Africa’s middle class: how good are the numbers? Until data collection and analysis used to measure income distribution improve, the continent’s statistics are unreliable On April 20th 2011 the African Development Bank (ADB) declared that not only was Africa rising, but that statistics on income distribution revealed a sizeable middle class now comprising 34% of Africa’s population—or nearly 350m people. Earlier that year, The Economistannounced that IMF forecasts predicted that seven out of the ten fastest-growing economies in the world over the next five years would be in Africa. The year before, Ghana’s Statistical Services revised the country’s GDP upwards…
