustained above 6.26% for three consecutive years	The Acceleration band would be the better description of the decade.
Real GDP per capita growth below -1.22% for two consecutive years	The Disruption band would be the better description of the decade.
Electricity access above 30.9% by 2031 (momentum path reaches 28.2%)	Energy access is running ahead of the momentum path.
Internet use above 34% by 2031 (momentum path reaches 29.6%)	Digital foundations are running ahead of the momentum path.

Lived experience

What the projected numbers would mean for ten representative situations. Not predictions, and not stories about real people.

Momentum · 2036

What the projected numbers would mean, taken together, for ten representative situations under Momentum in 2036. These are not predictions and not stories about real people. Each one states the evidence it rests on, the assumptions it makes, and who the improvement would miss.

A young person entering the workforce

Roughly 24.2 million more people reach working age between 2026 and 2036. They enter a labour market where 7.8% of 15–24s were already counted as unemployed in 2025, and where 59% of all work is in agriculture (2025). Under Momentum, internet use moves from 20% to 36% — a materially larger share of this cohort can reach work, training and customers beyond walking distance. With tertiary enrolment at 6.4%, most will not pass through formal higher education, so what they can do at 25 is set by what employers and informal apprenticeship actually teach — not by universities.

Better if

Technical training is aligned to what employers actually hire for, and the evidence on which courses lead to work is published.

Worse if

The cohort arrives faster than jobs, training places or electricity, in which case a demographic dividend becomes a grievance.

Who this misses

Young people in farming households, who typically leave school earliest and are furthest from the connectivity and training that the projection describes.

Assumptions and evidence

Working-age population follows the UN World Population Prospects projection, unchanged.
Youth unemployment is an ILO modelled estimate and understates underemployment in largely informal labour markets.
Connectivity gains are assumed to reach young people at least as fast as the population average — historically optimistic.

Population aged 0–14 46% · 2025Youth unemployment, 15–24 (ILO modelled) 7.8% · 2025School enrolment, tertiary (gross) 6.4% · 2020Employment in agriculture 58.5% · 2025Individuals using the internet 19.7% · 2024

A small-business owner

Electricity access moves from 23% of the population (2024) to 32% by 2036 under Momentum. That measures connections, not hours of supply: a workshop counted as served may still be waiting on power for part of the day, and this platform holds no outage or tariff data for it. Domestic credit to the private sector stood at 11.3% of GDP in 2023, which is thin by any comparison. Plausible implication, not measured: a credit-to-GDP ratio this low is consistent with borrowing being hard for small firms, but the ratio is an aggregate and cannot show which firms were refused or why. A firm-level credit survey would establish it. 39% of people aged 15 and over held an account at a bank or other financial institution, or personally used a mobile-money service, in 2024. Mobile money is counted. Plausible implication, not measured: account records are the kind of evidence a lender can price risk against, so widening ownership could open borrowing to traders without land title. Nothing in this platform measures whether that has happened here — lender practice, or credit-bureau coverage, would show it. Average output per person in the surrounding market moves from $807 to $1,061 a year. That is a national mean and does not identify whose income changed.

Better if

Collateral registries, insolvency procedure and payment rails are fixed before credit is subsidised.

Worse if

Credit is expanded into a weak enforcement system, producing bad loans rather than businesses.

Who this misses

Unregistered traders, who are the majority of businesses in most of these economies and are invisible to both the credit statistics and the policies built on them.

Assumptions and evidence

GDP per capita is expressed in constant present-day dollars and describes average output, not the income of any particular household.
Electricity access measures connection, not hours of supply or price. A connected business with eight-hour outages is counted as served.
Domestic credit to the private sector is a stock ratio. It does not distinguish lending to large firms from lending to small ones, and most of the businesses this situation describes are unregistered and outside it entirely.

Access to electricity 22.5% · 2024Domestic credit to private sector 11.3% · 2023Account at a bank or mobile-money provider, age 15+ 39.2% · 2024GDP per capita $807 · 2025

A farmer or food producer

59% of the country's workers were in agriculture in 2025. Cereal yields averaged 872 kg per hectare — well below what the same seed achieves with reliable inputs, water and storage, so the largest available productivity gain is not a new technology but the ordinary one already used elsewhere. By 2036, 32% of the population has electricity under Momentum — the precondition for irrigation pumps, cold storage and anything that stops a harvest rotting between field and market. 36% internet use puts price information, weather and pest identification within reach of a phone, for those who have one and can afford data. Undernourishment affected 38.5% of people in 2023: food exists in the region and cannot affordably be moved, which is a roads and storage problem more than a farming one.

Better if

Investment goes into what happens after harvest — storage, roads, cold chain, market information — not only into what happens before it.

Worse if

A multi-season drought arrives, which no band on this platform models, or input costs rise faster than farmgate prices.

Who this misses

Rain-fed smallholders without irrigation, who feel a bad season first and hardest, and women farmers, who in most of these countries hold weaker land tenure and less access to credit.

Assumptions and evidence

National electricity and connectivity projections are applied to a rural situation, though rural access consistently lags the national figure.
Yield gaps are treated as closeable with existing technology; that assumes input supply, credit and extension services that may not exist.

Employment in agriculture 58.5% · 2025Cereal yield 872 kg/ha · 2024Prevalence of undernourishment 38.5% · 2023Freshwater withdrawal as share of available resources 0.2% · 2022

A healthcare worker, and a patient

There were 2.1 physicians per 10,000 people in 2022. The population they serve grows by 39.2 million between 2026 and 2036, so holding the current ratio requires training and retaining staff at that rate merely to stand still. Electricity reaching 32% by 2036 under Momentum is what makes a vaccine cold chain, a functioning theatre and a night-time delivery possible outside the largest towns. Out-of-pocket payments were 38% of health spending in 2023. Under-five mortality stood at 89.7 per 1,000 live births (2024). 12% of people had safely managed drinking water (2024), which decides how much of the clinical load is preventable in the first place.

Better if

Health financing moves toward pooled, prepaid arrangements, and task-shifting is supported by law rather than tolerated informally.

Worse if

Trained clinicians emigrate faster than they are replaced, or external health financing contracts.

Who this misses

People in rural districts and informal settlements, where the physician ratio is a fraction of the national figure, and anyone whose care is rationed by ability to pay at the point of service.

Assumptions and evidence

Workforce density is a national average; it conceals extreme concentration in capital cities.
This platform holds no projection for health workforce or financing — only the current position against a projected population.

Physicians per 1,000 people 0.21 / 1,000 · 2022Out-of-pocket health expenditure 38% · 2023Under-5 mortality rate 89.7 / 1,000 · 2024Safely managed drinking water 11.9% · 2024

A teacher, and a student

The school-age population grows with a national population rising by 39.2 million to 2036. Gross secondary enrolment was 55.5% in 2023 and tertiary 6.4%. Government spent 2.8% of GDP on education in 2022. Under Momentum, 32% of households have electricity by 2036 — which is when homework after dark stops being a privilege. 36% internet use makes digital material reachable for that share of students, and no more; 64% of the population remains outside it. Adult literacy at 69% (2023) means many of these students cannot be helped with schoolwork at home, whatever the school does.

Better if

Electricity and connectivity reach schools ahead of the national average rather than behind it, and teacher supply grows with enrolment.

Worse if

Enrolment expands faster than teachers are trained, converting access gains into larger classes and weaker learning.

Who this misses

Girls in regions where secondary completion diverges sharply by gender, and children in households where the opportunity cost of school attendance is immediate income.

Assumptions and evidence

Gross enrolment ratios can exceed 100% and include students outside the standard age range; they measure participation, not learning.
This platform holds no measure of learning outcomes, teacher supply or classroom quality — a substantial gap in describing education.

School enrolment, secondary (gross) 55.5% · 2023School enrolment, tertiary (gross) 6.4% · 2020Government expenditure on education 2.8% · 2022Adult literacy rate 68.5% · 2023

A creative entrepreneur

By 2036 under Momentum, roughly 55.9 million people in this country are online — the domestic audience reachable without leaving it. That is up from about 20% of the population in 2024 to 36%. 39% of people aged 15 and over held a bank or mobile-money account in 2024, so being paid directly by that audience is mechanically possible for a minority of it. A population where 46% were under 15 in 2025 is, within this horizon, an unusually young consumer market for music, film, fashion and games. Production still depends on power: 32% household electricity access by 2036 sets how far studios, editing and streaming can spread beyond the main city.

Better if

Payment rails work across borders and royalties are collected and enforced domestically rather than captured offshore.

Worse if

Data costs stay high relative to income, or distribution platforms owned elsewhere capture the value created here.

Who this misses

Creators working in languages the major platforms do not support well, and anyone without a device capable of running current tools.

Assumptions and evidence

Domestic reach is calculated as projected internet use multiplied by projected population. It counts people who can technically be reached, not an audience.
This platform holds no reviewed creative-sector evidence for this country. Reach and payment access are stand-ins for a sector nobody has measured here.

Individuals using the internet 19.7% · 2024Account at a bank or mobile-money provider, age 15+ 39.2% · 2024Population aged 0–14 46% · 2025

A trader using regional markets

Trade was 87% of GDP in 2025, so what happens at a neighbour's border arrives as a domestic price within months. This country sits inside EAC, SADC, COMESA, ECCAS. AfCFTA has been signed by every African Union member state except Eritrea, but tariff schedules, rules of origin and customs practice — not the treaty — decide whether a small consignment moves more cheaply in 2036 than it does today. 39% of people aged 15 and over held a bank or mobile-money account in 2024 — the share able to settle across a border without carrying cash.

Better if

Rules of origin are agreed on contested product lines and applied at national customs, not just gazetted.

Worse if

Regional blocs fragment further, or preferential tariffs remain unimplemented at the border despite ratification.

Who this misses

Small cross-border traders, disproportionately women, who operate below the threshold at which formal preferential regimes are usable at all.

Assumptions and evidence

Trade openness is a national accounts ratio and says nothing about the cost or time of a specific border crossing.
This platform holds no country-level data on intra-African trade share, non-tariff barriers or border clearance times — the measures that would matter most here.

Trade (exports + imports) 87.3% · 2025Account at a bank or mobile-money provider, age 15+ 39.2% · 2024

A family in a growing city

Urban population was growing 4% a year in 2025, doubling roughly every 17 years. On the projected population, of the order of 17.7 million additional people are living in this country's towns and cities by 2036. 78% of urban residents were in informal settlements in 2022 — housing built faster than it was serviced. 12% of people had safely managed drinking water (2024). Under Momentum, 32% of the population has electricity by 2036. The decisions that determine whether this family's commute is one hour or three — where roads, water mains and drainage go, and which land is reserved before it is built on — are being made now, and are expensive to reverse afterwards.

Better if

Land for roads, water mains and drainage is bought and reserved before settlement arrives — the cheapest infrastructure decision available and the one most often skipped.

Worse if

Growth outpaces servicing, in which case today's new neighbourhoods become the next decade's retrofit problem at many times the cost.

Who this misses

Renters and residents without secure tenure, who bear eviction risk and are usually the first displaced when upgrading finally arrives.

Assumptions and evidence

Urban share is held constant when estimating additional urban residents; in practice it is rising, so this is a conservative figure.
This platform holds no city-level data. National averages conceal very large differences between a capital and a secondary town.

Urban population 45.1% · 2025Urban population growth 4% · 2025Population living in slums 78.4% · 2022Safely managed drinking water 11.9% · 2024

A citizen dealing with government

Government effectiveness scored -1.7 in 2024 on a scale running roughly −2.5 to +2.5. With 36% internet use by 2036 under Momentum, permits, payments, registrations and records can plausibly be handled without a physical queue for that share of the population — the most tangible improvement most citizens would actually notice. But government revenue excluding grants was 13.2% of GDP in 2022: courts, roads, schools and statistics all compete for a small pool, and digitisation does not create capacity, it redistributes it. Voice and accountability scored -1.2 (2024). The same identity systems, registries and monitoring capability that shorten a queue are also what surveillance is built from, and the measures that would constrain misuse currently score in the lower band. Both outcomes are live and depend on choices not yet made.

Better if

Digital public infrastructure is built with data protection law, independent oversight and offline fallbacks from the start.

Worse if

Identity and payment systems become a precondition for services before coverage is universal, excluding people from entitlements they already hold.

Who this misses

People without formal identity documents, who are disproportionately rural, poor, migrant or stateless — and who are excluded twice when services move online.

Assumptions and evidence

Governance indicators are perception-based composites. They signal direction and relative position, not measured administrative performance.
Connectivity is assumed to be usable for government services; in practice affordability, literacy and identity documentation each gate access again.

Government effectiveness -1.69 · 2024Voice and accountability -1.21 · 2024Government revenue excl. grants 13.2% · 2022

A member of the diaspora weighing return or investment

Remittances were 3.6% of GDP in 2025, against foreign direct investment at 2.1% — meaning money sent home by citizens abroad is already larger than foreign investment, and arrives in household hands without conditions. Under Momentum, real output per person moves from $807 (2025) to $1,061 by 2036, about 2.5% a year. By 2036, 32% electricity access and 36% internet use set what can actually be operated on the ground. Rule of law scored -1.6 (2024), which is the measure that most often decides whether a diaspora investor commits capital rather than only sending support.

Better if

Property registration, repatriation of profits and dispute resolution are made predictable — the three things that convert diaspora sentiment into diaspora capital.

Worse if

Currency controls or an unpredictable tax treatment of returning residents make commitment more expensive than continued remittance.

Who this misses

Diaspora members without capital to invest, whose contribution is already the largest single external flow and who are rarely the audience for investment policy.

Assumptions and evidence

GDP per capita paths are in constant present-day dollars and assume no exchange-rate or price forecast.
Remittance ratios are balance-of-payments estimates and exclude informal channels, which are substantial in most of these countries.

Personal remittances received 3.6% · 2025Foreign direct investment, net inflows 2.1% · 2025GDP per capita $807 · 2025Rule of law -1.63 · 2024

Acceleration · 2036

What the projected numbers would mean, taken together, for ten representative situations under Acceleration in 2036. These are not predictions and not stories about real people. Each one states the evidence it rests on, the assumptions it makes, and who the improvement would miss.

A young person entering the workforce

Roughly 24.2 million more people reach working age between 2026 and 2036. They enter a labour market where 7.8% of 15–24s were already counted as unemployed in 2025, and where 59% of all work is in agriculture (2025). Under Acceleration, internet use moves from 20% to 43% — a materially larger share of this cohort can reach work, training and customers beyond walking distance. With tertiary enrolment at 6.4%, most will not pass through formal higher education, so what they can do at 25 is set by what employers and informal apprenticeship actually teach — not by universities.

Better if

Technical training is aligned to what employers actually hire for, and the evidence on which courses lead to work is published.

Worse if

The cohort arrives faster than jobs, training places or electricity, in which case a demographic dividend becomes a grievance.

Who this misses

Young people in farming households, who typically leave school earliest and are furthest from the connectivity and training that the projection describes.

Assumptions and evidence

Working-age population follows the UN World Population Prospects projection, unchanged.
Youth unemployment is an ILO modelled estimate and understates underemployment in largely informal labour markets.
Connectivity gains are assumed to reach young people at least as fast as the population average — historically optimistic.

A small-business owner

Electricity access moves from 23% of the population (2024) to 36% by 2036 under Acceleration. That measures connections, not hours of supply: a workshop counted as served may still be waiting on power for part of the day, and this platform holds no outage or tariff data for it. Domestic credit to the private sector stood at 11.3% of GDP in 2023, which is thin by any comparison. Plausible implication, not measured: a credit-to-GDP ratio this low is consistent with borrowing being hard for small firms, but the ratio is an aggregate and cannot show which firms were refused or why. A firm-level credit survey would establish it. 39% of people aged 15 and over held an account at a bank or other financial institution, or personally used a mobile-money service, in 2024. Mobile money is counted. Plausible implication, not measured: account records are the kind of evidence a lender can price risk against, so widening ownership could open borrowing to traders without land title. Nothing in this platform measures whether that has happened here — lender practice, or credit-bureau coverage, would show it. Average output per person in the surrounding market moves from $807 to $1,573 a year. That is a national mean and does not identify whose income changed.

Better if

Collateral registries, insolvency procedure and payment rails are fixed before credit is subsidised.

Worse if

Credit is expanded into a weak enforcement system, producing bad loans rather than businesses.

Who this misses

Unregistered traders, who are the majority of businesses in most of these economies and are invisible to both the credit statistics and the policies built on them.

Assumptions and evidence

GDP per capita is expressed in constant present-day dollars and describes average output, not the income of any particular household.
Electricity access measures connection, not hours of supply or price. A connected business with eight-hour outages is counted as served.
Domestic credit to the private sector is a stock ratio. It does not distinguish lending to large firms from lending to small ones, and most of the businesses this situation describes are unregistered and outside it entirely.

Access to electricity 22.5% · 2024Domestic credit to private sector 11.3% · 2023Account at a bank or mobile-money provider, age 15+ 39.2% · 2024GDP per capita $807 · 2025

A farmer or food producer

59% of the country's workers were in agriculture in 2025. Cereal yields averaged 872 kg per hectare — well below what the same seed achieves with reliable inputs, water and storage, so the largest available productivity gain is not a new technology but the ordinary one already used elsewhere. By 2036, 36% of the population has electricity under Acceleration — the precondition for irrigation pumps, cold storage and anything that stops a harvest rotting between field and market. 43% internet use puts price information, weather and pest identification within reach of a phone, for those who have one and can afford data. Undernourishment affected 38.5% of people in 2023: food exists in the region and cannot affordably be moved, which is a roads and storage problem more than a farming one.

Better if

Investment goes into what happens after harvest — storage, roads, cold chain, market information — not only into what happens before it.

Worse if

A multi-season drought arrives, which no band on this platform models, or input costs rise faster than farmgate prices.

Who this misses

Rain-fed smallholders without irrigation, who feel a bad season first and hardest, and women farmers, who in most of these countries hold weaker land tenure and less access to credit.

Assumptions and evidence

National electricity and connectivity projections are applied to a rural situation, though rural access consistently lags the national figure.
Yield gaps are treated as closeable with existing technology; that assumes input supply, credit and extension services that may not exist.

Employment in agriculture 58.5% · 2025Cereal yield 872 kg/ha · 2024Prevalence of undernourishment 38.5% · 2023Freshwater withdrawal as share of available resources 0.2% · 2022

A healthcare worker, and a patient

There were 2.1 physicians per 10,000 people in 2022. The population they serve grows by 39.2 million between 2026 and 2036, so holding the current ratio requires training and retaining staff at that rate merely to stand still. Electricity reaching 36% by 2036 under Acceleration is what makes a vaccine cold chain, a functioning theatre and a night-time delivery possible outside the largest towns. Out-of-pocket payments were 38% of health spending in 2023. Under-five mortality stood at 89.7 per 1,000 live births (2024). 12% of people had safely managed drinking water (2024), which decides how much of the clinical load is preventable in the first place.

Better if

Health financing moves toward pooled, prepaid arrangements, and task-shifting is supported by law rather than tolerated informally.

Worse if

Trained clinicians emigrate faster than they are replaced, or external health financing contracts.

Who this misses

People in rural districts and informal settlements, where the physician ratio is a fraction of the national figure, and anyone whose care is rationed by ability to pay at the point of service.

Assumptions and evidence

Workforce density is a national average; it conceals extreme concentration in capital cities.
This platform holds no projection for health workforce or financing — only the current position against a projected population.

Physicians per 1,000 people 0.21 / 1,000 · 2022Out-of-pocket health expenditure 38% · 2023Under-5 mortality rate 89.7 / 1,000 · 2024Safely managed drinking water 11.9% · 2024

A teacher, and a student

The school-age population grows with a national population rising by 39.2 million to 2036. Gross secondary enrolment was 55.5% in 2023 and tertiary 6.4%. Government spent 2.8% of GDP on education in 2022. Under Acceleration, 36% of households have electricity by 2036 — which is when homework after dark stops being a privilege. 43% internet use makes digital material reachable for that share of students, and no more; 57% of the population remains outside it. Adult literacy at 69% (2023) means many of these students cannot be helped with schoolwork at home, whatever the school does.

Better if

Electricity and connectivity reach schools ahead of the national average rather than behind it, and teacher supply grows with enrolment.

Worse if

Enrolment expands faster than teachers are trained, converting access gains into larger classes and weaker learning.

Who this misses

Girls in regions where secondary completion diverges sharply by gender, and children in households where the opportunity cost of school attendance is immediate income.

Assumptions and evidence

Gross enrolment ratios can exceed 100% and include students outside the standard age range; they measure participation, not learning.
This platform holds no measure of learning outcomes, teacher supply or classroom quality — a substantial gap in describing education.

School enrolment, secondary (gross) 55.5% · 2023School enrolment, tertiary (gross) 6.4% · 2020Government expenditure on education 2.8% · 2022Adult literacy rate 68.5% · 2023

A creative entrepreneur

By 2036 under Acceleration, roughly 66.5 million people in this country are online — the domestic audience reachable without leaving it. That is up from about 20% of the population in 2024 to 43%. 39% of people aged 15 and over held a bank or mobile-money account in 2024, so being paid directly by that audience is mechanically possible for a minority of it. A population where 46% were under 15 in 2025 is, within this horizon, an unusually young consumer market for music, film, fashion and games. Production still depends on power: 36% household electricity access by 2036 sets how far studios, editing and streaming can spread beyond the main city.

Better if

Payment rails work across borders and royalties are collected and enforced domestically rather than captured offshore.

Worse if

Data costs stay high relative to income, or distribution platforms owned elsewhere capture the value created here.

Who this misses

Creators working in languages the major platforms do not support well, and anyone without a device capable of running current tools.

Assumptions and evidence

Domestic reach is calculated as projected internet use multiplied by projected population. It counts people who can technically be reached, not an audience.
This platform holds no reviewed creative-sector evidence for this country. Reach and payment access are stand-ins for a sector nobody has measured here.

Individuals using the internet 19.7% · 2024Account at a bank or mobile-money provider, age 15+ 39.2% · 2024Population aged 0–14 46% · 2025

A trader using regional markets

Better if

Rules of origin are agreed on contested product lines and applied at national customs, not just gazetted.

Worse if

Regional blocs fragment further, or preferential tariffs remain unimplemented at the border despite ratification.

Who this misses

Small cross-border traders, disproportionately women, who operate below the threshold at which formal preferential regimes are usable at all.

Assumptions and evidence

Trade openness is a national accounts ratio and says nothing about the cost or time of a specific border crossing.
This platform holds no country-level data on intra-African trade share, non-tariff barriers or border clearance times — the measures that would matter most here.

Trade (exports + imports) 87.3% · 2025Account at a bank or mobile-money provider, age 15+ 39.2% · 2024

A family in a growing city

Urban population was growing 4% a year in 2025, doubling roughly every 17 years. On the projected population, of the order of 17.7 million additional people are living in this country's towns and cities by 2036. 78% of urban residents were in informal settlements in 2022 — housing built faster than it was serviced. 12% of people had safely managed drinking water (2024). Under Acceleration, 36% of the population has electricity by 2036. The decisions that determine whether this family's commute is one hour or three — where roads, water mains and drainage go, and which land is reserved before it is built on — are being made now, and are expensive to reverse afterwards.

Better if

Land for roads, water mains and drainage is bought and reserved before settlement arrives — the cheapest infrastructure decision available and the one most often skipped.

Worse if

Growth outpaces servicing, in which case today's new neighbourhoods become the next decade's retrofit problem at many times the cost.

Who this misses

Renters and residents without secure tenure, who bear eviction risk and are usually the first displaced when upgrading finally arrives.

Assumptions and evidence

Urban share is held constant when estimating additional urban residents; in practice it is rising, so this is a conservative figure.
This platform holds no city-level data. National averages conceal very large differences between a capital and a secondary town.

Urban population 45.1% · 2025Urban population growth 4% · 2025Population living in slums 78.4% · 2022Safely managed drinking water 11.9% · 2024

A citizen dealing with government

Government effectiveness scored -1.7 in 2024 on a scale running roughly −2.5 to +2.5. With 43% internet use by 2036 under Acceleration, permits, payments, registrations and records can plausibly be handled without a physical queue for that share of the population — the most tangible improvement most citizens would actually notice. But government revenue excluding grants was 13.2% of GDP in 2022: courts, roads, schools and statistics all compete for a small pool, and digitisation does not create capacity, it redistributes it. Voice and accountability scored -1.2 (2024). The same identity systems, registries and monitoring capability that shorten a queue are also what surveillance is built from, and the measures that would constrain misuse currently score in the lower band. Both outcomes are live and depend on choices not yet made.

Better if

Digital public infrastructure is built with data protection law, independent oversight and offline fallbacks from the start.

Worse if

Identity and payment systems become a precondition for services before coverage is universal, excluding people from entitlements they already hold.

Who this misses

People without formal identity documents, who are disproportionately rural, poor, migrant or stateless — and who are excluded twice when services move online.

Assumptions and evidence

Governance indicators are perception-based composites. They signal direction and relative position, not measured administrative performance.
Connectivity is assumed to be usable for government services; in practice affordability, literacy and identity documentation each gate access again.

Government effectiveness -1.69 · 2024Voice and accountability -1.21 · 2024Government revenue excl. grants 13.2% · 2022

A member of the diaspora weighing return or investment

Remittances were 3.6% of GDP in 2025, against foreign direct investment at 2.1% — meaning money sent home by citizens abroad is already larger than foreign investment, and arrives in household hands without conditions. Under Acceleration, real output per person moves from $807 (2025) to $1,573 by 2036, about 6.3% a year. By 2036, 36% electricity access and 43% internet use set what can actually be operated on the ground. Rule of law scored -1.6 (2024), which is the measure that most often decides whether a diaspora investor commits capital rather than only sending support.

Better if

Property registration, repatriation of profits and dispute resolution are made predictable — the three things that convert diaspora sentiment into diaspora capital.

Worse if

Currency controls or an unpredictable tax treatment of returning residents make commitment more expensive than continued remittance.

Who this misses

Diaspora members without capital to invest, whose contribution is already the largest single external flow and who are rarely the audience for investment policy.

Assumptions and evidence

GDP per capita paths are in constant present-day dollars and assume no exchange-rate or price forecast.
Remittance ratios are balance-of-payments estimates and exclude informal channels, which are substantial in most of these countries.

Personal remittances received 3.6% · 2025Foreign direct investment, net inflows 2.1% · 2025GDP per capita $807 · 2025Rule of law -1.63 · 2024

Disruption · 2036

What the projected numbers would mean, taken together, for ten representative situations under Disruption in 2036. These are not predictions and not stories about real people. Each one states the evidence it rests on, the assumptions it makes, and who the improvement would miss.

A young person entering the workforce

Roughly 24.2 million more people reach working age between 2026 and 2036. They enter a labour market where 7.8% of 15–24s were already counted as unemployed in 2025, and where 59% of all work is in agriculture (2025). Under Disruption, internet use moves from 20% to 31% — a modest widening, meaning connectivity remains a sorting mechanism rather than a leveller. With tertiary enrolment at 6.4%, most will not pass through formal higher education, so what they can do at 25 is set by what employers and informal apprenticeship actually teach — not by universities.

Better if

Technical training is aligned to what employers actually hire for, and the evidence on which courses lead to work is published.

Worse if

The cohort arrives faster than jobs, training places or electricity, in which case a demographic dividend becomes a grievance.

Who this misses

Young people in farming households, who typically leave school earliest and are furthest from the connectivity and training that the projection describes.

Assumptions and evidence

Working-age population follows the UN World Population Prospects projection, unchanged.
Youth unemployment is an ILO modelled estimate and understates underemployment in largely informal labour markets.
Connectivity gains are assumed to reach young people at least as fast as the population average — historically optimistic.

A small-business owner

Electricity access moves from 23% of the population (2024) to 29% by 2036 under Disruption. That measures connections, not hours of supply: a workshop counted as served may still be waiting on power for part of the day, and this platform holds no outage or tariff data for it. Domestic credit to the private sector stood at 11.3% of GDP in 2023, which is thin by any comparison. Plausible implication, not measured: a credit-to-GDP ratio this low is consistent with borrowing being hard for small firms, but the ratio is an aggregate and cannot show which firms were refused or why. A firm-level credit survey would establish it. 39% of people aged 15 and over held an account at a bank or other financial institution, or personally used a mobile-money service, in 2024. Mobile money is counted. Plausible implication, not measured: account records are the kind of evidence a lender can price risk against, so widening ownership could open borrowing to traders without land title. Nothing in this platform measures whether that has happened here — lender practice, or credit-bureau coverage, would show it. Average output per person in the surrounding market moves from $807 to $705 a year. That is a national mean and does not identify whose income changed.

Better if

Collateral registries, insolvency procedure and payment rails are fixed before credit is subsidised.

Worse if

Credit is expanded into a weak enforcement system, producing bad loans rather than businesses.

Who this misses

Unregistered traders, who are the majority of businesses in most of these economies and are invisible to both the credit statistics and the policies built on them.

Assumptions and evidence

GDP per capita is expressed in constant present-day dollars and describes average output, not the income of any particular household.
Electricity access measures connection, not hours of supply or price. A connected business with eight-hour outages is counted as served.
Domestic credit to the private sector is a stock ratio. It does not distinguish lending to large firms from lending to small ones, and most of the businesses this situation describes are unregistered and outside it entirely.

Access to electricity 22.5% · 2024Domestic credit to private sector 11.3% · 2023Account at a bank or mobile-money provider, age 15+ 39.2% · 2024GDP per capita $807 · 2025

A farmer or food producer

59% of the country's workers were in agriculture in 2025. Cereal yields averaged 872 kg per hectare — well below what the same seed achieves with reliable inputs, water and storage, so the largest available productivity gain is not a new technology but the ordinary one already used elsewhere. By 2036, 29% of the population has electricity under Disruption — the precondition for irrigation pumps, cold storage and anything that stops a harvest rotting between field and market. 31% internet use puts price information, weather and pest identification within reach of a phone, for those who have one and can afford data. Undernourishment affected 38.5% of people in 2023: food exists in the region and cannot affordably be moved, which is a roads and storage problem more than a farming one.

Better if

Investment goes into what happens after harvest — storage, roads, cold chain, market information — not only into what happens before it.

Worse if

A multi-season drought arrives, which no band on this platform models, or input costs rise faster than farmgate prices.

Who this misses

Rain-fed smallholders without irrigation, who feel a bad season first and hardest, and women farmers, who in most of these countries hold weaker land tenure and less access to credit.

Assumptions and evidence

National electricity and connectivity projections are applied to a rural situation, though rural access consistently lags the national figure.
Yield gaps are treated as closeable with existing technology; that assumes input supply, credit and extension services that may not exist.

Employment in agriculture 58.5% · 2025Cereal yield 872 kg/ha · 2024Prevalence of undernourishment 38.5% · 2023Freshwater withdrawal as share of available resources 0.2% · 2022

A healthcare worker, and a patient

There were 2.1 physicians per 10,000 people in 2022. The population they serve grows by 39.2 million between 2026 and 2036, so holding the current ratio requires training and retaining staff at that rate merely to stand still. Electricity reaching 29% by 2036 under Disruption is what makes a vaccine cold chain, a functioning theatre and a night-time delivery possible outside the largest towns. Out-of-pocket payments were 38% of health spending in 2023. Under-five mortality stood at 89.7 per 1,000 live births (2024). 12% of people had safely managed drinking water (2024), which decides how much of the clinical load is preventable in the first place.

Better if

Health financing moves toward pooled, prepaid arrangements, and task-shifting is supported by law rather than tolerated informally.

Worse if

Trained clinicians emigrate faster than they are replaced, or external health financing contracts.

Who this misses

People in rural districts and informal settlements, where the physician ratio is a fraction of the national figure, and anyone whose care is rationed by ability to pay at the point of service.

Assumptions and evidence

Workforce density is a national average; it conceals extreme concentration in capital cities.
This platform holds no projection for health workforce or financing — only the current position against a projected population.

Physicians per 1,000 people 0.21 / 1,000 · 2022Out-of-pocket health expenditure 38% · 2023Under-5 mortality rate 89.7 / 1,000 · 2024Safely managed drinking water 11.9% · 2024

A teacher, and a student

The school-age population grows with a national population rising by 39.2 million to 2036. Gross secondary enrolment was 55.5% in 2023 and tertiary 6.4%. Government spent 2.8% of GDP on education in 2022. Under Disruption, 29% of households have electricity by 2036 — which is when homework after dark stops being a privilege. 31% internet use makes digital material reachable for that share of students, and no more; 69% of the population remains outside it. Adult literacy at 69% (2023) means many of these students cannot be helped with schoolwork at home, whatever the school does.

Better if

Electricity and connectivity reach schools ahead of the national average rather than behind it, and teacher supply grows with enrolment.

Worse if

Enrolment expands faster than teachers are trained, converting access gains into larger classes and weaker learning.

Who this misses

Girls in regions where secondary completion diverges sharply by gender, and children in households where the opportunity cost of school attendance is immediate income.

Assumptions and evidence

Gross enrolment ratios can exceed 100% and include students outside the standard age range; they measure participation, not learning.
This platform holds no measure of learning outcomes, teacher supply or classroom quality — a substantial gap in describing education.

School enrolment, secondary (gross) 55.5% · 2023School enrolment, tertiary (gross) 6.4% · 2020Government expenditure on education 2.8% · 2022Adult literacy rate 68.5% · 2023

A creative entrepreneur

By 2036 under Disruption, roughly 47.6 million people in this country are online — the domestic audience reachable without leaving it. That is up from about 20% of the population in 2024 to 31%. 39% of people aged 15 and over held a bank or mobile-money account in 2024, so being paid directly by that audience is mechanically possible for a minority of it. A population where 46% were under 15 in 2025 is, within this horizon, an unusually young consumer market for music, film, fashion and games. Production still depends on power: 29% household electricity access by 2036 sets how far studios, editing and streaming can spread beyond the main city.

Better if

Payment rails work across borders and royalties are collected and enforced domestically rather than captured offshore.

Worse if

Data costs stay high relative to income, or distribution platforms owned elsewhere capture the value created here.

Who this misses

Creators working in languages the major platforms do not support well, and anyone without a device capable of running current tools.

Assumptions and evidence

Domestic reach is calculated as projected internet use multiplied by projected population. It counts people who can technically be reached, not an audience.
This platform holds no reviewed creative-sector evidence for this country. Reach and payment access are stand-ins for a sector nobody has measured here.

Individuals using the internet 19.7% · 2024Account at a bank or mobile-money provider, age 15+ 39.2% · 2024Population aged 0–14 46% · 2025

A trader using regional markets

Better if

Rules of origin are agreed on contested product lines and applied at national customs, not just gazetted.

Worse if

Regional blocs fragment further, or preferential tariffs remain unimplemented at the border despite ratification.

Who this misses

Small cross-border traders, disproportionately women, who operate below the threshold at which formal preferential regimes are usable at all.

Assumptions and evidence

Trade openness is a national accounts ratio and says nothing about the cost or time of a specific border crossing.
This platform holds no country-level data on intra-African trade share, non-tariff barriers or border clearance times — the measures that would matter most here.

Trade (exports + imports) 87.3% · 2025Account at a bank or mobile-money provider, age 15+ 39.2% · 2024

A family in a growing city

Urban population was growing 4% a year in 2025, doubling roughly every 17 years. On the projected population, of the order of 17.7 million additional people are living in this country's towns and cities by 2036. 78% of urban residents were in informal settlements in 2022 — housing built faster than it was serviced. 12% of people had safely managed drinking water (2024). Under Disruption, 29% of the population has electricity by 2036. The decisions that determine whether this family's commute is one hour or three — where roads, water mains and drainage go, and which land is reserved before it is built on — are being made now, and are expensive to reverse afterwards.

Better if

Land for roads, water mains and drainage is bought and reserved before settlement arrives — the cheapest infrastructure decision available and the one most often skipped.

Worse if

Growth outpaces servicing, in which case today's new neighbourhoods become the next decade's retrofit problem at many times the cost.

Who this misses

Renters and residents without secure tenure, who bear eviction risk and are usually the first displaced when upgrading finally arrives.

Assumptions and evidence

Urban share is held constant when estimating additional urban residents; in practice it is rising, so this is a conservative figure.
This platform holds no city-level data. National averages conceal very large differences between a capital and a secondary town.

Urban population 45.1% · 2025Urban population growth 4% · 2025Population living in slums 78.4% · 2022Safely managed drinking water 11.9% · 2024

A citizen dealing with government

Government effectiveness scored -1.7 in 2024 on a scale running roughly −2.5 to +2.5. With 31% internet use by 2036 under Disruption, permits, payments, registrations and records can plausibly be handled without a physical queue for that share of the population — the most tangible improvement most citizens would actually notice. But government revenue excluding grants was 13.2% of GDP in 2022: courts, roads, schools and statistics all compete for a small pool, and digitisation does not create capacity, it redistributes it. Voice and accountability scored -1.2 (2024). The same identity systems, registries and monitoring capability that shorten a queue are also what surveillance is built from, and the measures that would constrain misuse currently score in the lower band. Both outcomes are live and depend on choices not yet made.

Better if

Digital public infrastructure is built with data protection law, independent oversight and offline fallbacks from the start.

Worse if

Identity and payment systems become a precondition for services before coverage is universal, excluding people from entitlements they already hold.

Who this misses

People without formal identity documents, who are disproportionately rural, poor, migrant or stateless — and who are excluded twice when services move online.

Assumptions and evidence

Governance indicators are perception-based composites. They signal direction and relative position, not measured administrative performance.
Connectivity is assumed to be usable for government services; in practice affordability, literacy and identity documentation each gate access again.

Government effectiveness -1.69 · 2024Voice and accountability -1.21 · 2024Government revenue excl. grants 13.2% · 2022

A member of the diaspora weighing return or investment

Remittances were 3.6% of GDP in 2025, against foreign direct investment at 2.1% — meaning money sent home by citizens abroad is already larger than foreign investment, and arrives in household hands without conditions. Under Disruption, real output per person moves from $807 (2025) to $705 by 2036, about -1.2% a year. By 2036, 29% electricity access and 31% internet use set what can actually be operated on the ground. Rule of law scored -1.6 (2024), which is the measure that most often decides whether a diaspora investor commits capital rather than only sending support.

Better if

Property registration, repatriation of profits and dispute resolution are made predictable — the three things that convert diaspora sentiment into diaspora capital.

Worse if

Currency controls or an unpredictable tax treatment of returning residents make commitment more expensive than continued remittance.

Who this misses

Diaspora members without capital to invest, whose contribution is already the largest single external flow and who are rarely the audience for investment policy.

Assumptions and evidence

GDP per capita paths are in constant present-day dollars and assume no exchange-rate or price forecast.
Remittance ratios are balance-of-payments estimates and exclude informal channels, which are substantial in most of these countries.

Personal remittances received 3.6% · 2025Foreign direct investment, net inflows 2.1% · 2025GDP per capita $807 · 2025Rule of law -1.63 · 2024

Structural forces the growth model cannot see

The quantitative band on this page extrapolates fifteen years of this country's own growth. It is defensible because it is narrow — and what it cannot see is anything those fifteen years did not contain. These are those things, assessed from evidence and deliberately not converted into numbers.

Political instability & conflict

Binding constraint

Political stability scored -2.1 in 2024, in the lowest band of the Worldwide Governance Indicators, with 4.3 million people internally displaced (2025). The distance between scenarios here is set by whether the security situation holds, not by economic policy. The modelled band, drawn from recent economic history, does not describe what further deterioration would mean.