Why Africa is so rich, yet so poor

It is a paradox isn´t it? Africa is arguably the world´s richest continent. Professor Ali Mazrui called it a ´Treasure Island´. As a continent, we own about 50 per cent of the world´s gold reserves, the world´s largest diamond reserves, manganese, chromium, cobalt, several millions of acres of untilled farmland, and other numerous natural resources. In spite of all these, Africans are still the most impoverished people in the world. Its people live in the poorest situations imaginable. The bottom 25 spots of the United Nations quality of life index are regularly filled by African nations. In the year 2000, about half of the world's poor were in Africa. Indeed, Africa remains the only continent to have become poorer in the past 25 years. Over 400 million people in Africa live on less than a dollar per day.

Several of the world´s smartest economists, analysts, intellectuals and scholars have sought answers as to the reasons for Africa´s never ending poverty. After thinking thoroughly, I have come up with my own reasons. This write-up is not in any way exhaustive of the problems of Africa, but it tackles, to an extent, some of the major reasons Africa still remains so embarrassingly poor.

In my own regard, insufficient education has been a major contributing factor to the poverty of Africa, and while it may sound cliché, this can never be overemphasized. Education changes everything. The majority of African children today do not have access to sound education which is required to open up their minds to knowledge and skills needed to equip them to discover ideas and opportunities that will create jobs and put people in employment.

African governments still have a lot to do in terms of education. Education in most African countries is still beyond the reach of many because of the costs involved and African governments do little or nothing to support parents, guardians and sponsors in sending children to school. I must commend the Kenyan government for the Higher Education Loan Board (HELB) which sees to it that students and parents struggling with school fees can access loans that will help with their education. Apart from the Kenyan, and a few other African governments, the majority of African governments have very little initiative to ensure easy accessibility to education. Without this education, the African people will never have the wherewithal to developing the continent, or be able to identify and exploit the numerous materials on our African soils and seas. It is for insufficient enlightenment that Western countries come to us, give us peanuts in the form of foreign aid, and then exploit our resources for their own benefit. We are poor because we do not have the know-how to exploit our own resources and such. We are poor because these foreign nations take us for fools in international trade, because we are not informed enough to negotiate properly.

And then we as Africans contribute to our poverty ourselves. With the incessant tribal-ethnic wars and clashes that has become so much identified with Africa, we destroy the little development we have achieved by burning down each other´s houses, land and other properties that would have brought some level of economic prosperity to our continent. We also kill intelligent minds that might have changed the economy of Africa.

The corruption of our African leaders cannot be overlooked as well. When international donors throw aid our way to develop our African economy, our leaders, instead of using the monies for the purposes for which they were given, rather choose to ignore the plight of the people they are supposed to serve, and instead, indulge in materialistic tendencies. Our leaders have been known to embezzle funds, buy castles round the world, and open up Swiss bank accounts while the majority of the people languish in poverty. How is Africa supposed to move out of poverty when our leaders keep acting like Africa´s monies are a part of their private investment fund?

Also, Africans do not support their own. When we have young, intelligent people who come up with breakthrough ideas in business, technology or science, how often do governments or financial institutions support them? One of the things that have kept America and other Western countries still leading the world is their ability and willingness to support people with exceptional ideas that would create employment opportunities for thousands of people and bring economic prosperity. Access to financing from government or financial institutions to develop big ideas is difficult in this part of the world. We have medical doctors who have come up with Anti-retroviral drugs and other breakthroughs in science and medicine, but we choose not to support them, but rather go for the same type of drugs made in Europe. How are we supposed to succeed if we cannot support our own?

If Africa is ever going to take its rightful place among the superpowers and leave the realm of poverty, it must first and foremost educate and invest in its people. We must gain knowledge enough so as to be able to deal intelligently with our western counterparts in trade and commerce. Africa must believe in the strength and power of its own ideas and support entrepreneurial and inventive minds that have the potential to create new ventures that would open up more job opportunities for the people. Africans must also quit destroying themselves along tribal, ethnic and religious lines because in the long run, our continent is the poorer for it. We must also nurture a new set of leaders- leaders of intelligence and character who will put the needs of the people as top priority, and work towards elevating them from poverty, rather than get obsessed in their pursuit of financial security. Once Africa can take these into consideration, Africa will leave poverty and enter into the realm of prosperity.