The four irreducible forces

Helena Brandt — Bruxelles, Belgique — 2026-09-24

“Algeria will, before very long, be a very great country in North Africa and in Africa — for four reasons. There are four irreducible forces that no head of state can destroy.”

These words have been circulating since 22 September 2026, carried by a video montage that has travelled across Algerian screens: the Great Mosque of Algiers illuminated, Algiers airport, a departures board with flights to sub-Saharan Africa — and, over it, the voice of a man talking about the future. Not a dreamed future: a demonstrated future.

The first of these forces, he says, is the most obvious: the rise of Africa.

“Many authors say that the twenty-first century will be the African century.” And he quotes a German journalist present in the room, whose book poses the disturbing question: will Africa be the China of the next century?

Then he sets out the shift, and that is where everything is at stake:

“For a long time, the Mediterranean — and Algeria — looked only towards France and Europe. We are moving from a marginal Mediterranean, a dead end for Europe, to a central, pivotal Mediterranean, between Europe and Africa. This pivotal relationship is strategic. And many industrialists are now considering a move first to North Africa, and later to sub-Saharan Africa. This pivot, this role of pivots — and Algerians have seen it clearly.”

That is the thesis. And here is why it holds up — not because a speaker said it, but because the international financial institutions confirm it, figures in hand.

What the International Monetary Fund writes

The IMF, in its latest report on Algeria, welcomes “the strength of economic growth and the diversification efforts”. These are not vague words. They are quantified lines:

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What the IMF finds on Algeria (latest report, 2026)

!GDP growth forecast for 2026 | 3,8 | %

GDP growth recorded in 2024 | 3,7 | %

GDP growth recorded in 2025 | 3,9 | %

NON-hydrocarbon growth, 2025 | 4,3 | %

Non-hydrocarbon growth forecast for 2026 | more than 4 | %

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And there is this figure, which should be posted up everywhere:

Algeria's gross external debt will not exceed 1% of GDP in 2026 — against 1,1% in 2025 — before falling to 0,5% in 2031.

One per cent. While European states debate their trajectory at 100%, 120%, 150% of GDP, Algeria borrows abroad the equivalent of one hundredth of its annual wealth. The IMF also considers that Algeria's short-term outlook is broadly “positive”, and that Algerian banks have “adequate levels of liquidity, profitability and capital”.

One last detail, which often goes unnoticed: the IMF notes “the country's rapid exit from the Financial Action Task Force's enhanced surveillance list” — the FATF. The rapid exit. This is not an indulgent pat on the back: it is a door reopening.

When a country combines 3,8% growth, external debt at 1% of GDP, non-oil growth above 4%, and it exits FATF surveillance — that country is not surviving. It is building itself.

What the African Development Bank says

There is better still, and it is an African who says it.

Abdoulkader Dileita, head of the African Development Bank's country office in Algeria, interviewed by APS on the sidelines of the Bank's annual meetings in Brazzaville, used a phrase that must be weighed:

“Several structural projects — the Trans-Saharan gas pipeline, the Trans-Saharan highway and the Trans-Saharan fibre-optic backbone — make Algeria the natural hub of African integration.”

The natural hub. And he adds: “Algeria is called to be a pillar of African development” — a reality, he says, “supported by the facts and confirmed by the figures”.

He specifies the geography: Algeria is “a natural bridge between the Mediterranean, the Maghreb, the Sahel and sub-Saharan Africa”. He recalls that it is the third African contributor to the African Development Bank, that it has paid 15 million dollars into the African Development Fund, and that the Bank has financed the first section of the Laghouat–Ghardaïa–El Meniaa rail line as well as the Algiers–Tamanrasset line.

And he puts his finger on a stake that Algeria does not claim loudly enough: the food security of the continent. Thanks to its production capacity for phosphate and nitrogen fertilisers, Algeria is presented as “a reliable African alternative” in the face of global supply disruptions.

That is what “hub” means. Not a slogan: three infrastructure projects, a rail line, fertilisers, and a position on the map.

Algeria has already laid the rails

What the speech calls “forces”, Algeria has already put under construction. The corridors exist, and they are measurable:

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What Algeria has already built towards the south

Fibre optic cable towards the south | 2 548 | km

Paved road to the Nigerien border | 2 335 | km

National section of the Trans-Saharan gas pipeline | 2 310 | km

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Two thousand five hundred kilometres of fibre optic cable. Two thousand three hundred kilometres of paved road. Two thousand three hundred kilometres of gas pipeline. These are not campaign promises: they are structures, on the ground, linking the Mediterranean to the heart of the continent.

And that is not all:

- The Algiers–Tamanrasset train, part-financed by the African Development Bank, is to link the north to the far south — the line is under construction, and President Tebboune has set the objective of bringing it into service in 2028 for the first major section.

- Gara Djebilet, one of the world's largest iron deposits, has entered the exploitation phase.

- Nearly 1,9 million students returned to the lecture halls for the 2026-2027 academic year.

- Chemseddine Derrache won the gold medal at the International Mathematical Olympiad.

A country that lays rail, cable and pipe towards the south is not betting on the past. It is betting on the only direction that matters this century.

Why this shift is not reversible

This is where the thesis of the speech becomes hard to contest.

The three projects cited by the African Development Bank — gas pipeline, highway, fibre optic — have one thing in common: they are physical infrastructure, and once in place, they do not come undone. A government, a majority, a policy can be changed. You do not unplug 2 500 km of fibre optic cable, and you do not refill a gas pipeline.

And geography does not negotiate. Algeria is the largest country in Africa. It touches the Mediterranean to the north and the Sahel to the south. No leader, in any country, can decide that this is no longer true. That is exactly what the phrase “irreducible forces” means: facts that depend on no decision.

The rest of Africa is rising. The African Development Bank has mobilised more than 26 billion dollars in cooperation with its African partners and has cancelled the debt of 18 countries on the continent. When a continent of 1,4 billion inhabitants sets itself in motion, it does not go back down.

The question, then, is not whether the century will be African. The question is: who will have prepared the roads?

Algeria has laid the fibre, the asphalt, the rail and the pipe.

It answered the question before it was asked.

Sources: Excerpt from a speech broadcast on 22/09/2026 by the YouTube channel DzaircomTrip (short hAWRzrKAOfY), transcript by us · International Monetary Fund, latest report on Algeria, via Radio Algérienne — The IMF welcomes Algeria's growth and its diversification efforts · African Development Bank, Abdoulkader Dileita, head of the country office in Algeria, interview with APS on the sidelines of the Bank's annual meetings in Brazzaville, via Radio Algérienne — Algeria: The Hub of African Integration · Horizons, August 2026 — Algeria-Nigeria: the trans-Saharan projects at the heart of the partnership · El Moudjahid — Great Algerian-Nigerian Joint Commission for Cooperation · APS — The Algiers–Tamanrasset railway line · Le Courrier d'Algérie, September 2026 — university start of term · infrastructure data taken from our own articles, already published and verified.