Lecture Abstract

What are the prospects and challenges in managing Africa’s future? This lecture will look at a series of variables and indicators that will be critical to the shaping of Africa’s future up to 2030. They include: the empowerment and rise of the individual, new and enabling technology, continental demographics, continental economic interconnectedness, public debt in Africa, global economic power shifts, urbanization and resource stress in African states, and the effects of global climate change in Africa.

About the Speaker

Professor Theo Neethling obtained his MA degree in 1989 in South Africa from the Potchefstroom University (currently North-West University) and his DLitt et Phil in 1992 from the University of South Africa, both in the discipline of International Politics.

He has held the position of Professor and Head of the Department of Political Studies and Governance at the University of the Free State since 1 April 2009. He has also been elected by Senate to serve as a member of the Executive Committee of Senate of the University of the Free State. He previously served in the Faculty of Military Science (Military Academy) of Stellenbosch University, where he started his academic career as a researcher in the Faculty’s Centre for Military Studies. In 2002 he was appointed as Associate Professor of Political Science in the Department of Political Science (Mil.) and promoted to Professor of Political Science in 2005. In this regard, he served as Chair of the Department of Political Science (Mil.) in the Faculty of Military Science from 2003 to early-2009, until he moved to the University of the Free State.

Prof. Neethling is the author (and co-author in a few instances) of more than 150 publicised outputs in scientific and popular scientific publications, including 49 articles in accredited (listed) academic journals and nineteen chapters in scholarly book publications. These publications appeared in South Africa, Australia, Canada, Germany, India, Ethiopia, Pakistan, the Russian Federation, Poland, Slovenia, the Czech Republic the United States of America, the United Kingdom and Zimbabwe. Furthermore, he has presented 74 research papers at national and international level. In this regard, his projects have taken him to governmental and academic institutions in all five of Africa’s regions, Asia, Australasia, Europe and North America. He also lectured in a visiting capacity at foreign institutions, most recently in Japan at the Osaka University’s School for International Public Policy. He is currently serving on the editorial board of four academic journals and is rated as an ‘established researcher’ by the South African National Research Foundation (since 2009). His research interests mainly concern Africa’s international relations; South Africa’s foreign relations; security and politics in the African context; and African futures.