No that’s not a stadium rock concert, it’s the musical references in the introduction to a scenario report, “African Futures 2050,” from the South African ‘Institute for Security Studies’ think tank.* The report, published in collaboration with the Pardee Center for International Futures, was published last month. We finally got around to page through the PDF: dry and packed with stats but an informative and readable analysis of ‘a’ projected course of African development to 2050 (covering demographics, economics, sociopolitical change, the environment and “human development itself”). In their preface, the authors are quick to admit that “[n]o one can predict the future and we do not pretend to do so. Instead [we] provide one possible future, shaped by recent and likely future developments, but with the clear statement that it is only one such vision.” (A necessary footnote, I believe.) The animated infographic above serves as a short introduction. The full report can be found here.

* BTW, there’s a point to the Beatles and Black Sabbath references. They’re featured in the report’s summary of the last half century or so.