The issue of Africa being wholly suspended in terms of civilized life is not novel. Unfortunately, Africa is the poorest continent in many aspects, including gross domestic product per capita. Sub-Saharan Africa is ranked number one as “the poorest world region by any measure” (Rowntree et al., 2017, p. 253). However, natural resources located within the territory of African land are about thirty percent of the whole planet’s reserves (Boudreau et al., 2022). Most countries in the list of least developed are placed in Sub-Saharan Africa, also called Black Africa. Sub-Saharan Africa’s poverty is rooted in the past, especially in its colonial history, slavery, corruption, and political collapses. Some researchers say ecological factors like infertile soils, impermanence in precipitation, tropical diseases, and lack of ship-bearing rivers are dominant in Sub-Saharan Africa’s underdevelopment.
African slavery had a massive impact on these countries’ economies and progress. Rowntree, Lewis, Price, and Wyckoff stated that “large areas of the region were depopulated, and many people were forced to flee into poor, inaccessible refuges” (2017, p. 253). One of the reasons is that African governments flopped in political activities. To build their economy, they decided to be independent in resource extraction and failed because of the low competitiveness. However, I think the main reason for Black Africa’s poverty is colonization. European countries only wanted to gain human and natural resources to enrich their land, leaving Sub-Saharan Africa with nothing but unbuilt infrastructure and terrible political conditions.
References
Boudreau, D., McDaniel, M., Sprout, E. & Turgeon, A. (2022). Africa: Resources. National Geographic.
Rowntree, L., Lewis, M., Price, M. & Wyckoff, W. (2017). Diversity amid globalization. Pearson Education, Inc.