Five Things Why Most Africans Are Poor Despite Having A Lot Of Resources
We need to accept the fact that Africa is the world richest continent with a lot of natural resources but with the most population being poor.
In this post, I shall discuss why Africa continent states are poor. Poverty have truly strikes on Africa on high rate. Poverty is lack of provision to satisfy the basic human needs.
I shall discuss the reason one by one but before it, I shall give you a short history of Africa's origin of poverty. When Portuguese arrived in Africa in 14th century, they were desperate to use African slavery labour to cultivate the land grabbed from Africans, especially sugar plantations of West Africa coast. Around 11 Million people were forcefully taken as slaves to new lands. According to the research, the poorest countries are those which most slaves were taken.
Our colonial masters left behind a completely devastated life of Africans. The people were traumatised and taught in colonial schools – taught to loathe everything about themselves including their skin, culture, languages, customs etc.
In 2006, 34 of 50 nations on UN list of least developed countries in the world were from Africa. A report into resource flows in and out of Africa revealed that Africa continent loses more than it receives aids. In 2007, “Honest Accounts 2017” revealed that more than three times the amount Africa receives aid was taken by multinational companies deliberately misreporting the value of their imports or express to reduce tax. Unreduced tax is a contributor to poverty.
Let’s now proceed to the reasons why Africans are poor.
1. CORRUPTION AND MISUSE OF MONEY
Corruption is the worst enemy of Africa development. The misuse of money also promotes to the poverty in Africa. According to research, over 500 Billion dollars has been sent to Africa Nations in form of direct aid. To the surprise, it is much misused. Much of money have been used on unhelpful projects, spent on weapons and some directly feed into pockets of corrupt government officials.
It’s a pure true that corruption is the main reason behind democratic nations in Africa being saddled with large debt which most countries are pushing for relief as they are unable to maintain payments without extension of debts payments. This has resulted to little amounts, being allocated on social services like education, medical care and other developments hence insufficient for rapid growth.
Many native groups in Africa prioritize family relationships mostly over national identity hence people in authority or leadership use nepotism and bribery for the benefit of their extended family groups at expense of their countries. This is where we as Africans have lost focus leading our continent into a hopeless poor community.
2. POOR EDUCATION SYSTEMS AND UNEMPLOYMENT
Lack of standard education systems is a serious issue that contributor of poverty in Africa. With poor education systems, students are not able to be get adequate knowledge and skills hence not fit for jobs available. Some children prefer not to study – especially in Sub-Saharan Africa which has highest rates of educational exclusion with one-fifth of children between 6 to 11 years out of school.
The issue of unaffordable education is one of the cause of school dropouts. In addition, those who struggle and get educated, are eliminated on job markets under many factors causing unemployment. There are no enough job opportunities and where available, corruption is the main player in the field – leaving poor hopeless excellent-educated African youths in state of despair.
3. CONFLICTS
Africa consistently remains among the top place for unstoppable conflicts. These are internal wars which are long-standing eg in Somalia and D.R.C, Rwandan genocide and many others.
Religious conflicts have on recent years increased as raised by Islamic Paramilitary terrorist groups like Boko Haran in Nigeria and Al-Shabaab in Somalia. These groups have literary harmed the chances of development in the regions concerned since they cause economic downturns. Additionally, large number of refugees are witnessed especially in Kenya fleeing from neighbouring country Somalia.
4. DISEASES
This is one of greatest mortality in Africa which arises from preventable water-borne diseases affecting children in the continent. Other diseases are like fatal infections such as Ebola and HIV and AIDS which are more problematic although in some countries, infection rate of HIV infection rates are dropping and the deaths of Ebola are rare.
Other disastrous diseases are malaria, tuberculosis, tapeworm and dysentery which has killed many Africans. When these diseases takes the life of breadwinners in families, they leave people in hopelessly hence poverty arises.
5. CLIMATE CHANGE
There is a link between climate and poverty. Due to Climate change, size, frequency and unpredictability of natural hazards are automatically increased. It is heavily influenced by interplay by economy, social-cultural and demographic factors not leaving alone a skewed development like unplanned urbanization.
Conclusion
As Africans, we should think about ourselves. It’s not late for a change. We have that opportunity to be good and incorrupt leaders, responsible and loving states always keeping peace so as to reduce the high rising poverty in our continent.
