I understand the fact that the slave trade and colonisation highly affected the continent, but fact is African countries weren’t the only ones affected by that so it still puzzles me as to why African nations have failed to spring up like the Super power nations we have today
In: Economics
Currently, there are only 5 entitles potentially considered superpowers. The United States is the only superpower that isnt really contested. Russia, China, and India can make good claims for being superpowers, and the ENTIRITY of the EU working together can also be considered a superpower.
Its amazingly rare for a nation to become a superpower. Even highly developed nations like Japan are not generally considered superpowers (even to the Japanese).
If you look at all of the superpowers, they have a few things in common. Large areas of land, little internal conflict, a stable government (or a set of stable governments that get along), a large population, and generally, a cohesive culture.
If you look at Africa, it is a bunch of unpopulated medium sized countries that often cant agree with each other where the borders are. (Much of this can be blamed on the French and British). The entirety of Africa MIGHT be able to be a superpower if it could be unified, but there is a vast array of conflicting cultures that prevent that, and if anyone tried to unite Africa via force, they would likely meet with resistance from the existing superpowers. Not because the superpowers want to exclude Africa from joining, but because expansionistic warlord dictators have NEVER been a good thing for the world.
because they’ve literally been controlled by the superpowers the whole time.
France and England drew up the borders for many of those countries not respecting religious or cultural ties, causing many wars while they and later others like the US extracted the resources.
Historically there have been situations where countries tried to gain back control over their oil or the like and thus democratically elected leaders were killed/sabotaged by said superpowers.
With this precarious situation the seeds for widespreed corruption are also sown making it often difficult to achieve any progress.
and usually “developmental aid” and the like is Western powers (or China) paying “their” companies to build stuff with “their” employees so very little of that actually profits African people and it’s more of a subsidy for the western companies. (especially regarding food+clothing the “help” from Europe+US often destroys any chance for local economies to form)
this is honestly too wide of a question to really an answer to.
Because Africa is still colonized by Europe. That’s simply the reason. Mainly by France which is controlling more than half of Africa stealing everything there.
Basically the same reason why it’s harder for a poor person to get rich, than it is for a rich person to get richer: You need starting capital and/or other foundations. And in this case not even on the scale of one company, but entire nations.
You need expensive machines. You need infrastructure to distribute your product and to supply and power your factory. You need suppliers to begin with. You need customers. You need skilled workers.
And you need to be able to compete on the world stage unless you can make this section of the market conpletely independent from the rest of the world. Some African countries have banned the import of clothing for this reason, because they are trying to get their own clothes industry going.
But how would you do that with something more sophisticated, like an automotive industry?
These countries have no hope of developing anywhere near the level of already rich nations without some serious investments from the outside.
This doesn’t touch on the rampant corruption in these countries, but one could argue that the corruption is a result of the sheer hopelessness of their situation. So some people decide to only raise their only standard of living instead of investing in the impossible task of improving the situation of their whole country.
Aids, warlords, government corruption, mosquitos, getting a late start on industrialization. People blame the West but I don’t think that’s always true. South Africa fucked themselves after apartheid ended, partially by not investing in utilities infrastructure. Liberia was actually founded by former US slaves who kind of became the new masters and then their government did a few loopdy loops with some coups. Actually coups and chaotic governments abound in Africa cuz someone can sell out their people for a bunch of money. I guess you can blame the West and China for being the source of the money.
But we all started at nothing. So why did those ‘superpowers’ develop into superpowers, while africa did not? ( long before they met or interfered with eachother ). It’s not like their land was not bountyfull..
The environment is not exactly made for humans. There are more things in Africa that can kill you than the rest of the world combined. In Africa, only the strongest survive. Survival was always the priority, development a distant second.
Furthermore, other nations could develop quickly because of the ability to travel. This is very hard in Africa because there are virtually no rivers that allow for easy travel. This made it almost impossible to exchange information. So every community had to invent basic things (like the wheel) themselves.
Two children, Jack and Amy, are given a school business project to make $100.
Jack already has $50. He buys a $50 lemonade stand. He sells the lemonade at $2 a glass. After selling twenty-five cups, he’s made back the $50 he spent originally. After selling fifty more, he’s completed his assignment. It wasn’t really that difficult.
Jack is representative of a rich country.
Amy has no money. What can she do? She can’t start a lemonade stand. She doesn’t have the money to buy materials. She could borrow some money, but no bank wants to lend someone who initially has no money. Like, if you want a mortgage, you need a down-payment. Amy can’t do that. She has no assets to sell or use as collateral because some robbers came and stole everything she once owned. Also, since Amy’s brother is also poor and hungry, the little money she does somehow make, he steals because he needs it. Even after he’s bought his food, he keeps stealing from Amy. After all, poor, little, scared Amy can’t fight back.
The banks who won’t give loans are investors who fear instability and poor returns. The robbers were the European empires. And the brother is a corrupt despot dictator, the African elite.
Amy is the African masses.
Lots of social/political answers here, not saying they are wrong, but there are other factors:
1. Africa is WAY bigger than you think it is. The standard map projection makes it look smaller than it really is.
2. Africa as a continent is very hard to navigate to form trade routes. There’s little in the way of navigable rivers, and lots of obstacles like mountains, waterfalls, and deserts in the way.
Those two factors have played (and continue to play) a role is delaying and impeding the development of Africa. If you’re genuinely interested, I highly recommend [this book](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoners_of_Geography). It’s a gentle and concise introduction to geopolitics, and explains a lot of what’s going on in Ukraine and Taiwan today.
Aside what others said, most of the environment in Africa is quite hostile.
Let’s say you want to build a railroad, you have to cut trough a jungle which is already hard and even when you are done building it, the humid and hot weather all year around means plants will grow very fast, greatly raising the maintenance needs.
Want to trade by ship? Well lot of Africa is landlocked and lot of its coasts are high and rocky, making docking hard.
The hostile environment makes it harder for large amounts of people to gather and cooperate. In other nations you could have a city that specializes in making iron tools, another that makes pots and another that grows lot of food, with all three cooperating and exchanging goods so that in the end they all have access to everything, but since the environment is so hostile, this cooperation is impossible so all three cities are stuck doing all three things in unspecialized, less efficent ways.
Then an external power comes in, takes the raw resources, brings them home and gives you the refined resources and high level craft, you end up developing and growing, but you are dependant on the colonizator. Once he is gone, you are back to your lower level of tech.
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