In eyes of the modern world, a scrutiny into the scope of Africa’s economy would make one to term Africa as a ‘Third world continent’…infamously, it is best argued that “Africa is poor because it is poor” …what do you think are some of the missing aspects that rob us the privilege of making economic breakthroughs?
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Africa is still poor due to: corruption, conflict which affect our development, climate change, unemployment etc. All these factors promote to underdevelopment of the counties in Africa
mismanagement of land: Despite large amounts of arable land south of the Sahara Desert, small, individual land holdings are rare. In many nations, the land is subject to tribal ownership. Many nations lack a system of freehold landowning. In others, the laws prevent people from disadvantaged groups from owning land at all. Although often these laws are ignored, and land sales to disadvantaged groups occur, legal title to the land is not assured. As such, rural Africans rarely have clear title to their own land and have to survive as farm laborers. Unused land is plentiful but is often private property. Most African nations have very poor land registration systems, making squatting and land-theft common occurrences. This makes it difficult to get a mortgage or similar loan, as ownership of the property often cannot be established to the satisfaction of financiers
misused money: Over $500 billion (U.S.) has been sent to African nations in the form of direct aid. The consensus is that the money has had little long-term effect.
In addition, most African nations have owed substantial sums of money. However, a large percentage of the money was either invested in weapons (money that was spent back in developed nations, and provided little or no benefit to the native population) or was directly misappropriated by corrupt governments. As such, many newly democratic nations in Africa are saddled with debt run up by totalitarian regimes
The widespread availability of cheap labor has often perpetuated policies that encourage inefficient agricultural and industrial practices.
Africa is blessed with a lot of natural resources, the only problem we have is poor governance.
The widespread availability of cheap labor has often perpetuated policies that encourage inefficient agricultural and industrial practices, leaving Africa further impoverished
Education is also a major problem, even in the wealthier nations. Illiteracy rates are high although a good proportion of Africans speak at least two languages and a number speak three (generally their native language, a neighbouring or trade language, and a European language). Higher education is almost unheard of, although certain universities in Egypt and South Africa have excellent reputations. However, some African nations have a paucity of persons with university degrees, and advanced degrees are rare in most areas. As such, the continent, for the most part, lacks scientists, engineers, and even teachers. The seeming parody of aid workers attempting to teach trilingual people English is not entirely untrue.
disease ,The greatest mortality in Africa arises from preventable water-borne diseases, which affect infants and young children greater than any other group. The principal cause of these diseases is the regional water crisis, or lack of safe drinking water primarily stemming from mixing sewage and drinking water supplies
Clean potable water is rare in most of Africa (even those parts outside the sub-Saharan region) despite the fact that the continent is crossed by several major rivers and contains some of the largest freshwater lakes in the world. However, many of the major population centres are coastal, and few major cities have adequate sewage treatment systems. Although boiling water is a possibility, fuel for boiling is scarce as well. The problem is worst in Africa’s rapidly growing cities, such as Cairo, Lagos and Kinshasa.
conflict Despite other hot spots for war, Africa consistently remains among the top places for ongoing conflicts, consisting of both long-standing civil wars (e.g. Somalia, Democratic Republic of the Congo), ethnic conflicts that even resulted in genocides (e.g. the Rwandan genocide) and conflicts between countries.
The long-standing civil wars are in part due to the border-drawing of the late 19th century’s Scramble for Africa, which did not take into account the various ethnic groups due to lack of local knowledge and research.[24] Post decolonization, the European-set borders were accepted by various leaders; however, there remains internal and cross-border struggles, and separatist concerns by popular demand to the governments as they transition to democracy, leading to fears of further destabilization
climate change: The link between climate change and poverty has been examined. Climate change is likely to increase the size, frequency, and unpredictability of natural hazards. However, there is nothing natural about the transformation of natural hazards into disasters. The severity of a disaster’s impact is dependent on existing levels of vulnerability, the extent of exposure to disaster event and the nature of the hazard. A community’s risk to disaster is dynamic and will change over time. It is heavily influenced by the interplay between economic, socio-cultural and demographic factors, as well as skewed development, such as rapid and unplanned urbanization.
The level of poverty is a key determinant of disaster risk. Poverty increases propensity and severity of disasters and reduces peoples’ capacity to recover and reconstruct.[29] However, vulnerability is not just shaped to poverty, but linked to wider social, political and institutional factors, that govern entitlements and capabilities.
Corruption is suppressing the ability of the continent to grow. The vast resources available find themselves in the hands of the Neo-colonialists who only take advantage of our corrupt leaders.