Africa has a lot of natural resources but has always relied on foreign aid. Nonetheless has famine, poor road network, poor Healthcare etc. Please explain.
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I’m a bit amazed this hasn’t been said yet.
Africa historically lagged far behind Europe due to **isolation**, extensive geographic barriers long limited contract among African groups and between them and the larger world.
The end of this isolation by the western powers was only a few hundred years ago, and while technological change can be rapid, cultural change is typically much slower, especially if there is strong resistance to it.
Of course, the colonization period, while it brought massive advancements to Africa, had the issues which are usually associated with conquest.
Somewhat ironically, after the end of western control, the old tribal rivalries quickly sprung back up, producing civil wars in many new countries. Corruption has also plagued them, as attempts to copy western institutions without the cultural underpinnings that make them viable predictably backfire.
TLDR: Africa is poor because it has always been poor, especially when one is comparing it to places that had a 2000 year head start on civilization.
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