What is the problem with Africa?

[Shdo]

when i look at maps and charts of countries by some creteria i always notice that the situation in africa is simply crap.
plagues, civil wars, massive outbreaks of HIV, genocide, famine, draught, if its crappy you can find it in africa.

the question is why? why does africa out of every continent always take the lead in horrific things?

some maps for example:

life exaptancy
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/96/Life_Expectancy_2007_Estimates_CIA_World_Factbook. PNG

gdp
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/86/Gdp_nominal_and_ppp_2005_world_map_single_colour.p ng

HIV
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d7/HIV_Epidem.png



what is the reason for this and what can be done?

[mechaqua]

Well you can trace many of the problems in Africa back to the European colonization after the Europeans went in and did very little development except what was required to exploit the resources. (there are exceptions to this like South Africa and Egypt) after world war II they drew up a map of the new Africa without regard to long standing tribal conflicts, nor did they help Africa really develop or were driven out by the natives who were pissed for years of occupation. They allowed rich white land owners to continue to own scores of land in Africa. Then those who were able to gather money and resources(warlords) took power and the term absolute power corrupts absolutely comes in to play these dictators stole money and kept it for themselves to live the life of luxury well the rest of the country suffered famine genocide at the hands of the rulers and their army and pestilence . in South Africa, when the UK left the whites still had power and force the black population to live in independent kingdoms that were not recognized by the world so they got little financial aid or they would live in ghettos outside of the big cities, not to mention tribes continue to fight over resources land and ancient rivalries. These Conflicts continue to keep Africa from developing its vast abundances of natural resources.

[emoloz]

The early lack of eduction which everyone else in the world could have given them and the fact people were toog reedy to give up the land which they had invaded. Basically thats all really.

[Rain]

I have to agree that the educational situation is probably one fo the bigger downfalls

I dont mean to bash religions, but there are numerous religions/ideas in Africa that believe that if a man who is ill (to what extent i dont know) having sex with a virgin will cure him

This is one reason (not necesarily the biggest or only) that HIV/AIDS is spreading so violently

granted being better informed about the disease won't fix the problem, but it will reduce it

but it isn't so easy to simply inform people

As for the other problems, I dont know nearly enough about them

[cornflakes]

I would say that it's because, as mechaqua says, most states in Africa are artificial, administrative entities based on arbitrary borders dictated by colonial powers. Also, you catapult peoples from societies ranging from prehistoric to medieval straight into the modern world, treating them as underlings and primitive people, and then suddenly releasing them at independence-- a result is that, as a whole, they don't have experience or a strong tradition of civil government.

Add that with population explosions brought about by Western medicine and sanitatary practices, and rich natural resources attracting foreign interference, and you've got a Malthusian nightmare and time bombs waiting to happen.

[bradc]

If you put yourself in their shoes; all of sudden you were given independence, you wouldn't been able to adapt quickly without some kind of a guidance, education and not given any knowledge how to govern such a vast land and growing resource. Hence why tribal wars and conflict among other lands continues to happen and among other existing problems.

They were pretty much left hanging after revolution colonial era.

But yes, these people can adapt to change and some are doing well in already developed parts of Africa, but some other part of Africa still needs help of developing into the modern world. So it's not entirely bad to the extreme point, but those who are suffering live the furthest from the developing cities. Or they simply can't move because deceased parents and unable to get a job due their age; only making little bit of money from what they afford to find.

[Shdo]

keep in mind that its mostly the sub-sahara which is crappy, the northern coast of africa is much more succesful.

[mechaqua]

The Northern Half of Africa the Sahara has been well established they were exposed to western civilization they had been part of the Hellenistic empire of Alexander the Roman Empire the Muslim Empire was more advanced then medieval Europe and for awhile the ottoman empire was better off then Europe also the cultures are very similar and have basically the same religion with isolated Christan and native belief communities which help prevent alot with each other conflict, also these nations were established as provinces of the old empires so their borders were well drawn out plus they are right on the Mediterranean, so trade was and still is lucrative, they much better access to Western goods and medicine its closer access to Europe and the West allowed it to develop and they were able to fully exploit their oil resources as you go bellow the Sahara the nations become land locked there are still parts of Africa that are not fully explored by land. They have a history of established schools and learning and well devloped infastructure beacuse of their relations to the old empires

[rayne_himura]

i think Africa's biggest problem is education </3
maybe their government doesnt spend enough on education. parents were not educated and therefore do not encourage their kids to go to school. being poor and living a subsistence life, it is more important for them to get a job early to help support the family

[earthforge]

I think the biggest problem is malnutrition and death rate, induced by all of the wars and genocide going on. The rate of illness is most likely due to no real shoes, haing to walk on the dirt with your bare feet. Dirt contains a huge amount of pathogens, recently it has been discovered that a simple concrete floor in houses in Mexico without a floor to begin with cut down there rate of contracting illnesses by 90%. So the world may be able to avoid that probllem by putting funding in.

But the region is also ravaged by civil war and genocide, where both sides are corrupt factions. The worst off are the refugees, who suffer the malnutrition and loss of their homes. Many villagers now have to turn to illegal trade to keep alive. I have no idea, though how to solve this one. It would require a lot of thought and aid. There are no rules of war in those parts of the world.

I think most of you are jumping ahead of yourselves. How can there be education when Africa is a concentrating ground for genocide?

[mechaqua]

The problem with Africa (sub Sahara) is circumstance its been conquered reorganized, without regard to tribal clan and conflict, hence comes the genocide and war the war depletes the food resources, so thus people need to eat before they start acquiring other resources so thus with their crops being grown and destroyed there is not enough food reserves when the dry season hits so famine occurs without this food they cannot stay strong so pestilence occurs so the disease runs rampant.

[cornflakes]

I think the biggest problem is malnutrition and death rate, induced by all of the wars and genocide going on. The rate of illness is most likely due to no real shoes, haing to walk on the dirt with your bare feet. Dirt contains a huge amount of pathogens, recently it has been discovered that a simple concrete floor in houses in Mexico without a floor to begin with cut down there rate of contracting illnesses by 90%. So the world may be able to avoid that probllem by putting funding in.

But the region is also ravaged by civil war and genocide, where both sides are corrupt factions. The worst off are the refugees, who suffer the malnutrition and loss of their homes. Many villagers now have to turn to illegal trade to keep alive. I have no idea, though how to solve this one. It would require a lot of thought and aid. There are no rules of war in those parts of the world.
The root cause of these problems are still explosive population growth. Many epidemic diseases need dense urban populations to sustain themselves, and war/genocide is often a direct result of a sudden population growth.

Take Rwanda, for instance, civil war broke out not because of ethnic hatred, it broke out because a sudden rise in the number of people (due to Western medicine cutting mortality rates) meant that the land each generation inherited from their parents became less and less. The whole Hutu/Tutsi thing is only part of what happened-- Hutu-on-Hutu/Tutsi-on-Tutsi killings made up for a large fraction of the casualties.


I think most of you are jumping ahead of yourselves. How can there be education when Africa is a concentrating ground for genocide?
I agree with you there.

[Shdo]

no one expect them to be a leading country in education, this is hard to achive even to other more succesful countries. the question is why their situation is SO bad, i mean its beyond simply bad.
there are countries with mortality rate of 30 years, that is less then 50% of the world avrage. even when compared to other countries who are not considered western and developed they are falling way WAY behind.

this is very sad, since with the natural resources of africa they could have reached so much more.