African Economic and Social Challenges - Case Study Example

I. The Interplay between Physical Geography and Human Geography: African Economic and Social Challenges The interaction of physical and human geography generates two severely challenging problems for African social and economic development. Primarily, Africa’s greatest economic asset is its natural resource charters (Nnadozie 2003). Not simply does an uneven percentage of Africa’s population inhabit resource-abundant societies, but for the near future, prices of commodities will be high and innovations will be biased toward the region (Ndulu, O’Connell, Azam, Bates, Fosu, et al. 2008). Big resource leases indicate a big state and, thus, the integral value of effective and efficient public spending; sadly, it also renders democracy totally less effectual in the development process (Ndulu et al. 2008). Unfortunately, it appears that the ordinary resource-abundant country might develop more rapidly under dictatorship. Nonetheless, Africa’s great ethnic diversity renders dictatorship completely damaging (Ndulu et al. 2008). Resource-abundant African countries do not have the choice of development through dictatorship. Moreover, ethnic diversity undermines the capability of the society to charge public services of accountability (Chapman & Baker 1992). Still, resource-abundant Africa does not have the choice of a limited public sector; resource fees unavoidably build up to the government and will mostly be used up by it (Chapman & Baker 1992). Thus, what kind of political structure is most appropriate in a resource-abundant and ethnically diverse African society? Dictatorship is irreversibly defective in the perspective of ethnic diversity, but democracy is fluid in the perspective of resource charters. The type of political system that seems most appropriate to ethnically diverse countries with resource charters is a democracy with decentralized public expenditure and uncommonly rigid checks and balances (Ndulu et al. 2008). How the administration can exercise power has to be greatly limited, instead of merely how it acquires authority. Botswana shows that this arrangement is feasible in Africa and that it is very efficient in furnishing growth in resource-abundant societies (Ndulu et al. 2008). Botswana has one of the most developed economies in the world for several years. But currently, the country is extraordinary (Ndulu et al. 2008). Most resource-abundant countries have uncommonly indecisive checks and balances, not uncommonly rigid ones. The major problem currently confronting resource-abundant African societies is to establish such political system (Nnadozie 2003). Self-regulating central banks are one of the vital checks and balances that a resource-abundant country requires. Yet, the major function of central banks in resource-abundant Africa is presently to promote this plan by updating the society (Nnadozie 2003). With a lack of a financial media, central banks are the key self-regulating body of a certified economic expert within the society capable of influencing or persuading the general public. Central banks are incapable of moving back to technocratic separation (Nnadozie 2003). Electorates should be informed so that the errors of Africa’s history will not be replicated during the current natural resource growth (Chapman & Baker 1992). International players also have a function to fulfill in helping the effort to put up efficient checks and balances (Ndulu et al. 2008). Another domain for prospective international support that is specifically relevant for central banks is the disclosing and recovery of dishonestly obtained natural resource revenues (Nnadozie 2003). An ideal case of the inefficiencies of current practice was the tremendous problem experienced by the Nigerian government in recovering oil profits misappropriated by former President Abacha. The attempts that the international banks have initiated to restrain funding for terrorism have to be used to the issue of fraud (Ndulu et al. 2008). Finally, the second problem created by the interplay between physical geography and human geography is the underdevelopment of coastal resource-limited African countries (Chapman & Baker 1992). What were the important reasons that resolved companies against an African site? Generally, the reasons varied among countries. Lusophone Africa was plagued by civil conflict (Nnadozie 2003). In Francophone Africa the increasing miscalculation of the CFA franc successfully prohibited the area from exporting. For instance, a developing garment export zone in Cote d’Ivoire was removed (Ndulu et al. 2008). South Africa was in the advanced periods of the apartheid government. Madagascar, Ghana, Tanzania, and other coastal resource-limited countries, were in calamities as an outcome of attempts with socialism (Chapman & Baker 1992). Africa was vulnerable to these different conditions caused by the problems created by its unique human geography. African societies were very small and varied to furnish the public welfares of superior economic strategy and security (Chapman & Baker 1992). However, Africa has considerably succeeded in overcoming these predicaments; its human geography caused extended but not permanent difficulties (Ndulu et al. 2008). Certainly, all of the particular hardships that hindered coastal African from penetrating international markets have ended. Lusophone is presently at peace, CFA Franc was strongly devalued, South Africa had a victorious government reform, and socialist rules were dumped (Ndulu et al. 2008). Still Africa has not positively entered global markets. The most likely reason for the sluggish pace of export access is Africa’s errors. The mistakes in strategy happened to take place at exactly the crucial period when Africa might otherwise have entered on equal terms with Asia (Nnadozie 2003). At present, Asia has massive accession leverage and thus liberty from the policy diseases is insufficient. The current economic geography seems to suggest that Africa will have to wait until the income discrepancy between Asia and Africa is roughly as expansive as that between Asia and the OECD at the period when Asia penetrated OECD markets (Nnadozie 2003). Given that this is more or less accurate then Africa will have to wait for more than a few decades. International support is needed to redress the errors immediately. In fact, the problems of the Doha Round are a prospect to stimulate the diversification of African export. What Africa requires is short-term safeguard from Asia in the markets of OECD (Ndulu et al. 2008). While this may seem drastic, in reality Africa previously had such security. It was crucial to the development of Mauritius which gained from the Multi-Fiber Agreement (Ndulu et al. 2008). Such a scheme in global trade regulation would harmonize and promote reform initiatives within Africa and would likely generate a number of African export changes comparable to Asian experience (Ndulu et al. 2008). This kind of success would revolutionize how Africa views itself and how it is recognized. The physical geography and human geography of Africa are unique. Africa, with regard to physical geography, is not merely unique but its countries are distinguished. Moreover, due to the fact that opportunities vary all over the region policies have to be discerned. This is relevant to what African regimes should observe as important concerns and to what outside actors can do to help: attempts for political unity will fail. Africa, with regard to human geography, is unique but not that distinguished. Roughly all countries in Africa have small populations but are ethnically varied. A consequence of small societies is that Africa has discovered safeguarding of internal security and policy reform more challenging than other provinces. II. Negative Impact of the Slave Trade on West Africa Slavery in Africa subsisted before the arrival of the Arabs and Europeans. Exploring societies of ancient Egypt, it becomes clear that widespread slavery subsisted. The great pyramids were constructed by slaves who labored over extended periods of time to build these colossal architectures (Diene 2001). Yet, this kind of slavery, that was unusual to societies of Africa, is dissimilar from the European chattel slavery which prevailed all over Africa for five centuries, from the 15th to the 19th century (Diene 2001), In Africa, the slave may in time work his/her way out of bondage and even become a part of the ruling class by intermarriage. Slaves in Africa were mostly prisoners of war, but permitted to work so that they could pay their obligation to the society that they formerly were at war against (Inikori & Engerman 1992). Nevertheless, the high demand for African human cargo by European slave traders severely disrupted the economic life of West Africa. The slave trade became more lucrative than the usual gold trade (Getz 2004). As a result, numerous West Africans who wanted to acquire European goods such as cloth, alcoholic beverages, cooking utensils, and armaments were persuaded by the European slave traders to buy African slaves in trade for these goods (Getz 2004). This issue functioned as a way of putting off internal barter in West African commodities and offered enticements for West Africans to participate in helping the Europeans in the slave trade (Diene 2001). In his seminal work How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, Walter Rodney explains how this method worked between West Africa and Europe in relation to strangling the internal progress of African social and economic development (Getz 2004). The evolution from gold quarrying to slave raiding occurred within a phase of ten years, from 1700 to 1710, when Ghana, formerly named Gold Coast, came to provide thousands of slaves annually (Getz 2004). By the latter part of the eighteenth century, a substantially smaller population of slaves was shipped from the Gold Coast, but severe disruptions and problems had already been created (Diene 2001). It should be mentioned that the Europeans explored various parts of West Africa at different times to serve as biggest providers of slaves to the New World. This implied that almost every part of the long western coastline had at least several years encounter of rigorous slave trade with all its outcomes (Diene 2001). Moreover, in the history of Nigeria and Ghana, there were phases lengthening over several decades, when exports continued at an average of several thousand annually. Majority of those regions were also fairly highly urbanized within the African perspective (Getz 2004). They were dominant powers within Africa, whose forces would otherwise have been tapped for their own development and the progress of the entire African continent (Getz 2004). The African captives who were shipped to the Americas and Europe during this time had no idea of what lies ahead for them at their destination (Diene 2001). Even the Africans who traded slaves to Europeans did not understand the destructive outcomes of what they were doing to the potential progress of their societies (Inikori & Engerman 1992). It should be mentioned clearly that a large number of Africans who were exported from Africa as slaves were not captured as a consequence of commercial trade (Inikori & Engerman 1992). Rodney claims that the extent of treachery and deception on the part of the slave traders from Europe was mainly accountable for the imprisonment of a large number of Africans who were forced towards servitude (Getz 2004). Nonetheless, in general, the method by which slaves were acquired in Africa was not trade by any means. It was through militarization of pre-colonial states, warfare, raiding, and abduction (Diene 2001). When one attempts to determine the impact of European slave trading in West Africa, it is important to understand that one is determining the impact of militarization, social dislocation, social violence, and economic disruptions, instead of trade in any common meaning of the term (Diene 2001). Roughly two-thirds of the population shipped to Europe as slaves were men. A smaller number of women were exported as slaves because their capabilities as craft workers and farmers were critically vital to African societies (Inikori & Engerman 1992). The trouble of reconstructing their damaged towns and villages fell to these women (Newton 1962). According to a former slave captain, John Newton, “I verily believe that the far greater part of wars, in Africa, would cease, if the Europeans would cease to tempt them, by offering goods for sale. I believe the captives reserved for sale are fewer than the slain” (Newton 1962, 109). The profit amassed in the export of West African slaves was unparalleled; it is yet again implausible to measure the estimated figures of profit amassed by European commercial endeavors by means of their participation in chattel slavery (Inikori & Engerman 1992). On the other hand, it is safe to assume that the profit growth, as an outcome of the free African services used in the slave trade, offered the basis for the emergence of capital production, industrial revolution, and the transfer of resources to colonial provinces by Europe (Inikori & Engerman 1992). By offering armaments among the trade commodities, Europeans intensified political disorder and warfare in West Africa. Several West African states, such as Ghana, grew prosperous and powerful as an outcome (Getz 2004). Other states, such as Togo, were totally obliterated and their populations drastically reduced as they were taken in by enemies (Getz 2004). Millions of West Africans were coercively dispossessed and displaced, and towns and communities were destroyed. Numerous West Africans were slaughtered in slaving conflicts or remained bonded in Africa (Diene 2001). There were also West African states, such as Senegal, that firmly opposed slavery. But the interests of those occupied in the slave trade were too strong to defeat (Getz 2004). Populations of West Africa have also endured severely and they remain to be at a great difficulty in comparison to those who encouraged the trade against them (Getz 2004). There are current social movements that are appealing for recognition of the atrocities committed during the slave trade. These movements are also seeking financial reparation from the United States and Europe for Africans and inhabitants of African lineage in the Diaspora (Getz 2004). References Chapman, G.P. & K.M. Baker (eds). The Changing Geography of Africa and the Middle East. New York: Routledge, 1992. Diene, Doudou, ed. From Chains to Bonds: The Slave Trade Revisited. New York: Berghahn Books/ UNESCO, 2001. Getz, Trevor R. Slavery and Reform in West Africa: Toward Emancipation in Nineteenth Century Senegal and the Gold Coast. UK: James Currey Ltd., 2004. Hance, Williarn. The Geography of Modern Africa. New York: Columbia University Press, 1964. Inikori, J.E. & S. Engerman (eds). The Atlantic Slave Trade: Effects on Economies, Societies, and Peoples in Africa, the Americas, and Europe. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1992. Ndulu, B.J., S.A. OConnell, J. Azam, R. Bates, A.K. Fosu, et al. (eds). The Political Economy of Economic Growth in Africa, 1960-2000. UK: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Newton, John. The Journal of a Slave Trader 1750-1754. UK: Epworth Press, 1962. Nnadozie, Emmanuel. African Economic Development. New York: Academic Press, 2003. . Read More