What is the Scope of socio-economic and Political Crises of Africa?

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Introduction....................................................................................................................3 Africas Socio-economic Problems................................................................................3 Religious and Ethnic Tension............................................................................3 Corruption..........................................................................................................3 HIV/AIDS..........................................................................................................4 Food Crisis.........................................................................................................5 The Debt Crisis..................................................................................................5 Africas Political Problems............................................................................................6 Conclusion......................................................................................................................7 Bibliography...................................................................................................................8

Introduction In expressing problems facing the African continent, authors have come up with bestselling books with eye-catching tittles such as The Shackled Continent, scholars with chaos, poverty and in capital, HIV/AIDS as examples, while international media houses have focused on death, diseases and deprivation as the consequences of such problems. In continuation with the trend, this paper, therefore seeks to provide a brief overview of the socio-economic and political problems facing the continent. In doing so, the paper will be divided into two parts. The first part will focus on socioeconomic problems while the next will discuss political ones. The African continent in this paper refers to Sub-Saharan Africa countries. Africas Socio-economic Problems Religious and Ethnic Tension Africa as a continent is the home of more than three thousand ethnicities with different cultures, tradition and languages. Before colonisation, tribal structures around a village served as the equivalents of the modern state, and people relied on its leadership for basic day to day administration. In the late 1880s during the scramble for African resources by European settlers, Africa was divided into several nations without taking previous tribal differences and alliances into consideration. Today, these divisions represent modern day African states. During colonisation, ethnic and religious tensions were downplayed by a common threat, in the form of colonisation. Events after independence however saw re-ignition of past issues some of which, like in the case of Rwanda, escalated into major conflicts. Looking at the situation today, tribal and religious affiliation still plays a major role in how scarce resources are shared amongst a countrys citizens. Corruption Corruption, which occurs in both the public and private sectors, is often characterised by the supply of bribes by individuals or firms for favours or to avoid costs. It also involves the looting of state coffers by public officials in the public sector and fraudulent transactions in the private sector (Rose-Ackerman, 1997: 31). According to Transparency Intenational (TI), Africa is the most corrupt continent. In their 2005

report, 33 out of the 44 nations covered have signs of rampant corruption (TI, 2005: 5). Besides the negativity raised by such reports, corruption as a vice impacts heavily on the performance of a nation as a whole. Corruption mainly increases the cost of doing business in a country because of its tax-like nature. At the same time, it also leads to red tape delays as individuals and firms are required fulfil certain requirements. This as a result discourages investment in the country hence denying the country the much needed foreign investments (Gyimah-Brempong, 2002: 184185). The mere mention of names such as Mobutu Sese Seko and Sani Abacha provides clear examples of just how damaging corruption can be to an economy. Related to corruption is the issue of nepotism. Nepotism refers to the allocation of scarce resources to individuals in terms of their relationship to the provider rather than their abilities. In African, this phenomenon is rampant due to the numerous divisions among state subjects. A higher incidence of nepotism in a country is catastrophic for governments, investors and citizens alike due to the unqualified judgements that such individuals can make. This in effect renders instability in the country. HIV/AIDS In modern times, there is no disease that has ravaged the African continent that the HIV/AIDS virus. Even though it is second, after malaria when it comes to mortality, its effects are largely felt by the continent as a whole. Out of the 39 million people infected with the virus, 25 million of them reside in the continent. Within the continent, the virus is more of an issue in some regions while in others it is just like other diseases. In West Africa, the highest prevalence rate is in Gabon at a high of 7.9 percent while in southern Africa, Swaziland leads with a shocking rate of 33.4 percent. Regardless of differentials in prevalence rates, the impact of this virus on is similar across all countries. This virus is very rife among persons between the ages of 25 to 49, which coincidentally covers most of the labour force. This therefore places the burden on the few workers left and often forces individuals outside the working age to cater for themselves (HSRC, 2004: 17). At the same time, this virus currently accounts for more than 2 million deaths and has orphaned more than 12 million children in the continent. With such a high toll, this virus as a result forces governments to allocate

already scarce resources towards the disease. For most African countries, these resources would have been well utilised in other wanting sectors of the economy (Mutangadura, 2002: 2015). Food Crisis A discussion on Africa can never end without the issue of food shortages being raised. Due to the unfavourable climatic conditions in most African countries, starvation as a result is of common occurrence. From time to time various governments have been forced to call on the international community to help them feed their starving citizens. According to Amartya Sen (1999: 75), the 1998 Nobel price winner for economic science and also the author of the book, Development and Freedom, this is often caused by lack of purchasing power or entitlement but not the actual food shortage. For instance, a country like Kenya experiences annual famines but still continues to constantly export cash crops such as coffee, tea, fruits and flowers to developed countries in the hope of getting foreign exchange at the expense of their starving citizens. Because of the structure of the global economy, such countries therefore place developed countries needs over those of their subjects. As a result, they therefore contribute to the poverty and inequality problems that they claim to be trying to fight. The Debt Crisis The debt crisis that most African countries face today is as a result of less informed decisions made by their leaders immediately after independence. During this period, their leaders came up with capital intensive projects that they envisaged would help to leapfrog their countries to levels of their industrialised counterparts. It was only realised after the commitment of funds that most of these projects were mere white elephants and abandoned. This situation was worsened further by the oil crisis in the 1970s. To sort this, Bretton Woods institutions, in the form of International Monetary Funds (IMF) and the World Bank came up with Structural Adjustment Programs (SAP) that set conditions that countries had to meet before they were offered loans. These conditions included, cutting of social expenditure, trade liberalization, or lifting import and export restrictions, Removing price controls and state subsidies, privatization of all or part of state-owned enterprises, improving governance and fighting corruption and devaluation of overvalued currencies. In principle, these

conditions were to ensure the efficient use and repayment of borrowed loans. In practise however, these conditions made the problems even worse. The cutting of social expenditure and state subsidies saw millions of people slipping below the poverty line. Trade liberalisation meant that the countries were now open to cheap products, which meant massive job losses in local industries. Agricultural reform saw many people leaving rural areas for urban areas that saw the development of mega slums. As for critics, these conditions were seen as threats to sovereignty because external organisations were dictating nations economic policies (Poku, 2002: 531546). Africas Political Problems. Most of Africas political problems stem from the socio-economic issues discussed above. As a response to corrupt regimes, military generals as in the case of Nigeria and DRC have to overthrowal of elected but oppressive governments. Unresolved ethnic tensions as in the case of Rwanda and Burundi have led to civil wars that almost saw the extermination of an ethnic grouping. Food and debt crisis with their respective consequences have seen the endorsement policies as in the case of Zimbabwe that have led to unprecedented political and economical turmoil. Such developments have reduced the efficiency of the state in the resource allocation process and as a result, most African states have either been declared as weak or failed states. Failed states are described as those states involved in deeply conflicted and contested clashes. In such states all the institutions apart from the executive are usually non-operational. As a result, the main preoccupation such a government is to push for legitimacy of the executive across the territory. In response government troops are often faced with insurgencies from one or more rivals, whose support is usually as a result of state dissent. Weak states on the other side are those states who at risk of ending up as failed stated (Rotgberg, 2003: 5-7) According to a failed states report by Foreign Policy, more than a half of failed states in the international system are in Africa. This includes countries such as Ivory Coast, which tops the list, DRC, Sudan, Somalia and the other usual suspects. The index consists of about 60 countries out of which more than 30 are from the continent. This in effect means that more than 60 percent of the African states have failed. With such

a high representation, it is probably correct to conclude that Africa as a whole is a failed continent (Foreign Policy, 2005: 1).

Conclusion Most problems that the African continent faces today can trace their roots to the advent and demise of colonisation. At the initial stages of colonisation, critical issues regarding states and their constituents were overlooked. In the aftermath, overzealous post-independent leaders miscalculated state capacities. These errors combined have then resulted in current problems that African states have to confront. As we have seen, these problems reduce the overall efficiency of the state and in some cases lead to failed or weak states. With this in mind, it is therefore important for African leaders to selflessly come up with lasting solutions to these problems.

Bibliography Foreign Policy. 2005. Special Reports: The Failed States Index Rankings. Foreign Policy. Gyimah-Brempong, K., 2002. Corruption, Economic Growth, and Income Inequality in Africa, Economics of Governance, Vol. 3(3). HRSC. 2005. The Impact of HIV/AIDS on Land Rights. Internet source, accessed on 21 september 2006. http://www.hsrcpublishers.ac.za. Mutangadura, G., 2002. The spread and effect of HIV-1 infection in sub-Saharan Africa, The Lancet, Volume 359(9322) Poku, N., 2002. Poverty, debt and Africa's HIV/AIDS crisis. International Affairs Vol. 78 (3). Rose-Ackerman, S. 1997. Corruption and Development. In Pleskovic, B. and J. Stiglitz, (eds.) AnnualWorld Bank Conference on Development Economics 1997. World Bank, Washington D.C Rotberg, R., 2003. State Failure and State Weakness in a Time of Terror. Washington, DC: Brookings. Sen, A.,1999. Development as freedom, Anchor book, New York. TI. 2005. The Corruption Perception Index 2005. Transparency International New York.