Poverty in Africa

Poverty is a severe problem for most of the nations in Africa.

Scope

Poverty is the inability to attain a minimum standard of living. The World Bank defines absolute poverty as a condition of life so degraded by disease, illiteracy, malnutrition and squalour as to deny its victim basic human necessities.

There are certain factors which keep nations poor eg; lack of resources, limited education opportunities, a death of skills and economic, social and political systems that delays broad based growth.

Despite a wealth of natural resources, African nations regularly fall to the bottom spots of any list measuring economic activity, such as per capita income or per capita GDP. The bottom 25 spots of the United Nations quality of life index are regularly filled by African nations. In many nations, the per capita income is often less than $200 U.S. per year, with the vast majority of the population living on much less. In addition, Africa's share of income has been consistently dropping over the past century by any measure. In 1900, the average (European) earned about five times what the average African did. By 1980, the figure had reached ten times, and is now approaching twenty times. Although per capita incomes in Africa have also been steadily growing, and poverty falling, measures are still far better in other parts of the world, such as Latin America, which suffer from many of the same disadvantages.

Overpopulation

Persons with large families in Africa are often seen as well off. most of the elderly rely on their children for support. In addition, as much agriculture in Africa is labor-intensive, large numbers of children provide much needed labor for plowing, planting and harvesting.

However, like most places in the world, the real overpopulation is in urban areas, which have grown out of control since the trend towards African independence in the 1960s. Eg;in rural area.

Lagos, Nigeria, a town of 40,000 in the early 1960s, is now a city of over 13 million. Other large cities and their surroundings in Africa have seen similar population growth as what agricultural improvements there are mean that fewer persons are needed on the land as a percentage of the total population. During times of famine, the extra demand for food in the cities often draws food supplies away from rural areas with failed crops, as urban dwellers often have cash for food. This was the pattern in most of the Ethiopian famines in the 1980s.

Mismanagement of land

Despite large amounts of arable land south of the Sahara Desert, small, individual land holding are rare. In many nations, land is subject to tribal ownership and in others most of the land is often in the hands descendants of European settlers in the late 19th century and early 20th century. For example, about 82% of the arable land in South Africa is owned by those of European descent. Many nations even lack a system of freehold landowning. In others, the laws prevent persons from disadvantaged groups from owning land at all. Although often these laws are ignored, and land sales to disadvantaged groups occur, legal title to the land is not assured. As such, rural Africans rarely have clear title to their own land, and have to survive as farm laborers. Unused land is plentiful, but is often private property. Most African nations have very poor land registration systems, making squatting and land theft common occurrences. This makes it difficult to get a mortgage or similar loan, as ownership of the property often cannot be established to the satisfaction of financiers.

It should be noted that this system often gives an advantage to one native African group over another, and not just Europeans over Africans. For example, it was hoped that land reform in Zimbabwe would transfer land from European land owners to family farmers. Instead, it simply substituted native Africans with ties to the government for Europeans, leaving most of the population disadvantaged. Because of this abuse, foreign aid that was destined for land purchases dried up.

It is estimated that a family of four can be made self-sufficient for about $200 (U.S.) - the cost of an Ox, a few hectares of land, and starter seeds. However, such programs are few and far between, with much foreign aid being concentrated on the raising of cash crops and large plantations rather than family farms.

However, in the end, any solution may be moot. Even in Africa, improved agricultural techniques often result in fewer farm workers being needed to feed the same population. Moreover, imported food is cheap as well thanks to subsidies being given to farmers in developed nations, and a need to find places to "dump" excess production. As a result, it is likely that more rural dwellers may wind up in cities in any event, and this pattern is already being seen in developing nations elsewhere (e.g. India, Mexico and China) as well as many regions of the developed world (e.g.

Loss of traditional land uses

Until the late 19th century, Africa supported a wide variety of subsistence agricultural methods (herding, hunting, gathering, small-scale farming) together with the development of a few high-cost commodity crops (cloves, spices). However, the vagarities of 20th century life have often thrown traditional methods out of whack. For example, Africans have hunted large animals since the first modern humans appeared 50,000-250,000 years ago. However, most of the large wild animals left in Africa are found in nature reserves, which are now off limits to hunting. This has often led to inconceivably bad policies, such as not allowing natives to harvest animals that die from natural famine or drought.

In addition, most of the land once dedicated to common pasture is being fenced for farming. Not only has this had a tremendous social effect on groups who tended animals historically, it has taken the natural rejuvanting power of animal manure out of land use practices.

However, movements to support native African agriculture have also led to problems. Many plants not native to Africa, such as the potato and dwarf wheat, do well in the environment and provide far more protein and higher yields than some traditional crops, particularly the still widely cultivated cassava. Well meaning aid workers often believe that African crops are somehow naturally superior, even though Europe is full of crops that are not native to the Old World.

Misused Money

It is estimated that under $500 billion(U.S.) has been given to African nations in the form of direct aid. The consensus is that the money has had little long term effect. A good portion of that money was not given directly to residents of the continent, but to governments, government officials, contractors employed by the donor countries, and others who generally de-patriated the funds back to Europe or the Americas. The sum is large, of the same order of magnitude as what the United States spends annually on defence.

In addition, most African nations have borrowed substantial sums of money. However, a large percentage of the money was either invested in weapons (money that was spent back in developed nations, and provided little or no benefit to the native population) or was directly misappropriated by corrupt governments. As such, many newly democratic nations in Africa are saddled with debt run up by totalitarian regimes. Large debts usually result in little being spent on social services, such as education, pensions, or medical care. In addition, most of the debt currently owed (approximately $295 billion (U.S.)) represents only the interest portion on the debt, and far exceeds the amounts that were actually borrowed (although this is true of large debts in developed nations as well). Most African nations are pushing for debt relief, as they are effectively unable to maintain payments on debt without extending the debt payments indefinitely. However, most plans to forgive debt affect only the smallest nations, and large debtor nations, like Nigeria, are often excluded from such plans.

What large sums of money that are in Africa are often used to develop mega-projects when the need is for smaller scale projects. For example, Ghana was the richest country in Africa when it obtained independence. However, a few years later, it had no foreign reserves of any consequence. The money was spent on large projects that turned out to be a waste of resources:

• A Hydro-electric dam was built in order to supply electricity for the extraction of aluminium from bauxite. However, Ghanian ores turned out to be too low grade and the electricity is now used to process ores from other nations.
• A two-lane paved highway was built into the interior. Unfortunately, Ghana has few cars that require such a superior roadway, and there are very few other roads of any kind in the country.
• Storage silos for the storage of cocoa were built to allow Ghana to take advantage of fluctuations in the commodity prices. Unfortunately, unprocessed cocoa does not react well to even short-term storage and the silos now sit empty.

Another excellent example of misspent money is the Aswan High Dam. The dam was supposed to have modernized Egypt and Sudan immediately. Instead, the block of the natural flow of the Nile River meant that the Nile's natural supply of nitrate fertilizer and organic material was blocked. Now, about one-third of the dam's electric output goes directly into fertilizer production for what used to be the most fertile area on the planet. Moreover, the dam is silting up and may cease to serve any useful purpose within the next few centuries. In addition, the Mediterranean Sea is slowly becoming more saline as the Nile used to provide it with most of its new fresh water.

Corruption is also a major problem in the region, although it is certainly not universal or limited to Africa. Many native groups in Africa believe family relationships are more important than national identity, and people in authority often use nepotism and bribery for the benefit of their extended family group at the expense of their nations. To be fair, many corrupt governments often do better than authoritarian ones that replace them. Ethiopia is a good case study. Under Haile Selassie, corruption was rife and poverty rampant. However, after his overthrow, corruption was lessened, but then famine and military aggressiveness came to the fore. In any event, corruption both diverts aid money and foreign investment (which is usually sent to offshore banks outside of Africa), and puts a heavy burden on native populations forced to pay bribes to get basic government services.

In the end, foreign aid may not even be helpful in the long run to many African nations. It often encourages them not to tax internal economic activities of multi-national corporations within their borders in order to attract foreign investment. In addition, most African nations have at least some wealthy nationals, and foreign aid often allows them to avoid paying more than negligible taxes. As such, wealth redistribution and capital controls are often seen as a more appropriate way for African nations to stabilize funding for their government budgets and smooth out the boom and bust cycles that can often arise in a developing economy. However, this sort of strategy often leads to internal political dissent and capital flight.

Capital Flight

This has been a problem since the very beginning of Europan colonization, and in many ways the problem has become worse. Because most African nations are heavily in debt, most export income generated by these nations goes out in the form of interest payments. In addition, many assets within Africa are owned by foreign interests, and money earned by those assets (particularly oil) is often sent directly out of the country. However, nationalization of assets has not always ensured prosperity. When Egypt nationalized the Suez Canal in the late 1950s, it nearly touched off a world war, and in the period between the Six Day War and the Camp David Accords, the canal was closed to traffic.

This situation has often been exacerbated by policies imposed by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, which often insist on trade liberalization and a lack of capital controls as a condition of loan guarantees. Those nations which have avoided IMF and World Bank conditions, such as Botswana and South Africa, have the most robust economies on the continent.

Human Resources

The availability of cheap labor has often perpetuated policies that encourage poor agricultural and industrial practices, leaving Africa further and further behind. For example, author P.J. O'Rourke noted on his trip to Tanzania for his book Eat the Rich that gravel was produced with manual labor (by pounding rocks with tools), where in almost everywhere else in the world machines did the same work far more cheaply and efficiently. He used Tanzania as an example of a nation with superb natural resources that nevertheless was among the poorest nations in the world.

Education is also a major problem. Elementary education is scattershot, even in the wealthier nations. Illiteracy rates are high although a good proportion of Africans speak at least two languages and a number speak three (generally their native language, a neighbouring or trade language, and a European language). Higher education is almost unheard of, although universities in Egypt and South Africa have excellent reputations. However, some African nations have only a scattering of persons with university degrees, and advanced degrees are rare in most areas. As such, the continent, for the most part, lacks lawyers, engineers and even teachers. The seeming parody of aid workers attempting to teach tri-lingual people English is not entirely untrue.

South Africa under apartheid is an excellent example of how bad things can get even when minimal funds are available. The largely black population often wished to learn English (black South Africans saw it as a way to unite themselves as they speak several different native languages). However, South African law required that blacks be taught entirely in Afrikaans, a language they had almost no exposure to before starting school, while most were very familiar with English.

Disease

Although much attention has been given to the prevalence of AIDS in African nations (where infection rates can approach 30% among the sexually active population), and fatal infections such as the Ebola virus, other diseases are far more problematic. In fact, the situation with AIDS is improving in many nations as infection rates drop, and deaths from Ebola are rare. On the other hand, diseases once common but now almost unknown in most of the industrialized world, like malaria, tuberculosis, tapeworm and dysentery often claim far more victims, particularly among the young. Polio has made a comeback recently due to misinformation spread by anti-American Islamic groups in Nigeria. Diseases native to Africa, such as sleeping sickness, also resist all attempts at elimination.

Lack of Infrastructure

Clean, potable water is rare in most of Africa (even those parts outside the sub-Saharan region) despite the fact that the continent is crossed by several major rivers and contains some of the largest fresh water lakes in the world. However, many of the major population centres are on the coast, and few major cities have adequate sewage treatment systems. Although boiling water is a possibility, fuel for boiling is scarce as well. The problem is worst in Africa's rapidly growing cities, such as Cairo, Lagos and Kinshasa.

Colonialism concentrated on joining the coast with internal territories. As such, nearly none of Africa's roads and railways connect with each other in any meaningful way. Joining Africa's extensive railway network has recently become a priority for African nations outside of south-west Africa, which has an integrated network. Transportation between neighbouring coastal settlements is nearly always by sea, no matter what the topography of the land in between them. Even basic services like telecommunications are often treated the same way. For example, phone calls between Ghana and neighbouring Côte d'Ivoire once had to be routed through England and France. Although Africa had numerous pre-European overland trade routes, few are suitable for modern transport such as trucks or railways, especially when they cross old European colonial borders.

Conflict

Despite other hot spots for war, Africa consistently remains among the top places for ongoing conflicts, consisting of both long standing civil wars (e.g. Somalia) and conflicts between countries (e.g. Ethiopia and Eritrea's border wars after the latter's independence from the former). Despite a lack of basic social services or even the basic necessities of life, military forces are usually well financed and well equipped.

As a result, Africa is full of refugees, who are often deliberately displaced by military forces during a conflict, rather than just having fled from war torn areas. Although many refugees emigrate to open countries such as Germany, Canada, and the United States, the ones who do emigrate are often the most educated and skilled. The remainder often become a burden on neighbouring African nations that, while peaceful, are generally unable to deal with the logistical problems refugees pose.

Civil war usually has the result of totally shutting down all government services. For example, Somalia does not even have low level services such as birth-death-marriage registration and a postal service - services that exist in even the poorest countries.

However, any conflict generally disrupts what trade or economy there is. For example, Ethiopia is now land-locked and its wars with Eritrea just have the effect of shutting it off from the rest of the world. Sierra Leone, which depends on diamonds for much of its economic activity, not only faces disruption in production (which reduces the supply), but a thriving black market in conflict diamonds, which drives down the price for what diamonds are produced.

External link

• Poverty in Africa from the World Bank