Africa falling behind definitively only happened in the Renaissance,Asia too IMO. From what i can tell prior empires like Aksum and Nok and Kush. dawned the antiquity age and the Medieval era was Shown to have great Zimbabwe,Ghana,Mali,and the christian Nubian and Ethopian kingdoms held on. From what i can tell the kingdoms i named were not far behind Europe,their were knights atop horses from the middle East in Africa the Nubian archers even in the medieval age were some of the best in the world at the time. The Nok developed iron on their own not to far from the years of the European iron age and Nubia a while after. Though it can be argued that lack of guns caused the lag,but in many areas even this isnt true. Nations like Benin and Asante empire's armies were entirely armed with firearms,though by the time of the scramble for Africa many were outdated,the importation only stopped around 1830 so they were decent.(on a local level Benin learned to produce firearms,and tried and failed to produce firearms at a national level but locally they continued to be produced.) Finally sources albeit somewhat contested show standards of living in Africa and Europe were around the same until 1700 when Africa began to level off and slightly went down while Europe greatly went up. The same happened to Asia in 1800.
That was longer then i meant for it to be but essentially with a POD that is post 500 AD find a way for Africa not to greatly lag behind Europe.
That was longer then i meant for it to be but essentially with a POD that is post 500 AD find a way for Africa not to greatly lag behind Europe.