Reasons for so big undevelopment in Africa (discution on this isue...)

[Locutus]

Why do you think countries in Africa are not developing? It seems it was like that in most of history, except Northern (Carthage, Egypt, Ethiopia, current states there aren't also so bad) and Southern (RSA, Zululand) parts of the continent.

Not true, Africa has a rich history with many great empires. Allow me to quote myself from a somewhat similar discussion in the Civ3 forums from about a year ago:

I fail to see how virtually everyone (both on these forums and esp. IRL) always seems to come to the conclusion that Africa had no history before the Europeans came along or never had any great empires (except Egypt) just because they don't know about anything about it. Granted, many of it's empires weren't quite as great as the Romans or Chinese but some weren't *that* far behind on these truly great civs and many others are at least worth mentioning.

One big mistake people make when it comes to African history is to assume that this continent is inhospitable and therefore is unsuitable to allow great civilizations to prosper. Today this may largely be true, but this inhospitality is really only a fairly recent situation: Africa used to be much more fertile in the past, it only gradually grew warmer and less hospitable over the centuries (think about this: if Africa is too inhospitable to support any great civilizations, how can it be that the (today) equally inhabitable Middle East had so many?). The regions around the southern Nile, the Niger and the Zambezi all used to be far more fertile than they are today and provided a very rich food base for the people living there (food is by far the most important ingredient for building a great civilization). In many cases, it was erosion and overusing the land - in other words, the very fact that there were civilizations - which eventually caused desertification and with that the collapse of any civilizations present.

Also, thanks to the Live Aid concerts in the eighties, everyone knows Ethiopia is today mostly a barren land and millions of people there are suffering from starvation (among other things). But think about it: how is it possible that millions of people live there if there's no food? The answer is that the coastal regions of Ethiopia were actually quite fertile just 100 years ago and were even amongst the most fertile in the world in the time of the Romans. It are mainly warfare and poor politics which have destroyed all the good farmland over the last century.

South-West Africa, on the other hand, has always been dominated by jungle rather than rich farmland. But while for Western people jungle means a high humidity, dangerous wildlife and exotic and deadly diseases (did the plague stop Europe from dominating the world?), for Africans it means very diverse and fertile land, filled with large quantities of food, minerals, medicine and other resources (among which not in the last place the very wildlife Western people see as dangerous). Still, even though conditions in Africa aren't/weren't nearly as harsh as many people tend to think, many parts of this continent still lack some important commodities. This doesn't mean however that great civilizations can't arise, it just means trade is the magic word...

There have been plenty of great kindoms and empires in history, all over Africa. Some obvious and less obvious examples: Egypt, Carthage, Arab/Morish empire, Aksum/Ethiopia, Nubia (= Sudan), Ghana, Mali, Songhai, Hausa and Kanem-Bornu (= Chad/Niger/Nigeria), Benin, Yoruba (= Nigeria), Manikongo (= Congo), Swahili (= East Coast), Zimbabwe, etc.

In other words, Africa has a rich history and there was plenty of prosperity in the past (a lot more than today anyway). So terrain, race, size, etc, can't explain the problems that exist today, as they haven't changed over the centuries. But what can explain them, then? As I mentioned in the quote, Africa has been growing increasingly inhospitable over time. Partly due of the changing climate, partly due to exploitation of the land (overusing the land, causing erosion and desertification). That, combined with colonialism (both the system itself and how it was abruptly ended), as others have mentioned, are IMO the primary factors for Africa's problems of today.

[Sandman]

Outstanding post, Locutus.

[Viking Berserk]

well, ive heard of the axums, nubians, ghanese, malis, songhais, zimbabwe people, zulus, etc...
they had empires in history (less advanced in technology than the european ones)
but, this thread is about their situation today, and their situation today is poor(ness???)(whats the english word? )

[Lawrence of Arabia]

THere's not enough trade, and the aid is not being concentrated where it can be used most effectivly.

[Carver]

Locutus, .

The misconceptions people have about Africa are frustratingly pathetic.

Refering to ancient history, Africa didn't keep pace with Europe mostly due to geography and terrain. Most of the exchanges in commerce and ideas occured in Eurasia. All of the isolated areas were left relatively underdeveloped: the Americas, Africa, Australia, Oceania.

The rest of history is just path dependence. Less development allowed colonialism, slavery and the artificial borders of today.

The racial theories are inconsistent and unfounded. If Asians are the smartest, why is Europe more develped? If the people in the Americas came from Asia, why were they relatively underdeveloped?

[Kontiki]

I'd say you first need to define which era you are talking about:

1) Why did Africa lag behind Europe in the pre-colonial era? Read, for example, Guns, Germs and Steel. It gives a good background on this. Simply put, it's almost totally environmental (encompassing climate, terrain, flora, fauna, etc.).

2) Why has Africa failed to develop like parts of Asia since the end of colonialism? Again, a large part rests in the lack of pre-colonial development, but after that you can blame colonialism more than anything else. Almost all of sub-Saharan Africa was "developed" purely for resource extraction and/or strategic reasons (ie: Britain didn't want France to get area X). Little or no attention was paid to putting in real infrastructure or any good form of local governance. All the colonies were carved up by Europeans along arbitrary lines, so that if there were any "natural" states along ethnic lines, those were almost completely ignored. By the end of the colonial period, then, you had a bunch of ad hoc states with no real reason to exist, no infrastructure, very few political institutions of any meaning outside of traditional triabal ones, no real strategic importance vis-a-vis the Cold War (except as client states), etc.

[Maniac]

I second Kontiki! Read Guns, Germs & Steel. Africa's underdevelopment is mostly because of lack of domesticatable animals and plants, and because Africa is a continent running from North to South, unlike Eurasia, which runs from West to East, thus having huge tracks of similar terrain, more easily allowing the spread of plants and animals.

[Kontiki]

The whole thing is additionally sad when you consider how well off some of the sub-Saharan countries COULD be. The Congo that used to be Zaire (I can't remember if it's the DRC or something else) has the potential to be one of the richest countries in the world. It is stacked with natural resources, including some of the largest deposits of copper, gold and diamonds in the world, has decent oil reserves, massive forests, and enough hydroelectric and farming potential to power and feed the entire conitinent on its own.

[axi]

I feel that one of the biggest drawbacks in Africa is that it has a very unfriendly coastline. Most of it has no natural ports and sources of sweet water, so it is unfriendly for shipping. This is why sailing around the continent was such a huge achievement for the Portuguese. With no shipping, there could be virtually no commerce before the railroad age.

The African coast is really funny with it's straightness. Africa has 30.000 km of coasts, while Greece alone has 15.000 km and France has 7.000 km.

[Dinner]

Colonialism had its up side as well as its down side. May countries, such as Uganda, had a higher per capita income and a higher standard of living when they were a colony then today when they are a state.

The real blame for the failure of most African states rests squarely upon the political and economic elites in each African country.

[Worthingtons]

Wernazuma , you are indeed being quite foolish. The Race theory has been given it's +'s and -'s for the people here to consider, and everyone has the right to express thier opinion, so long as, on a sensative issue such as this they give Justification. My guess is that you are one of these hypocritical lefties, who likes to tell people what to think (take Mr Blair for an example of this).

I do not personally think Race is the major factor here, but the theory does have credit. The climite lends for people to concentrate on physical attributes rather than mental ones, hence africans are at home when it comes to doing a hard days work in the field, but feel less so when it comes to the Capitalist activities required to make a country affluent in the 21st centrury.

Basically, If your people are based in an Extreme climate (intense heat being a good example), your spend your life overcoming this, this beds into people over the centuries. In Europe where the Climate was very good, people did not have to work so hard to make basic ends meet, and hence were able to concentrate on other things such as invention.

Cheers
Matt

[Odin]

I wonder, whem all this BS in Africa is over, what will be the most powerful sub-saharan country?

I think:

South Africa: great trade location and lots of diomonds.

or

Zaire/DRC: has resorces up the wazoo.

[Dinner]

Since S.A. is the only sub-saharan country to have any meaningful amounts of industrial capacity it seems well situated to dominate the English speaking part of Africa.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Maniac
I second Kontiki! Read Guns, Germs & Steel. Africa's underdevelopment is mostly because of lack of domesticatable animals and plants, and because Africa is a continent running from North to South, unlike Eurasia, which runs from West to East, thus having huge tracks of similar terrain, more easily allowing the spread of plants and animals.

Those are minor factors at best, considering the fact that great empires existed in the Africa past. Also don't forget the Maya and Aztec civilisations. Central and South America were in much of the same situation as well.

[Urban Ranger]

The main factor is definitely Colonialism. That's the common thread that ties Central and South America, South and Southeast Asia, and Africa. All the former colonies are Third World countries with just a couple of exceptions.