Poverty in Africa

Most African nations have very poor land registration systems, making squatting and land-theft common occurrences.

(See Land reform in Zimbabwe) Historically, such programs have been few and far between, with much foreign aid being concentrated on the raising of cash crops and large plantations rather than family farms.

Studies by the National Academy of Sciences have suggested great promise in relying on native crops as a means of improving Africa's food security.

[10] Supporting a different viewpoint is an article appearing in AgBioForum which suggests that smallholder farmers benefited substantially by planting a genetically modified variety of maize.

[11] In a similar vein is an article discussing the use of nontraditional crops for export published as part of the proceedings of a Purdue University symposium.

[16] The Cato Institute argues this is because, rather than increasing development, financial aid creates dependence on foreign investments.

[14] In 2002, then-president of Senegal, economist Abdoulaye Wade, stated, "'I've never seen a country develop itself through aid or credit.

Large debts usually result in little being spent on social services, such as education, pensions, or medical care.

Authors Leonce Ndikumana and James K. Boyce estimate that from 1970 to 2008, capital flight from 33 sub-Saharan countries totalled $700 billion.

In addition, the Mediterranean Sea is slowly becoming more saline as the Nile River previously provided it with most of its new fresh water influx.

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.

It often encourages them not to tax internal economic activities of multinational corporations within their borders to attract foreign investment.

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.

The ILO also encourages the promotion collective bargaining that covers a large part of worker population and addresses gender pay gaps.

[24] The widespread availability of cheap labor has often perpetuated policies that encourage inefficient agricultural and industrial practices, leaving Africa further impoverished.

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), wherein almost everywhere else in the world machines did the same work far more cheaply and efficiently.

[27][28] The greatest mortality in Africa arises from preventable water-borne diseases, which affect infants and young children greater than any other group.

In fact, the situation with AIDS is improving in some 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.

[31] 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 freshwater lakes in the world.

[citation needed] 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.

[34] Post decolonization, the European-set borders were accepted by various leaders; however, there remains internal and cross-border struggles, and separatist concerns by popular demand to the governments as they transition to democracy, leading to fears of further destabilization.

[35] In recent years, religious conflicts have also increased, with Islamistic paramilitary terrorist groups like Boko Haram (Nigeria) and Al-Shabaab (Somalia) having committed many brutal, deadly terrorist acts that further decrease safety and prospects of development in the concerned regions.

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.

It is heavily influenced by the interplay between economic, socio-cultural and demographic factors, as well as skewed development, such as rapid and unplanned urbanisation.

[38] However, vulnerability is not just shaped to poverty, but linked to wider social, political and institutional factors, that govern entitlements and capabilities.

Africa's economic malaise is self-perpetuating, as it engenders more of the disease, warfare, misgovernment, and corruption that created it in the first place.

Angola, for instance, reaps large sums annually from its diamond mines, but after years of civil war, conditions there remain poor.