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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because corruption is endemic. incidentally, this is not limited to africa, but is common in third world countries around the world. once a government gets into power, they sell the rights to those resources (and government contracts, and pretty much anything with money value) for pennies, but get huge bribes for themselves. the entire culture of government is different in africa. people in the west talk about corruption, but they really have no idea how bad it can get and how little the people of the country can do about it. nobody else wants to, because they are all benefiting from it, so it is hard to clean up.
Africa was looted by the colonial powers for 400 years, both natural resources and people in the Transatlantic slave trade. After liberation from colonialism in the 1960s-70s things started looking up, but the first world invented new ways of looting the continent, called neocolonialism.
One example was a deal between an African state and France that said that both countries had equal access to each others fishing waters. Of course no African fishing boat could make the journey to France while France vacuumed the fishing waters with their modern fishing trawlers.
Another way is that when governments emerge that do not obey first world diktats, suddenly the human rights record is a major problem and there is a coup or regime change war.
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Colonialism basically ended 50 – 60 years ago in most cases. Whilst some colonialism (looking at you, Belgium) was regressive and cruel, in most other cases in Africa it was quite benevolent and in many cases actually improved things.
The problem Africa has is that basically, since the Africans began to manage their countries for themselves 50 years or so ago, corruption and mismanagement has been the order of the day.
Don’t believe me ? Compare with Asia, where the same colonialism happened but most countries there are now thriving economies.
As simply put as possible with an answer relevant to the recent past (last hundred years): Warfare. Nearly the entirey of the continent of Africa in the last 100 years has either been in a state of pre-war, post-war, war, or civilwar.
The results of all these wars is a on-again, off-again pulses of human migration from/to the conflicting regions to the non-conflicting regions (which tend to then usually destablize and become conflict zones in return).
As such, modern africa very heavily resembles from a socio-political structure the european feudal period with warlords effectively holding control of sub-regions of nations where they’re “protecting” the people…and while the lucky select few profit and establish personal wealth and security, those under them do not.
The history of human civilization is the history of agriculture. Population centers only develop if there is the food supply to maintain it. And without permanent population centers, it is very hard to develop trade and technology.
Unfortunately Africa isn’t blessed with very fertile land in most parts of the continent. Other than the Nile river delta and parts along the northern coast bordering the Mediterranean sea, much of Africa has relatively poor soil quality and not very great irrigation (like regular floods that can bring nutrients back into soils).
This forces much of Africa into more or less subsistence farming or livestock breeding (fairly nomadic). This is still the case for much of Africa today although the advent and distribution of modern fertilizers and improved medicines have greatly increased Africa’s population, they started down this path only towards the beginning of the 20th century.
Subsistence farming coupled with limited ability to support population centers also fostered deep tribal boundaries and lots of conflict over resources.
Guns, Germs, and Steel provides several answers to this question. Some of the biggest reasons I can think of off the top of my head:
-The head start that Europe and the US had with regard to industrialization.
-Losing the race to industrialize led the continent to fall victim to more industrialized European countries, who quickly plundered much of the continent’s natural resources.
-Europe took as much as they could from Africa through colonization.
-Countries were created with completely random boundary lines and no thought to the various tribal and ethnic groups that lived within these lines. This would lead to challenges at forming a cohesive national identity for some countries, and all out genocide in other countries.
-Countries continue to take advantage of Africa through the use of improper loans and grants. For example, China has become proficient at distributing loans to African countries that they know the countries will eventually default on.
-The brain drain- most of the young Africans that I have met will do whatever they can to get to Europe. The ones who are in the best position to do so have the brightest futures. As a result, the most intellectually gifted Africans never return to the continent once they gain acceptance into an American or European university.
How rich a country is, is often defined from a living-standard index of some sort. It depends on very basic needs such as a roof and walls but soon deviates into questions like if you and everyone else have both a washing machine and a dishwasher in your home.
People who “need” both a dishwasher, a washing machine, cold AND hot tap water, heating system in the winter and AC in the summer, one TV on each floor and fibre internet tend to forget that the amount of money a western family with two kids spends on smartphones and cellular service in a regular year corresponds well to a good enough yearly salary in some poorer countries.
It also naturally means that the industrialisation and mining endeavours that happens there, is often backed by foreign money. Money that, to be blunt, comes there because the salaries are low.
In that symbiosis, no-one – and this includes the countrys leadership, for reasons – is really that keen on increasing living standards to the point where the salaries match the salaries in other countries, because it would potentially make the whole mining business move elsewhere.
The realisation that helping your population to get better salaries COULD be a way to make them unemployed…probably stops a lot of natural salary increase curves from happening.
Healthcare and road standards are all things that are typically financed by taxes. Taxes that…may not be that ethical to extract if people can barely survive on their salaries in the first place. And even if you do have a functional tax extraction system AND willingness to pay taxes…you may not get the money you need to bridge long distances of little interest with roads that makes it easy and neat to travel between two cities, just to encourage that travel.
Good roads is a luxury item. You can do without it if you have to. Healthcare is a luxury item, you can get by without it if you don’t have a choice (well, until you cannot) and so on.
We take schools for granted. Analfabetism is definitely a thing on that continent, which ALSO contributes to the lower standards, but from the other direction: people who cannot read and write are often not that well aware of their rights or their possibilities.
Besides that, colonisation, pillaging, slave trade and all that that “we” put that contingent through, have given them setbacks.
The huge palette of languages is one barrier that makes it difficult to co-operate even if you want to.
That the continent has quite a few really old feuds (read: wars) going on that seem to survive on very good oral tradition memories is also problematic.
It also doesn’t help that some regions have lack of something we completely take for granted; water. This very simple, fundamental thing is a necessity for crops, for holding cattle and for quite a lot of cooking. The problematic water shortage also gives the problem that the water that IS available, is often of polluted quality that contributes to health issues, instead of helping with them.
One reason is called the “resource curse”.
You would think have abundant natural resources (diamonds, minerals, oil, rare earth metals, etc.) to export and sell for money would lead to a strong economy and a better standard of living. In practice, the opposite often happens.
If you have resources but start out with a relatively weak economy and poor government institutions, you essentially become a magnet for stronger countries to plunder your resources. Wealthy countries (“the West”) use their overwhelming advantage in capital and technology (technology and experience needed to extract resources, money to corrupt local political institutions, access and control of markets to sell resources, etc.) to gain favorable / one-sided deals with poorer countries.
Wealthy countries only need to capture, compromise and control the wealthy elites in poor countries (who, in turn, exercise control over their populations). This can be done at a fraction of the value of the resources extracted. Outside money pours into the private (off-shore) bank accounts of the moneyed elites in poor countries, further corrupting political processes and institutions. Very little of that money makes its way down to ordinary citizens of poor countries.
So what money does come into the poorer country turns around and is largely invested in the wealthier countries banking system / economy, and very of the money generated by the poorer countries resources stays in the poorer country.
Africa has the fewest good ports of any great land mass. Most trade has to be transferred to smaller boats to bring in which is costly.
They also have very few navigable rivers making transportation within the continent difficult. Most rivers are either full of rapids or only usable in certain seasons.
The continent also has diseases and pests which are anathema to most commonly domesticated animals.
Edited for horrendous fat fingered phone typing
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