Question

Why Africa is less Developed

Answer 1

• Africa is the least developed continent on the planet, and it has been so for quite some time. The infrastructures are deplorable, the government’s role in society is appalling, poverty is off the hook, the medical conditions are highly destructive, and the overall corruption keeps African countries from taking off.
• When slavery started in the 15th-16th centuries, Europeans came in to Africa with their guns and other developed military equipment and robbed the continent of millions of men in order to take them to the New World.
• Logically, since they had the choice, Europeans chose the strongest, the tallest, and the smartest; in short, they deprived Africa of their best men – the same ones who could have helped develop the continent. So for centuries, millions of the best human resources have been taken out of Africa, which inevitably kept them from developing at a decent pace, or at least as fast as their European counterparts.
• Traditionally, the vast majority of Africans have been farmers and herders who raised crops and livestock for subsistence. Manufacturing and crafts were carried out as part-time activities. A few states developed long distance trade systems, and in these places complex exchange facilities as well as industrial specialization, communication networks, and elaborate governmental structures maintained the flow of commerce.
• But overall trade in Africa was limited by transportation and communication difficulties, and by differences in currency and other incompatibilities.
• With European colonization came overseas demand for certain agricultural and mineral products and internal labor migration; new and safer transportation systems were constructed; European technology and crops were introduced; and a modern exchange economy evolved. Local industries and crafts—textiles and iron making, for example—were frequently undermined by cheaper or better European goods. Processing industries developed, as did ports and administrative centers.
• Despite the expansion of commerce and industry and the importance of these activities to the economy, most Africans remain farmers and herders.
• The economic development of virtually all African nations has been hindered by inadequate transportation systems. Most countries rely on road networks that are composed largely of dirt roads, which become impassable during the rainy seasons. Road networks tend to link the interior of a country to the coast; few road systems link adjacent countries.
• Trade between African states is limited by the competitive, rather than complementary, nature of their products and by trade barriers, such as tariffs and the diversity of currencies.