Africa...why is it the poorest continent?

 

i think the Governments are Corrupted and people are not educated

otherwise Africa is rich with its natural resources.

 

how come Somalia was Starving while it had a very large number of sheeps and camels compared to many countries???

 

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In Hindi it is said, 'Jatha Raja, Thatha Praja'. Which means 'The nature of the king will determine the nature of his subjects'.

Africa is poor because of a lack of leadership. And maybe ethnic/cultural/racial reasons.

Originally posted by Herodotus For a full explanation of all the ecological facotrs that led to the inequities of african and eurasian civ., i reccomend "Guns, GErms, and Steel" By Jared Diamond. Brilliant book; Diamond explains how enviornment determined a civilizations general status more than anything else.

 

I agree with DIamonds opverall theme but its apparent he is negligent of African history, he basically writes off anything outside of EUrasia as doomed, which does not mention that there where many powerful and wealthy kingdoms in the past.  ALso his theories will not apply as much now as natural spreading of agriculture is much easier.  Africa lagging behind significantly is only really something thats been going on for thee last 400 years about, by no means a constant of permanent factor. 

Its also not right to heap all the blame on colonialism but there is one thing that is the fault of Europeans, the nations borders drawn by retreatin gpowers with no regard for language, ethnic, or religious groups, just random lines drawn on a map much like th emodern day Middle East.

Parts of Africa were able to atain food surpluses and develop, so ints not quite accurate to label the entire continent as such.

African Civilization has been backward and underdeveloped through out modern history, originally because of a lack of locally domesticated plants and animals, and then, due to the north south orientation of the continent, a very slow difussion of crops domesticated elsewhere (if the climate allowed such diffusion at all).

Food surplus is the key to any complex civilazation, lacking that, afirca never had a chance to compete with Eurasia. Tribal societies cannot be "rich", in the sense we are discussing.

Eventually, if africa is able to overcome its civil strife, its civilization may "catch up", maybe not.

The best quote I ever heard is to understand African history geography is more important then events.

Th real reason Africa is poor=rivers are hard to navigate, the sahara desert is in the way, alot of disease is there, the tseste fly, coasts with very few harbors or natural inlets...nautre wasnt kind to Africa.

And yet despite all of this there were still rich west african kingdoms, but with the discovery of America there was aless a market for their trade.

But I cannot over-emphasize the effect that the disease originating the Kongo area has, nor the lack of natural harbors.

but since there are hundreds and hundreds of different ethic blacks in africa would that be hard?

Seeing as many countries there already have a hard time acting as if they were genuinly united, i'd have to say its pretty damn premature to assume the whole continent would, so yes, it would be hard.
However, in the short term, an enonomic union of sorts would be a nifty idea.

Originally posted by Styrbiorn Many people seems to blaim the Europeans for the poverty of Africa, but that's quite undeserving. Is India a poor nation today? Is Thailand, or South Africa? It's not that Africa was very developed and rich before the Europeans arrived, tribal wars and genocide was commonplace. Take a look at this, this Ugandan-by-birth has more knowledge on the situation than anyone of us on this forum: Matogo&Africa

But some genocides were triggered by Europeans. In Rwanda and another neighbouring country (forgot the name), the Hutus and Tutsis lived in peace and cooperation before colonization. The French and Brits played the two tribes against each other during their rule, which resulted the recent genocide.

Europeans cannot be blamed for everything, but they can for a lot of things.

South Africa is very poor you know. Plus it has the greatest number of AIDs pacients in the world.

Thailand is quite poor. AIDs is smashing this country as well. Plus there is a huge prostitution industry that should not exist in any tolerably well-to-do nation.

India is indeed a poor nation. It would be ridiculous to deny it... It is maybe democratic in name, but corruption is rampant.

 

Also the fact that Africa is substantially poorer in natural resources than any other continent.

I think Africa works out average in natural resources, its probably second on account of being the second largest continent, but it doesn't lack resources on continental level. But those resources are not very evenly spread out on the continent.

However, this is too simplistic, Japan isn't very wealthy in natural resources, but its one of the richest countries in the world on a per capita basis, so its all down to how the economy is aranged.

I think the fact that a greater percentage of  Africa is emplyed in farming (and many of them are subsistence farmers) plays a huge role too, in a materialist economic asessment (which is how wealth is measured), farmers jsut arn't very productive.
Plus most African countries depend mostly on cash crop exports for wealth generation, which, due to bad planning and unfair loans policies imposed by the IMG etc. is mostly spend on paying off the intrest. Those countries that are exporting minerals are doing just that, exporting raw mineralts, which are bulk goods that are not that valuable per ton, relativly speaking, even diamonds, for cut diamonds glued to rings are much much more valuable wieght for wieght, and those rings for sure won't be made and sold in Africa.
Throw in chronic instability and you have an enviroment that favours the rise of corrupt and/or violent dictators, and that just adds to it all even more.

I think going on about how certain countries were rich 500 years ago is cool and all, but by todays standards those countries wouldn't be very wealthy, whereever they are. Countries need to diversify their economies, develop their home markets to cerate a strong domestic consumer base, and get into exporting valuable goods and ensuring that they recieve as much as the profits from the sale of those goods as possible.
Wealth is about flow, not buckets of gold hidden under your bed.

I think it is really the resources.Africa, which is covered with deserts and doesnt have much but forests except the northern part,couldnt get improved...Only rich countries like Ghana,Mali,Songhai,Aksum and others gained it by trade...And after the European powers came and civil wars emerged,they lost it all