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There are several categories of reasons that help explain why Sub-Saharan Africa remains poor: (1) the physical environment; (2) colonization; (3) inappropriate development strategies; (4) population growth.
Isolated due to physical geography
We have discussed in the lecture on Africa's physical geography that one reason for Africa's late colonization by the Europeans was it's physical isolation due to its deserts, escarpments and waterfalls along much of the coast. As well as the fact that there are few good harbors, Africa's great size, and the existence of diseases.
These physical features also restricted other beneficial contact with the rest of the world. We will read in chapter 1 (pp. 44-46) how Europe's relative location and access to the world's oceans and seas allowed it to take advantage of the benefits of spatial interaction with the rest of the world. Africa did not enjoy these advantages. It's relative isolation prevented it from the benefits of spatial interaction. It was left, in effect, to develop on its own. without the benefits of sharing ideas and goods with the rest of the world.
There are, of course, exceptions to this isolation. Arab traders had crossed the Sahara. They also established trading posts along Africa's Indian Ocean coast. Also the slave trade, begun with the Arabs in East Africa and intensified during the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries by the Europeans in West Africa, did increase contact between Africa and the rest of the world, but to Africa's detriment.
Tropical Climate
Africa's location astride the equator leads to large areas of tropical climates, including heavy rainfall. This rainfall leaches nutrients form the soil and large areas of Africa contain tropical rain forest vegetation in areas poorly suited to food cultivation. These poor soils, accompanied by Africa's rapid population growth, lead to poor nutrition for Africa's peoples.
Tropical Diseases
The tropical climate of Africa is a major contributor to Africa's problem with debilitating and deadly diseases. The textbook discusses these diseases.
See these maps and numbers on AIDS:
a5346-2000jan9x.htm
OPTIONAL:
a4880-2000jan9.htm
Agricultural Economy and the Green Revolution
Seventy-two percent of the population of Sub-Saharan Africa live in rural areas. We discussed this agricultural economy in the previous lecture [afagrifr.htm]. This agricultural economy is based on subsistence agriculture where families try to grow what they need to feed themselves. When subsistence agriculture is combined with poor tropical soils, economic development is, at its best, difficult.
Furthermore, modern technology has not yet had a significant impact on African agriculture. In many poor regions of the world the green revolution has significantly increased agricultural output. The green revolution is a series of technological discoveries that created high-yielding varieties of rice and wheat. Hence, where these crops are grown food production has increased significantly. Unfortunately, very little rice and wheat is grown in Sub-Saharan Africa. the primary food crops in Africa are maize (corn), sorghum, millet in drier areas and root crops like yams and cassava, as well as plantains, in wetter areas. Scientists are currently working with these crops and there are signs of hope. But Sub-Saharan Africa remains poor and nutritionally deficient.
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Political instability can have a significant impact on a country's economic development. One result of such conflicts are refugees and internally displaced people [idp] and Africa has more than its share of both. See: [98refs.gif] [98pies.gif] [98change.gif]. These figures download slowly and will therefore open in new windows.
Much of this instability results from the colonial era when boundaries for colonies, now States, were drawn without regard to the existing cultural landscape aftribe2.gif. These colonial boundaries divided many nations into two or more countries and combined antagonistic nations in one country. With independence, this multicultural structure often lead to internal disputes and war.
Dual economies arose in Sub-Saharan Africa, and in other realms, as a result of colonization. A dual economy is one where there is a modern, "western" - like economy with large industries, active cities, tall skyscrapers, etc., alongside a poor, rural, economy that lacks even the basic services of clean water, education, and health care.
Often development funds are spent on the modern economy of the cities while the majority of the population continues a subsistence lifestyle.
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(3) Inappropriate Development Strategies
Most Sub-Saharan African countries gained independence between 1960 and 1980. A socialist economic development strategy was popular at that time. Many African governments, following such a strategy, nationalized most industries, and ran them as government "parastatal" enterprises.
The more developed countries supported this strategy with development aid aimed at large scale industrialization. Large, inefficiently run, money losing, state owned factories were all too common in countries where the vast majority of the population depended on agriculture. In order to keep these industries running, farmers were often taxed to raise the needed funds. Furthermore, in order to "help" the farmers agricultural services were monopolized by the government as well. Farmers were forced to buy their agricultural inputs from government agencies and sell their agricultural output to government-run marketing boards. These government agencies were often poorly run so farmers wouldn't get the materials they needed and they were paid low prices for what output they manages to produce.
Beginning in the 1980s structural adjustment (economic change) programs (see lecture on economic change) were begun in some African countries. As we discussed in an earlier lecture, such programs do lead to economic growth and improved efficiency, but they are often criticized for increasing the gap between the rich and the poor. See: http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/1998/04/01/p7s1.htm
Finally, the rapid rate of population growth [wrpopgr.gif] found in Sub-Saharan Africa has slowed economic development.
Population grows quickly when birth rates are high and death rates are low. Before the industrial revolution with its advances in medicine, high births rates were accompanied by high death rates and populations grew slowly or not at all [hispopgr.gif]. But as medical advances lower the death rates, birth rates may remain high and population grows.
In Sub-Saharan Africa, as well as other developing realms, deaths rates are quite low .[See map of Crude Death Rates = number of deaths annually per 1000 people in the population: afcdr and wwcdr] Modern medicine has had a significant impact even in remote areas. but birth rates remain high [afcbr] [wwcbr]. It wasn't that long ago when mothers would expect a significant percentage of their children to die. A high fertility rate was needed to assure that enough children survive to take care of the parents when they get old. It takes time to change people's behavior. Therefore, even though death rates are low and most children survive, parents continue to have many children.