{"id":1435,"date":"2016-01-20T10:01:48","date_gmt":"2016-01-20T09:01:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/?p=1435"},"modified":"2016-10-27T14:04:10","modified_gmt":"2016-10-27T13:04:10","slug":"the-african-shot-an-optimistic-outlook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/2016\/01\/20\/the-african-shot-an-optimistic-outlook\/","title":{"rendered":"The &#8220;African Shot&#8221;: An optimistic outlook"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_1436\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1436\" style=\"width: 340px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/files\/2016\/01\/African-shot-optimism-transpires-there.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-1436\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/files\/2016\/01\/African-shot-optimism-transpires-there.jpg\" alt=\"\u201cAfrican shot\u201d: despite difficulties, optimism transpires in Africa\" width=\"340\" height=\"454\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/files\/2016\/01\/African-shot-optimism-transpires-there.jpg 700w, https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/files\/2016\/01\/African-shot-optimism-transpires-there-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/files\/2016\/01\/African-shot-optimism-transpires-there-375x500.jpg 375w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 340px) 100vw, 340px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1436\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Nigerians expect their children to be better off than they are.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>One reason <strong>I enjoy visiting Africa is that I get what I call my \u201cAfrican shot\u201d: despite difficulties, optimism transpires there<\/strong>. To me this is in sharp contrast to the gloomy attitude that many of us in Europe have developed over the last few years.<\/p>\n<p>In my post of last week (\u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/2016\/01\/13\/africa-rising-under-question\/\">Africa Rising\u201d \u2013 Under Question?<\/a>&#8220;) I shared my optimistic view of Africa&#8217;s future. I decided to<strong> search for some information about the optimism of Africans<\/strong> \u2013 I tell you, it\u2019s a great contagious disease! I found some interesting information. The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">Pew Research Center<\/a> surveys global attitudes and trends. Let me give you some information about <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pewglobal.org\/database\/indicator\/5\/\" target=\"_blank\">3 questions they asked<\/a> people about their country\u2019s economic situation in 2015:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><strong>Is the country&#8217;s economic situation good or bad?<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>% of people responding \u201cgood\u201d:<\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>African countries: highest in Ethiopia (89%); lowest in Ghana (26%);<\/li>\n<li>the world: highest in China (90%); lowest in Ukraine (3%).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<ol start=\"2\">\n<li><strong>Do you expect our country&#8217;s economic situation to improve, remain the same or worsen in the next year?<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>% of people responding \u201cimprove\u201d:\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>African countries: highest in Nigeria (92%); lowest in Tanzania (43%)<\/li>\n<li>the world: actually, Nigeria is the world\u2019s highest, followed by Burkina Fasso (85%), and Ethiopia and China (84%); lowest in Poland (16%).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<ol start=\"3\">\n<li><strong>When children today grow up, will they be better off financially than their parents?<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>% of people responding \u201cbetter off\u201d:<\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>African countries: highest in Nigeria (84%); lowest in Tanzania (33%);<\/li>\n<li>the world: highest in Vietnam (91%); lowest in France (14%).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>This confirmed my perceptions that <a class=\"inline-twitter-link inline-tweet-click\" href=\"#\" onclick=\"inline_tweet_sharer_open_win('https:\\\/\\\/twitter.com\\\/intent\\\/tweet?url=https%3A%2F%2Fblog.iese.edu%2Fafrica%2Fwp-json%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fposts%2F1435%2F&text=Africans+tend+to+be+optimistic%2C+while+Europeans+fall+on+the+pessimistic+side+');\" title=\"Tweet This!\">Africans tend to be optimistic, while Europeans fall on the pessimistic side <span class=\"non-dashicons\"> <\/span><\/a>. <strong>I\u2019m not saying that these perceptions are well informed necessarily<\/strong>. For instance, Nigerians are increasingly optimistic (positive answers to question 1 above went up in 2015 to 57% from 39% in 2014). Given Nigeria\u2019s dependence on oil, increased optimism doesn\u2019t look consistent with the dramatic fall in oil prices. <strong>However, a positive outlook puts us in motion<\/strong>, while a negative one paralyzes us quite easily.<\/p>\n<p><strong>You may want to think whether you also need an \u201cAfrican shot\u201d!<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One reason I enjoy visiting Africa is that I get what I call my \u201cAfrican shot\u201d: despite difficulties, optimism transpires there. To me this is in sharp contrast to the gloomy attitude that many of us in Europe have developed over the last few years. In my post of last week (\u201cAfrica Rising\u201d \u2013 Under [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1654,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99314,993],"tags":[89743,89737,100319,100317,29415,58058,1386],"class_list":["post-1435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-social-and-institutional-context","category-living-conditions","tag-business-attittude","tag-development","tag-global-attitudes-and-trends","tag-optimism","tag-perceptions","tag-pew-research-center","tag-trends","megacategoria-mc-africa"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1654"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1435"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1435\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1442,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1435\/revisions\/1442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}