plate 345 · 2023 data

Malawi's life expectancy rose 21 years, more than anywhere

Life expectancy at birth, 2000 vs 2023, the 12 largest rises among 215 countries, all sub-Saharan African. UN estimates.

Africa's century
  1. 1. By 2100, more than 1 in 3 people will be African
  2. 2. Nearly half the world's under-25s will be African by 2100
  3. 3. DR Congo is projected to outgrow the US by 2100
  4. 4. Kinshasa will soon be bigger than Paris and London combined
  5. 5. Two-thirds of the world's mobile money moves in Africa
  6. 6. Volcanic heat makes nearly 45% of the power Kenya generates
  7. 7. Africa's solar imports more than doubled since early 2024
  8. 8. DR Congo mines three-quarters of the world's cobalt
  9. 9. Most people in Africa are still offline
  10. 10. Africa formally recycles less than 1% of its e-waste
  11. 11. Ethiopia added over a third of Africa's new renewable power
  12. 12. Nigeria's cities now hold more people than Japan's
  13. 13. Sudan now has the world's most people displaced at home
  14. 14. Nigeria now has almost 25 million more people than Brazil
  15. 15. Six of the ten fastest-growing big cities are African
  16. 16. Africa now has more hungry people than Asia
  17. 17. Six in ten child deaths now happen in sub-Saharan Africa
  18. 18. Rwanda spread electricity faster than any country since 2014
  19. 19. Nigeria now eats more rice than Japan
  20. 20. More sub-Saharan Africans now have mobile money than bank accounts
  21. 21. Sub-Saharan Africa's cities now hold more people than Latin America's
  22. 22. DR Congo tripled its copper mining in ten years
  23. 23. Nitrogen dioxide over Khartoum fell 39% after war began
  24. 24. Countries mostly without electricity fell from 33 to 15
  25. 25. Seven in ten West African mobile money accounts sit idle
  26. 26. Nigeria became the third-biggest sender of students abroad
  27. 27. Guinea overtook Australia as the world's biggest bauxite miner
  28. 28. DR Congo passed Chile in refined copper
  29. 29. Burkina Faso now sends half its exports to the UAE
  30. 30. Nouakchott's mobile internet sped from Africa's slowest to top 30
  31. 31. Nigeria now imports more solar panels than generators
  32. 32. Zimbabwe climbed to fourth among the world's lithium miners
  33. 33. Services now employ twice as many Ghanaian women as farms
  34. 34. Sub-Saharan Africa doubled its grain, mostly by farming more land
  35. 35. Sub-Saharan Africa added more rural people than the whole world
  36. 36. France fell from first to third among Côte d'Ivoire's suppliers
  37. 37. China's car sales to Ethiopia are now mostly electric
  38. 38. Guinea rose from 17th to second for investment in Africa
  39. 39. Africa now mines three-quarters of the world's manganese
  40. 40. Tanzania rose from no graphite to world's third-biggest miner
  41. 41. DR Congo has more babies each year than the EU
  42. 42. More Malawians go online than have electricity at home
  43. 43. Nigeria is now Brazil's biggest supplier of urea fertiliser
  44. 44. 19 sub-Saharan countries are now mostly urban, up from 7
  45. 45. Sub-Saharan Africa added 13 million births a year since 2000
  46. 46. Sub-Saharan Africa now holds 88% of people without electricity
  47. 47. Malawi's life expectancy rose 21 years, more than anywhere
  48. 48. Ethiopia's wheat harvest nearly doubled, mostly from higher yields
  49. 49. In purchasing power, Egypt overtook Nigeria as Africa's biggest economy
  50. 50. Kenyans abroad send home more than Kenya receives in aid
+21.2 years

Malawi's life expectancy at birth, 46.2 in 2000 to 67.4 in 2023, the biggest rise of 215 countries.

15 of 15

The biggest gains are all in sub-Saharan Africa; the biggest elsewhere is North Korea's 12.7 years, 16th.

10.3 vs 4.5

Median gain in years since 2000: sub-Saharan Africa's 48 countries, against the other 167.

Source: UN DESA, World Population Prospects 2024: life expectancy at birth, 2023
the numbers & method
Malawi's life expectancy rose 21 years, more than anywhere. Source: UN DESA, World Population Prospects 2024: life expectancy at birth, 2023.
2000 (yrs)2023 (yrs)
Malawi46.267.4
Rwanda47.867.8
Zambia46.666.3
Uganda49.668.3
Angola46.564.6
Sierra Leone44.861.8
Botswana52.369.2
Zimbabwe46.062.8
Eswatini47.664.1
Ethiopia50.967.3
Burundi47.663.7
Namibia52.967.4

Claim types Estimate · Interpretation

UN DESA Population Division, World Population Prospects 2024, life expectancy at birth, both sexes (indicator 61), read from UN DESA Population Division via the progrss vault (§4.11, un-wpp passes value_checks). Estimate: UN model-based estimates for 2000 and 2023 (both are estimates, not projections); in countries with weak death registration the levels are modelled. Gain = 2023 value minus 2000 value, computed on unrounded values and shown rounded to one decimal; ranked over all 215 countries and territories in the file. Ranks 13–15: Mozambique (+14.1), Tanzania (+13.8), Guinea-Bissau (+13.5). Medians: 48 sub-Saharan African countries (World Bank region) 10.3 years, the other 167 4.5 years, all 215 5.2 years; 35 countries gained 10 years or more, 27 of them in sub-Saharan Africa; 3 lost years. Medians and ranks are progrss calculations. Claim type: Estimate. 2000 was close to the HIV-era low in several of these countries (Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Eswatini), so part of the gain is recovery (Interpretation). Live re-read of the UN data portal failed (API now needs a token); numbers are read via the progrss vault (§4.11).

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