Why is Africa poor? (essay for school)

[Communist-USSR]

I am doing a essay for school about Africa and poverty. The questions I ask myself are (translated from Dutch):
Sub-question: What is the cause of poverty in Africa?
Sub-question: What could the EU (European Union) do to solve poverty (in Africa)?
Sub-question: What are the regional differences in poverty in Africa?
Sub-question: Is the poverty in Africa becoming less?
Main question: Is it possible to solve poverty in Africa?

It's isn't ok to just tell capitalism is evil and socialism/communism is the solution. lol

I need to write around 1 paper a question, I have already written about colonialism, Sankara, Amilcar Cabral, Lumumba and the killing of them by Western powers. I have also written about the drought in Africa, bad governments, copper mines in Zambia (as example), import duty for African countries and agricultural subsidies in the EU, food speculation and more.

Do you have some more information, opinions or papers on these subjects?

[cyu]

War is one of chief causes of poverty - economic resources get redirected to producing irrelevant things, people doing "traditional" work are displaced (often becoming refugees if not killed), disruption of "normal" economic activites, and often destruction of various means of production.

Not that war is the only cause of poverty. Imperialism / neocolonialism also cause poverty - when a "master nation" exploits the "slave nation" for their labor and natural resources - just as "traditional" slaves weren't exactly rich in "traditional" slavery.

Some imperial powers intentionally create political instability in their slave nations. This low level warfare keeps the locals from gaining enough power to assert themselves and throwing off the chains of colonialism.

Those who currently control the EU are among the emperors of the world economic order - ending neocolonialism is not one of their goals. But Europeans themselves can help end poverty by helping to overthrow their emperors in much the same way abolitionists worked to overthrow slavery in America.

[IBleedRed]

Sub-question: What is the cause of poverty in Africa?

A more nuanced answer than "capitalism has impoverished Africa" is that capitalism, in its historical development, has impeded the development of Africa via colonialism. It's not like Africa was a utopia and then capitalism came along and destroyed it; Africa was, like most places in the world, a continent where the civilizations were those of habit and tradition. The arrival of Westerners after the Age of Discovery (~1500 onwards) exposed Africans to less-than-benevolent foreign projects.

Initially, some Africans cooperated with the European visitors, who were explorers on missions sanctioned by European royalty and merchants. A good example would be the Kingdom of Kongo, which sold slaves to the Portuguese in bulk in the 16th century.

Over time, Europeans exercised more and more power over African kingdoms and clans. Until industrialization, however, there wasn't a huge commercial drive to colonize Africa since only rare, luxury goods and slaves were exported out of Africa in any relevant quantity.

Industrialization changed everything because it demanded 1) export-based economies from which European countries (e.g. Great Britain) could extract raw materials; and 2) markets where European companies could offload their manufactured goods.

Great Britain was the first country to industrialize, and it benefited immensely, but by the mid-19th century, other European powers were challenging British hegemony. Whoever controlled access to raw materials and markets, then, was most competitive, so that sparked the "Scramble for Africa" during which Europeans seized control of the continent, carved it among themselves, and gave no mind to tribal concerns when drawing borders. The Berlin Conference would be a good thing to examine if you want to learn more about colonialism in Africa.

Even when many African countries demanded independence in the 20th century, many European powers made sure to stir shit up and keep the indigenous people fighting each other so that no unified government could threaten any companies with nationalization. Since then, the condition has been one of disunity, disharmony, and massive underdevelopment while natural resources and wealth remain in private hands.


Sub-question: What could the EU (European Union) do to solve poverty (in Africa)?

Nothing. The EU is complicit in the exploitation of Africa.


Sub-question: What are the regional differences in poverty in Africa?

Two areas stand out: North Africa and South Africa

North Africa, though subject to colonization, was considered by the Europeans to be more highly developed because it had been the seat of respected civilizations in Antiquity. Generally, North Africa enjoyed some level of economic development and tourism (e.g. Algeria)

South Africa had a small elite of white European settlers who, by virtue of their connections, were able to set up successful institutions and companies that enabled them to enjoy a higher standard of living than their black counterparts, or those of other countries.


Sub-question: Is the poverty in Africa becoming less?

Poverty is generally reduced due to technological innovations, but without any sort of nationalization or collectivization of natural resources or private wealth (much of which is in the hands of corrupt officials), no serious development will occur.


Main question: Is it possible to solve poverty in Africa?

It's plenty possible, but not under capitalism.

[Alexios]

There's a number of reasons. Jared Diamond argued that the reason why Africa - meaning Central & Southern - has always been "behind" other parts of the world is because of the lack of natural resources integral to the development of agriculturally-based class societies. There are probably tons of people way more knowledgeable than me who disagree with this but I guess it's worth mentioning regardless. More immediate reasons obviously include the centuries of exploitation by European countries of the continent, which have stunted the growth of stable societies. It should also be noted that plenty of South & Central African countries are economically and socially stable with growing economies; not all are plagued by civil war and extreme poverty.

[GiantMonkeyMan]

During the Round Table conference, Belgium dictated that the newly independent Congolese state would receive a debt worth $310 million. Simply servicing this debt, not even considering paying it off, would take 25% of the Congolese budget. Any politician or organisation who tried to enact policies to alleviate the burden on the Congo and its people were either bumped off or declared rebels and international interests propped up a regime more interested in lining their own pockets than changing the criminal state of affairs that allowed European business interests to dominate the politics of a African nation. And the same happened across the continent.

As Frantz Fanon said, "Colonialism and imperialism have not paid their score when they withdraw their flags and their police forces from our territories. For centuries the capitalists have behaved in the under-developed world like nothing more than war criminals." And they continue to do so, intervening in regions for 'humanitarian' reasons to secure their interests whilst conveniently ignoring the fact that the majority of instability was caused due to their past interference.

[Captain Red]

The thing EU spends most money on is something called agricultural subsidies, they basically pour billions of dollars into agriculture within EU borders and than raise the tariffs for the trade with Africa witch basically makes it impossible for Africa's economy to grow because their goods become allot more expensive this is what hurts Africa's economy the most

[Dodo]

I am doing a essay for school about Africa and poverty. The questions I ask myself are (translated from Dutch):
Sub-question: What is the cause of poverty in Africa?

There a lot of reasons an as historicist Marxists we view them in connection to each other. First of all, not much is known about African history due to its oral traditions being more dominant. Most of what we know comes from the colonial period and some urban centres where local universities are revealing new stuff.

One of the interesting key aspect you can work on however is what academics call the "Nieboer conditions". Sub-Saharan Africa, land and resources-wise is a very rich place. The problem however, for a veeeery long time(before colonialism) had been the workforce-available land problem. There was so much land and so little workforce that organisation of labor when "classed socities" were born was almost only in the form of destructive slavery. Waged-labor was by its mechanics simply unsustainable under these conditions. Therefore slavery took very strong roots in Africa causing constant instability and prevented forming of proper institutionalized states(with exceptions of course). There are however cases of European-styled feudal kingdoms too but due to various reasons(geography, social structures, wars,technology) their "reach" on populations were weak. Very weak, this still remains a problem in Africa today as states are viewed as mere "gatekeepers" with very little influence on coutnry-side.

Atlantic and Arab slave trade also significantly entrenched Africa in slavery and its destructive effects.

-
Things are different after the colonial period as Europeans tried to establish more "modern" capitalist mode of production, ban slavery and introduce waged-labor. In reality, Africa saw significant improvement with its changing insitutions. The main problem with colonial period came with the independence. Mother-countries structured the whole economies of their colonies in an extractive way. Its institutions, infrastructure and labor was focused on production of primary goods, even at the cost of destruction of local industries(and even suppression of rise of local bourgouise by monopolization that comes with political influence of west-corruption).
Thus, independent African states, lacking legitimacy and reach on their populaton(gatekeeper) could not properly
1-finance their governments
2-Relied on primary agricultural products, un-diverse economies which reliad waaay to much on world markets. Therefore, when prices of certain goods(e.g cocoa) changed drastically especially with the crises of 1970s, a lot of African countries fell into literally shit.
When people looked at the world in 1950s, Asia was the poorest region, Africa and S.America looked almost semi-periphery. By 1980s, things turned completely opposite.
Add this the administirative instiutions inherited from colonial period and you get lots of "tribalism" which is a later formed concept by Europeans because of (especially English) indirect-rule where colonial adms appointed local powerful chiefs to not be have to deal with local populace(see: illegitimate, ineffective unreaching state).
Not to mention this later leading to lots of clientalism, corruption and all sorts of dirty business which really worked well-with Europeans. They removed their flags from these countries but their economies were still EXTREMELY reliant on them. They had extreme political influence and power, banks were all over the place working with corrupt officials. Transnation-Corporations were still monopolizing many of the resources of African countries.


Sub-question: What could the EU (European Union) do to solve poverty (in Africa)?Not much as EU economies are reliant on the way the world economy works as it is. Though internationally, a temporary solution would be dealing with "balance of trade" and sorting unfavourable trade conditions for Africans. Economy is not only economy, it is also defined by political power which the Africans do not have. Quotas, IMF/WB, debt-traps, subsidized EU products...etc
In addition to that, corporate corruption can be digged very strongly though we all know who has power over "politicians". Yes, the same corrupt corporations.



Sub-question: What are the regional differences in poverty in Africa?Geography and "who colonized where" has had a significant impact on this. W.Africa for instance has produced some wealthy countries. Nowadays, South is doing well(Botswana as a rising star). Central locations are more screwed(Congo, C.Africa Republic, Sudan, Niger...etc)
English and French produced different institutional frameworks and social-cultural norms.


Sub-question: Is the poverty in Africa becoming less?You have to think of it in relations to the world. Though the weird thing is, in 1980s Africa literally went way behind its situation in 1960s as all the initial "development mentality" and its product of infrastructure-welfare became un-funded. Health and education got destroyed as states became less and less able to finance them in crisis. Inflations skyrocketted due to extreme nationalizations too.


Main question: Is it possible to solve poverty in Africa?Everybody has an opinion on this.


ps: didnt re-read what I wrote, sorry for mistakes

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Aye, I'd just like to emphasize specifically, as other posters have to a certain degree implied, that "Why is Africa poor?" is something of a nonsense question. For one, what's actually at play is massive disparities of wealth, rather than, as if often implied by discourses of this sort, blanket poverty. One could equally say, looking at indigenous communities in Canada and the United States, "Why is North America so poor?" Of course, this doesn't happen, because it's not ideologically convenient.
Secondly, while certain broadbrush statements can be made about colonialism and neocolonialism in "Africa", none really hold up when we get down to dealing with specificities. Ethopia is not Algeria is not the Congo.

What is more interesting in my mind, in some ways, is "Why is 'Why is Africa poor?' the question?" I think there's something to be said about the interests at play in "helping" "Africa" "overcome" "poverty". From IMF/World Bank mandated structural adjustment programmes to the profiteering of humanitarian NGOs, to AFRICOM, capital has a great deal to gain from "poor Africa" as such. The question "What can the European Union do?" points to something similarly sinister, I think.

[Dodo]

OP could also refer to "world system theory" of Immanuel Wallerstein or various schools of "dependency theory". African economy is not "independent" from the rest of the world nor can be understood seperately. You could say it is a dialectical relation which gives many African countries a specific role in the world economy which requires them to be the way they are.

[Comrade #138672]

In your essay I would suggest that you also destroy the argument that the free market could "save" Africa from poverty.