Why Africa remains poor
The African continent, without doubt, is one of the most mineral-rich continents globally.
Some pro-African sources go so far as to argue that Africa is the most mineral-rich continent. Africa is reported to have about 30 per cent of the world’s mineral deposits, including gold, diamonds, uranium, lithium, petroleum, and coltan. Over 75 per cent of the global supply of coltan is currently being mined in Africa. Tantalum from coltan is used in the manufacture of cellphones, pagers, computers, automotive electronics, cameras, and in weapon systems.
African minerals are, therefore, crucial to the industries that are generating obscene amounts of wealth globally. Regrettably, most African countries lack the industrial capabilities to efficiently extract minerals, like petroleum. Even when African countries are able to extract minerals from the Earth, there is a dearth of technological know-how to add value to the minerals. Refineries for petroleum products and other technologically advanced value-adding centres on the African continent would certainly go a long way in helping Africa reap more wealth from its mineral deposits.
Historically, African poverty is attributed to slavery, colonisation, and neo-colonisation. Many Afrocentric thinkers argue that slavery produced a massive brain and manpower drain on the African continent. This argument does have some validity but can be effectively challenged by historical instances of countries that have bounced back from similar devastating disasters and are now prospering.
Colonisation and neo-colonisation also have played a part in the perpetuation of poverty on the African continent. European nations, many of whom were already reaping the economic benefits of the Industrial Revolution, assigned to African nations the lowly task of ripping the treasures of the Earth from its bosom. Raw materials from Africa were shipped to Europe and America, where value was added and the real money from the raw materials was made.
Europeans also set the price of commodities to determine how much they would pay Africans for raw materials. The money system that was set up also meant that Africans had to sell the commodities that Europe and America were demanding to get foreign exchange to engage in global trading. Any African country that deviated from this arrangement was sanctioned or destabilised until it got back on course with the agenda of Europe and America.
Colonisation and neo-colonisation cannot, however, be the whole story that explains African poverty. Europeans also colonised much of Asia, including India and China. Singapore, Taiwan, Korea, and Hong Kong were all colonised by China, Japan, and Britain. Hong Kong was a British colony for more than 150 years while Singapore endured a similar fate for 144 years. All these former colonies in Asia have been able to bounce back and are currently still doing reasonably well on the economic front.
African countries has the unenviable reputation of featuring in every list of top poorest countries globally. African countries head all the top-10 to top-50 lists of poor countries around the globe. Nigeria, which has the largest economy in Africa, still ranks among the world’s 50-poorest nations. Ethiopia and Rwanda, despite modest economic growth in recent years, are also in the list of the world’s 50 poorest nations.
At the risk of alienating and angering many people of African ancestry, I would like to suggest that slavery, colonisation, and neo-colonisation are not the chief reasons Africa ranks so high on the poverty scale. The African continent just does not have a lot going for it by way of geography and climate. Desertification is an African problem that is being made worse by climate change. Most of the rivers in Africa are not fully navigable, due to rapids and steep waterfalls. African rivers are dependent upon rainfall and can dry up during periods of drought. This has very serious economic implications, especially for trade in Africa.
The heat and rainfall experienced by many African countries provide the perfect conditions for the proliferation of insects that are harmful to both human beings and domesticated animals. West and Central Africa are called the Malaria Belt of the world. Poor health infrastructure combined with unwise dietary practices and questionable lifestyle choices have also led to outbreaks of killer viruses in sub-Saharan Africa.
Compounding the problems of Africa, also, are factors like governmental corruption and mismanagement; lack of infrastructure; limited investment in research and development; an inadequate education system; an over-dependence on Western aid; a worsening water crisis and desertification; conflicts, which are spawning an almost Apocalyptic refugee crisis; and an obstinate culture that is driven more by religious myths than by reason, facts, and logic.
Some of these problems are beyond the capacity of the economically struggling African governments to eradicate. A federation of African states may, however, be able to make some headway in tackling some of the very vexing African problems. Prophet Kwame Nkrumah is still speaking to Africans from the realm of the ancestors and his message is still the same: Africa will unite or Africa will perish. The 1884 Berlin Conference borders are an existential threat to the survival of African people.
It recently dawned on me that no African nation has ever won the World Cup football trophy. The European nation of France wisely pooled together some of the best African footballing talent from the previous World Cup and took home the coveted trophy in 2018.
The late Sir Shridath Ramphal reminded us in his report entitled ‘A Time for Action’ that we do it better when we do it together. It will take the combined talents and resources of Africans living on the continent and Africans living in the Diaspora to effectively tackle the problem of poverty in Africa. The journey ahead may be hard but it is both necessary and doable. Anything less than what our greatest ancestors prescribed will end in disaster for us, their descendants.
Lenrod Nzulu Baraka is the founder of Afro-Caribbean Spiritual Teaching Center and the author of The Rebirth of Black Civilization: Making Africa and the Caribbean Great Again. Send comments to the Jamaica Observer or rodneynimrod2@gmail.com.