South Africa's G20 presidency last year revived an old and uncomfortable question: If Africa has been "rising" for more than two decades, why has so much of that promise failed to translate into factories, jobs, exports and broad-based prosperity?

The answer, according to economists and investment thinkers, lies not in the absence of opportunity, but in the continent's failure to convert that opportunity into productive capacity.

For Goolam Ballim, chief economist and head of research at Standard Bank Group, the moment is not merely another emerging-market sales pitch. It is a rupture in the global order that may place Africa closer to the centre of the world's next economic map.

"The world is not going through a transition, it's a rupture," Ballim told attendees at a Standard Bank business breakfast at Enlit Africa, arguing that the rules, institutions and assumptions that governed the post-World War 2 order are being replaced by power, coercion and the weaponisation of economic instruments.

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That rupture is forcing governments and companies to rethink the global supply chains that were built for efficiency, rather than resilience. For the past 30 years, globalisation was organised around just-in-time delivery. Now, Ballim said, the world is shifting to "just in case" thinking, where reliability, continuity and commercial trust matter as much as price.

"Commercial trust is resurrecting itself as being an anchor concern for corporates and governments around the world," he said.

In Ballim's words: "I suspect what...