Priorities and indicators of sustainable development in low- and middle-income countries: the case of Africa

Traditional economic development narratives in African countries, primarily centred on GDP growth, frequently overlook deep-seated structural constraints and biophysical limits. Monetary indicators fail to differentiate between qualitative technological advancement and extensive, resource-dependent expansion. This study redefines strategic development priorities for major low- and middle-income African economies by shifting the analytical lens from monetary output to the dynamics of useful power. Grounded in a natural-scientific approach, this research utilises an original socio-economic systems power-change analysis, transitioning from volatile monetary metrics to physically invariant indicators measured in Watts. Conceptualising national economies as open thermodynamic systems, we analyse the developmental trajectories of South Africa, Egypt, Nigeria, Ethiopia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo from 1990 to 2022. The analytical framework employs a ‘dual-loop’ approach, integrating useful power per capita, structural complexity STINA, Quality of Life in Energy units QoLE, and the newly developed Useful Power Carbon Intensity UPCI. Empirical analysis reveals a profound ‘monetary-structural divergence’. While GDP showed resilience, useful power in South Africa has stagnated since 2008, signalling premature deindustrialisation. Nigeria and Ethiopia exhibit ‘superficial tertiarisation’, where service-sector growth lacks an industrial core, thereby diminishing systemic efficiency. Conversely, Egypt demonstrates synchronous growth in both monetary and physical power. The UPCI metric exposes ‘carbon-intensive stagnation’ in South Africa and identifies a ‘pre-industrial trap’ in the DR Congo and Ethiopia. We conclude that sustainable development in African countries requires a strategic shift from maximising nominal GDP to accelerating per capita useful power growth through technological leapfrogging and increased structural complexity.