As things stand in 2020, the three most populous countries in the world are respectively, China, India, and the United States of America. In addition, from a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) standpoint, the biggest economy in the world as of 2020, is the United States, followed by China, and currently in 5th place resides India; of which, it is predicted that by 2025, that India will thereby become the 3rd largest economy in the world. So then, quite clearly population matters, and those countries, or continents for that matter, with the greatest population, are also those that are the biggest economies in the world, of which, those of economic might correspondingly have significant power of all stripes. As reported by visualcapitalist.com, Asia has the largest combined population in the world, at 60%, mainly because it consists of both China as well as India. Yet, projections as reported by visualcapitalist.com for 2100, indicate that Asia's percentage of the worldwide population, though having a modest increase in sheer numbers, will then be only 43.6% of worldwide population, whereas Africa would rise to becoming a very strong #2 in the world, with a worldwide population percentage of 39.1%. As it stands in 2020, four of the sixteen largest populations in the world are on the continent of Africa.
The bottom line, is that while it certainly can be said that the prism of the world was fundamentally written and envisioned from a combined European/North American mindset in the 20th century, the fact of the matter is, by the time that we reach the 21st century, Europe and North America combined are projected to have just 10.2% of the total worldwide population. So that, as mighty and as influential as those nations have been economically and militarily, there will most definitely be a reckoning, for 90% of the world will not permit forever the 10% to continue to dominate and to exploit them, without there being a significant changing of the guard and thereby the making of a new world order.
For centuries, and even still today, Africa has been ruthlessly exploited by outside sources, but having established their independence from those colonial forces, over the previous decades, Africa has begun the process of becoming its own captain of its own fate, and will begin to assert itself more and more in the economic world as well as the political one, as time marches on. For a certainty, population numbers matter, and so does the relevant demographics of a continent, of which, the more productive, and the more educated a continent becomes, the more it will advanced itself upon the world stage, to having a fair place at the seat of the worldwide table of noteworthy decisions and meaningful political matters so being debated and determined.
Africa has waited long enough to have their day; and their corresponding power over the coming years will increase substantially from where it currently resides, of which, a powerful Africa, resource rich, is on course to have the opportunity to have their say, for population numbers are quite relevant, signifying that the sun is now just rising for Africa; whereas, alas, for those of the western world, their sun appears clearly to be inexorably setting.