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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The short answer: geography.
The longer answer: Africa is one of world’s largest landmasses that lacks navigable waterways, with a few key exceptions. It’s not a coincidence that Egypt is one of the few places in Africa where advanced civilization developed- the Egyptians had the Nile, and they had access to the Mediterranean. Of the remaining African rivers that do exist, they are often not easily navigable or they lack year round access. For example, the Congo has several waterfalls and it floods every year to such a point that it creates temporary lakes that are miles in diameter.
If you cannot transport goods by water, you are limited to the far more expensive method of land transport. Land transportation is only suitable for high value goods, such as gold and slaves- which were a major commodity in the trade of various West African kingdoms.
If you have year round water transportation, you can trade your excess crops in a timely manner (before they go bad), you can import goods that you don’t produce yourself (such as steel or spices), and you can build sophisticated trade networks.
Africa is also lacking in valleys, mountain ranges, and other geographic features that are beneficial for development. When clouds carry rain encounter a mountain range, wind currents will usually cause them to be compressed to a point a where they will turn into rain – and a much less dense form of cloud will ascend to a new altitude above the mountains while the mountain range experiences rain.
Mountains also act as a storage by retaining rain water as ice and snow, and the melting of the ice and snow during the summer months is what helps to avoid droughts and keep a river navigable during the hot parts of the year.
When rivers pass through a valley, that valley acts as a natural barrier against flooding and keeps the flow of the river predictable over time. A river that is going over flat land can alter course over time, which is especially disruptive for any sort of trade network or agrarian economy.
Mountains and rivers are also natural defensive lines, allowing a civilization to protect itself from invaders.
The closest geographical analog to Africa is the Asiatic part of Russia.
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