Why is Africa still suffering?

Question

Given the huge amount of money donated by various countries, celebrities, charities (unicef, united nations, etc.), fund raising concerts by world class and elite artists/musicians, not to mention the NGOs working to raise money, why is Africa still suffering? Is corruption rampant in Africa? Is unicef or other various donating charities not doing their jobs right? What? Or maybe those fund raising concerts are all lies, telling people they are going to donate the amount of tickets sold so people would come and watch the show but apparently its not being donated or only a small chunk of it is donated. All those little children suffering, its just sad. Really sad.

Answer 1

Some of Africa is doing really bad right now as has been for a while but the news does not tell the whole story. Many African countries are doing great and as a whole a lot of money is being made, in terms of corruption there is a lot of dictators in Africa that use their countries resources for themselves and the government just keeps tight control of the people. Alot of African people are nomads and live in huts is that suffering maybe but they just have not changed in 1000s of years,charity is like giving a someone a fish without teaching them how to fish you have to keep giving them fish.

*EDIT* Suz225 i know this is chatting but DID you say Africa does not have many natural resources that developed countries do not want How about abundant natural resources Gold Diamonds Oil mineral like copper and salt What the h**l have you been studying!

Answer 2

Read "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" by John Perkins.

And Razor Jim is an idiot.

Answer 3

Almost nobody from our advanced government really want to help poorer country. Believe me, I personally work in a third world country by personal choice (I am from Canada).

Our nice and neat governments, be it from Canada, the US and Europe are for the most part "helping" with loans (call it aid or whatever, it is a loan when you pay interests), with skyrocketing interest. A donation is mostly accompanied with "conditions": ex. mining, exploring for petrol, and giving unfair advantage to Canadian, Usaans or European countries.

Then associations are asking us, the people to provide money, because OUR governments were pushing their friend´s agendas instead of providing real help to these countries. What these people need is not food, water and instant relieves... They need to be taught how to grow their own food, purify their water and teach their own kids.

Our descendants will see us worst then Spain in the American discovery when they traded mirrors for gold. The US are printing papers, calling it “money”, with no backing of either economic activities or gold. These dollars will become worthless when our current economic system collapse. Yet we will keep the gold, diamonds, copper, Uranium, petrol, cocoa, sugar, vanilla and so much more, while they will keep their pieces of papers we shipped them by boatloads. How can a country called the richest one on the planet be in that position when their commercial balance have been negative for half a century ? The normal guy in the US can start to feel the pressure and the misery of poverty today, and this will become worst and worst through the future years. Yet the Rockefeller's and the Morgans will just get richer while normal people starve to death. To them, nobody except themselves matter, be it Africa or the US, they just play the whole planet with the Federal Reserve (half private/half government).

That is why Africa still suffer.

Answer 4

You're right.  The suffering in Africa, particularly is very sad and I cannot watch video clips on TV showing babies and children starving.  However, we must understand that virtually all African countries are composed of tribes, which for thousands of years lived within the confines of a boundary and within the rules of tribal customs.  It is very difficult for African people to break away into the 21st century and adapt to modern Judeo-Christian ethics of law, order and compassion.  As a result most African nations are run by tribal thugs who have no respect for human life.  They are corrupt and calloused to human suffering.  The same thing is going on in the Middle East where religious and tribal customs govern the extent  of how people live and suffer.  Disease and starvation continues to rampant because of inept and corrupt governments, and until we can instill in them the need for democratic reforms instead of tribal beliefs, nothing will change.  Sorry to give you such a glum picture.

Answer 5

It is tragic....but the money raised by alot of NGO's is spent on transporting goods in that people need. The biggest problem in Africa is the lack of arable land....so that people are fighting and starving....couple that with the amount of people in need, factor in some corruption, the difficulty in getting food and shelter to where people need it the most, the costs of security for convoys to get the stuff out to the people.....its  almost an insurmountable problem. And it's putting a bandaid on an amputation.....the problems that really need to be addressed involve putting in people to teach sustainable farming, a way to get water to crops.....

And Africa has the logistical problem of not being able to get large ships into ports because the waters are so shallow.....and they don't have much that developed nations want or need, so the lack of investment in sustainable business is low.

But that being said, its up to us to try to help...and you can check out where charities are really putting their money by looking at charity watch sites on the web. Personally, I don't donate to any organization whose head makes a huge salary, and who spend most of their money in administrative costs.....Be careful where you donate....Doctors without Borders, The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, and Christian Children's fund do really good work....and make a real difference where they are.  The tragedy we are seeing in Darfur is caused by poverty, hunger, lack of water, lack of sustainable land.....and it has been and will be played out unless people who run wealthy nations stop paying lip service to doing good and start actually doing it. Another great breakthrough is the water purifying system, that is completely self sustaining that Dean Kamen just developed to help with that problem.  

The millions of dollars that go into charities, for the most part do good, its just that if an area doesn't have resources and everything needs to be brought in from somewhere else, you are racheting up the cost tremendously and the oil companies are profiting from the fuel needed to get the stuff there.

Answer 6

municipal muckraking

Answer 7

the UN is corrupt, as are many of the leaders of the african countries

Answer 8

ONE IS SUDAN CIVIL WAR FOR THE PAST 60+ YEARS. PARAMILITARY. ALL THIS MEANS VIOLENCE. PLUS THE ECONOMY LOOK AT WHAT OTHER COUNTRIES ARE DOING THERE( GETTING ALL THE PROFITS THEY CAN FROM AFRICA). REMEMBER THAT APPROXIMATELY 25000 CHILDRED ARE SLAVES WORKING IN MINES LOOKING FOR DIAMANDS, GOLD.  I ENCOURAGE YOU TO DO SOME READING ON SUDAN CONFLICT IS VERY INTERESTING.

Answer 9

Africa has too much corrupt leaders.

Answer 10

Culture, its 'leaders', corruption, lack of morals, lack of education

Answer 11

Many Factors remember not 100% of Africa is suffering its 53 countries some in the top 50 richest in the world.

Here are the many factors in order off occourance and why it effects today.

CRADLE OF HUMANKIND

Africa is where Homo Sapien Sapiens first evolved.

Africa is also where all our ancestors came from and humans lived in Africa only longer than when they first migrated. This created diversity meaning hundreds of ethnic groups were established while any where in the world is less diverse.

This would cause problems in the future as a TEAM. Togeth Everyone Achives More. In Africa they were and still are thousands of teams (diversity) no unity so only the individual grops can improve isolated and conflict opon contact like all humans do to something new.

SAHARA DESERT

When the sahara desert intensified also did the isolation of Africa to the rest of the world. This also allowed the diversity to continue in now islolated from the world. No Africa- Europe trade ever thrived or Africa- Asia trade only very small trades and ther biggest was between Arabs- Africa which was still very minamal for progression.

SLAVERY 600 AD- modern times

More than 100,000,000

Arab Slave Trade (650- 1900s)

50,000,000 or more were transported across the Sahara into Arab destinations

Trans Atlantic Slave Trade (1440s- 1850s)

40,000,000 or more were abducted by mostly African kidnappers then secondly sourced from African Kings indulging in wars to produce slaves from other ethnic groups.

Short term- 400 years communities lived in constant fear many moved to remote locations (mountains, thick forest etc) no progression could even be thought of during these times.

Large age gaps in communities un balanced demographics the elderly lest demanded to become slaves would of been most of the population also women and babays. Young adults and healthy people would of been rare.

Long term- Strengthened the differences and hatred between different ethnic groups involved in the slave trade.

Africas population suffered here are the historic populations of the three continents involved

Africa 3 times bigger than Europe

1750- 106,000,000

1800- 107,000,000

1850- 111,000,000

1900- 133,000,000

Europe a third of Africa's size

1750- 163,000,000

1800- 203,000,000

1850- 276,000,000

1900- 408,000,000

North & South Americas & Caribbean where slaves were imported to.

1750-   18,000,000

1800-   31,000,000

1850-   64,000,000

1900- 156,000,000

Only in 1997 did Africa's population equal Europe's. More than 50% of Africas population in under 25 years. With Africas population at 221,000,000 in 1950 while Europes was 547,000,000.

Countries are still effected today such as Republic of Congo and Gabon very sparely populated countries who were very involved in the slave trade.

Colonization was now possible as the continent had suffered a loss of allot of healthy men to fight wars. Sparsely populated areas many ghost towns so Europeans could enter with no problem.

Populations against the slave trade would rather trust Europeans than their leader allowing Europeans to take over.

COLONIZATION

Europeans created contries ignoring the diversity and already bad relations of diferent ethnic groups and lumped them altogether into a country.

Europeans could now take out resources for free natural minerals and profit it in Europe as if it was Europe producing them while they pretended to act as if they were helping Africa by building rail roads , roads ports all stuff made so they could export their good to Europe. Now thats very helpfull lol.

DECOLONIZATION

After ww2 holding colonies was seen as a risk for security and more problems also their economies were wealthy enough to leave. When countries in Africa became independant Europeans simply cut and ran leaving brutal Africans to simply take over the big mass of land which instituted many ethnic groups so these different leaders took big loans from the world bank in order to buy weapons and keep their leadership from the other ethnic groups taking over. Civil wars explode around Africas many countries. The loaning from world banks make debts to these African countries which means the currency falls- Business interests decreases in those countries.

UNFAIR TRADE/ Profiting off poverty, After decolonization

Due to the low currencys no business intrest were varouble making these countries simply dependant on the outside world/ western world. So desperate that they control the prices of what Africa sells. IE London detemines the price it buys good from Africa exports. Since when do you walk in a shop and say how much you are going to buy an item?? Unfair right. But theres no choice as without it they will become even poorer.

MEDIA After decolonization

Other than the debts which some are ending media is a new source of deterring business interest in Africa. By portraying Africa as filled with poverty ridden countries filled with high crime disease poor infrastructure and backwards. This makes people even think twice of going there let alone do business there. As long as the business interest are kept low can Africa keep being dependent on the Western world leaders who simply profit from poverty. They make the rules and all the decisions and play the corupt African leaders like pupets. They will not allow a clever person to be a leader of an African country because as long as there is chaos in Africa can they keep the negative media resulting in no business and dependency on western world leaders alone!

Oh and middle men of African exports make 1/3 of the whole profits alone. Charities and other things go through the world banks which again the western world controls takes out a percentage for who knows takes a percentage for the debts also then gives the rest to those corrupt leaders so they can make stupid decisions and keep Africa in chaos!

Answer 12

It’s simple: typically, the most modern thing you have in Africa are guns.  Add to that the other inequities in modern development, incomplete colonization and uprooted indigenous cultures and you have a recipe for disaster. A country cannot prosper if there is a coup or a civil war ever 7 seconds.