Why is Africa Still So Poor?

the african continent is famous for its poverty but many people don't know the complete reason why africa is so poor while we all have a vague idea such as corruption colonization or foreign interference all these reasons ignore why any of these things can happen in the first place so in this video i seek to change that in this video we will look from the point when african countries were rich and powerful how over the centuries africa lost its wealth and why africa hasn't been able to crawl out of its poverty while so many other countries and foreign colonies have and to do this we need to start in the 14th century with eastern africa connected to the indian ocean trade while west africa was home to the richest person to have ever lived a man named mansa musa while many historians throughout history have concluded that africa barely has any history aside from mummies and pyramids it is important to remember that for most of history much of africa was as well connected to the rest of the world as europe or asia they developed metallurgy that was on par with europe and asia developed complex mathematical theories and had intricate systems of governments such as city-states kingdoms and empires so what changed well in the 14th and 15th century africa's prosperity began to fall behind that of the rest of the world this was because of two external forces the ottoman empire and the western european empires we will start with the ottoman empire because the ottomans required slaves and the way they got their slaves was through war they would go into villages towns and cities to capture the men women and children to be sold as slaves back home and the easiest and cheapest place to get new slaves was eastern africa and so slave traders were able to earn a lot of money by buying or capturing east africans to sell them to the ottomans this trade continued all the way into the 19th century something similar was happening with western european empires at first european traders came to africa to trade salt in exchange for gold and ivory later europeans sailed around africa to go to asia as a result west africa became an important location for european traders to stock up on supplies on the way to and from asia soon after europeans tried going to east asia directly by crossing the atlantic but instead they stumbled upon the americas in these americas the europeans set up colonies and these colonies were supposed to have the same system of government as that of europe with nobility barons clergy knights and peasants but those europeans had a problem the native americans who were supposed to become the new peasants were dying from diseases like smallpox measles bubonic plague and many more and a dead peasant is an unproductive peasant so where were they going to find new peasants for american colonies well they found them on the west african slave markets at the time west africa had slavery but it wasn't the type of slavery we often think of a slave often had similar rights as non-slaves their children weren't automatically slaves themselves and they were often part of the family structure rather than a separate worker and so european traders began buying slaves from west africa west africans were happy to sell european slaves because their own gold mines were drying up in the 15th century and they were looking for a new way to earn money but how do you get new slaves well you go to war for them various african countries went to war with their neighbors captured their citizens and then sought those citizens to the europeans prominent slaver countries were the ghana empire the mali empire the bono state and the songhai empire from the perspective of african rulers this seemed like a good deal they were weakening their rivals while earning lots of money in the process and so over time slavery changed from a relatively small market where slaves had rights into a large system of warfare where slaves became property to be sold to the highest bidder this evolved into a system where slave traders would go to africa to buy slaves and put as many as they could fit onto their ships they would then sail to the americas where those slaves were sold to work to death in the fields those slave traders then bought raw materials those slaves produced such as sugar cane cotton or cocoa sail to europe and sell those raw materials for a profit in europe those materials would be turned into manufactured goods like rum clothing or weapons the traders then bought those manufactured goods and sailed back to africa to sell those manufactured goods and use the profits to buy new slaves this was a good deal for everybody except the slaves the americans received slaves to use in the plantations the europeans received raw materials and the west africans received manufactured goods and the plight of the slaves was not an issue to any of them while at times europeans tried taking slaves by force this always failed because the african kingdoms were far too strong at the time and so they maintained friendly relations which whichever country was willing to sell slaves over the centuries empires collapsed into civil wars and the slave traders were more than willing to buy their former slave partners as slaves to be shipped after the americas and so as empires rose and fell there were always merchants willing to buy slaves such has happened in the kingdom of congo which fell apart into various factions each of those factions needed weapons and money to fund their war effort and so they captured slaves from other parts of the former kingdom of congo and sold them to portuguese traders as the europeans founded more and more colonies in the americas the more slaves could be sold and the richer the trader became and this trade had a long-term effect on the economies of africa both in west africa as well as east africa with the ottomans because before industrialization the economy of a country was determined by the amount of people living in the country the more people you had the larger your economy was and if you had a large economy then you could have a small portion of your population focus on producing things other than food in europe for example craftspeople produced all sorts of things from alcoholic drinks steel muskets cigars and of course that sweet sweet delicious chocolate but it took centuries for those industries to fully mature but in africa these industries never matured like they did in the rest of the world because in africa craftspeople were enslaved and this had a tremendous impact on the african economies while european asian and american industries kept growing and kept improving africa's industries stagnated and soon they could no longer compete with european and asian imports and the african industries became small and insignificant because you could buy better and cheaper products from asian and european markets but you might be asking yourselves why did the africans go along with this well because they had to when you have several warlike empires surrounding you you yourself have to invest in a strong military to protect yourself but if you put more money in the military it means there is less money for you to spend on your own economy so if an african leader realized what was going on they couldn't invest in industries because they had to protect themselves and so all the way into the 19th century africa's economies were slowly declining because the slave trade slowly destroyed the african economies while making a huge profit for those who captured and sold slaves but why did western europeans and the ottomans weakened africa for hundreds of years well because it was convenient for the people in charge at that time it wasn't some grand plan but instead each government trader and company saw an opportunity in africa to earn profit this profit came at the expense of african long-term wealth with most of the people involved probably not even realizing this and when a particular region becomes weaker there are always the strong who will exploit the weak and in the 19th century three major events happened that would solidify african poverty the first was the end of slavery all of a sudden african slave traders were losing customers because slavery was becoming illegal across the world and this was a big problem for african countries because their economies relied on exporting slaves and importing foreign goods but now they lost their main source of income and because africa had not built up any other industries because of the slave trade it did not have another sorts of income with which it could trade with the outside world so africans could no longer buy many of the goods and tools they relied on and as a result the african economies slowly collapsed in the 19th century the second major event in the 19th century was industrialization europeans and americans started to out produce the rest of the world africa became insignificant in world affairs by the middle of the 19th century and many of the stereotypes about africans such as that they have no history no established government and various racist beliefs came about in this time period when africa had become weak with little to offer the outside world and the outside world taking little interest in africa and then the third major event happened in the 1870s with africa's economy in shambles and european industrialization in full swing europe all of a sudden had the ability to transport vast amounts of heavy materials across oceans before it would not be profitable to transport heavy oars from africa to europe because the technology simply wasn't available yet to make it profitable but steam technology meant trains steamboats and factories that could transport and produce goods at a profit and in 1871 the king of belgium decided that belgium should have a colony looked at the world map and noticed that africa was both weak and available and so once again the strong took advantage of the weak soon other european nations joined and almost all of africa was colonized by western and southern european empires until africa looked like this and like this after world war one and this had three significant results for africa the first is the increased poverty european colonizers cut little for the people living in the colony africans were driven out of the most fertile regions to make space for european settlers plantations were built for africans to work and for europeans to own and the taxis africans paid were rarely spent on improving their lives but instead on continuing their own oppression the european colonizers were only interested in extracting wealth from their colonies by constructing roads railroads and ports to transport raw materials to europe and north america in essence whatever wealth africans had were systematically taken from them and handed over to european settlers a prominent example is the congo free state where they worked millions of people to their deaths by the way if you're curious what the free stands for in the congo free state it meant free of oversight so the rulers of the colony could exploit the locals without any interference the second is the infrastructure which was designed specifically to transport raw materials to their european overlords the first president of togo said it quite well the effects of the policy of the colonial powers has been the economic isolation of peoples who live side by side in some instances within a few miles of each other although i can call paris from my office telephone here in la may i cannot place a call to lagos in nigeria only 250 miles away again while it takes a short time to send an airmail letter to paris it takes several days for the same ladder to reach akra a mere 132 miles away railroads rarely connect at international boundaries roads have been constructed from the coast inland but very few join economic centers of trade the productive central regions of togo benin and ghana are as remote from each other as if they were on separate continents and the third result was that by replacing all the african leaders with european leaders that africa was losing vital skills in terms of governing themselves such as business managers government leaders or accountants as well as practical skills such as mechanics construction workers or medical professionals and that was a problem when africans started demanding their independence after world war ii when protests riots and rebellions popped up across the continent until the colonizers realized that a few million europeans simply couldn't control over 200 million africans if those africans refused to cooperate and so between 1945 and 1975 almost every african country became independent at the time it was thought that if africans would once again rule africa that wealth would follow soon but this didn't happen but why not history has shown us that former colonies can become wealthy countries such as new zealand ireland or south korea yet not a single country in africa is what we call a developed country and the reason for this is the way in which the colonizers left africa because when people don't have the skills to run a country when communities don't connect to each other and when prosperity is already rare it becomes very difficult for the leaders of that country to bring prosperity to that country but at the same time leaders of african independence movements promise the african people prosperity after independence so how were african leaders going to fulfill this promise of wealth and prosperity well for most african countries the solution was an economic system called african socialism the way this system works is that many industries would be controlled by the national government such as mining construction plantations etc it would then use all of the nation's resources to industrialize because at the time manufacturing jobs paid higher salaries than farming jobs and so decided that the best way for africa to become rich was to replace low-paying jobs in agriculture and mining with high-paying jobs in factories it made foreign goods more expensive by putting extra taxes on those goods arguing that if foreign products are more expensive then people will need to buy goods from their own country instead the leaders were hoping that foreign investors would come to their countries because those foreign businesses wouldn't have to pay those extra taxes if they just moved some of their factories to africa and luckily for africa at the time they gained independence during a cold war and so they could receive foreign aid from either the west or the soviet union in exchange for being on their side in the cold war and while of course every african country had different economic policies they were all kind of similar to this but african socialism simply didn't work first of all the trade restrictions meant that african countries couldn't sell products to each other meaning that it was hard to find customers to buy any products made in africa as a result none of the industries could grow large enough to be able to compete with the industries of north america europe or east asia and so nobody else wanted to buy african goods because they could get those same goods better and cheaper from other countries secondly a single large government isn't able to adapt to changes in world markets as quickly as hundreds of smaller businesses meaning that centrally planned economies will always be less efficient than economies which have a lot of different businesses competing with each other thirdly africans simply lacked the skills and education required to work in manufacturing jobs in the first place meaning that they were far less efficient than their better educated counterparts in the rest of the world for example out of the 200 million black africans in the 1950s only 8 000 received secondary education 200 a university education and one third of the student age population went to primary school so it would take decades before enough qualified professionals would join the job market and so african countries select the people needed to make their countries thrive the fourth reason why it didn't work is not so much about african socialism itself but about the continent of africa because africa's landscape is harsh with some places experiencing droughts lasting years such as the drought which lasted from 1968 to 73 causing large food shortages while other parts have locusts and red-billed cuellar birds which make agriculture nearly impossible the fifth reason was disease yellow fever smallpox sleeping sickness and malaria about a few of the diseases which plagued african development and while smallpox was being eradicated new diseases were spreading such as river blindness where worms live inside your eyes and have become the second largest cause of blindness worldwide orteg bilharzia caused by a worm which likes to live in rivers it infects the urinary tract or intestines which can lead to kidney failure infertility and in children can cause poor growth and learning disabilities all of these diseases are easily preventable in rich countries with access to water sanitation facilities and modern medicine but because africans were poor they couldn't afford the doctors clinics and medicine they needed to fight those diseases and so a combination of trade barriers inefficient governments a lack of education harsh environments and disease meant that this system was doomed to fail from the beginning there was simply no way for any african nation to reach wealth and prosperity at that time because of the underdeveloped countries they inherited from their former colonizers but this raises a new question why did african countries choose this system in the first place well the reason is that this was a system which they inherited from their former colonizers where the colonial government controlled nearly every aspect of the colony's economy and if they wanted to switch to a free market system like western europe east asia or north america then they would need business people and entrepreneurs to set up new businesses but the problem with this is that africans weren't allowed to run businesses under colonialism so the entrepreneurial attitude didn't exist on top of that due to colonialism africans were never trained in modern skills so if you wanted to open a factory for example it would be impossible to find qualified employees who knew how to run the machines and factories in today's world we know the answer to this dilemma because we've seen countries like singapore vietnam and china in similar predicaments but back in the 1940s through 70s there were no such examples to follow except for countries like japan and the ussr who had gained economic development through strict government control and so africa's leaders thought that african socialism was the best way to create wealth and prosperity for their countries except those two countries did so through the deaths of millions and already had an educated population when they began their economic development projects let's compare this to a colony which did become wealthy after independence south korea they decided to focus on just a few industries such as electronics agriculture and steel and only putting trade barriers on those products south korea would then trade those products with things it didn't produce itself as a result south korea became a world leader in things like electronics and has become one of the richest countries in the world but this only explains why africa didn't become wealthy right after independence however after a few decades africans would have better education and would be able to indeed set up african businesses using african labor to create african industry yet this didn't happen until the 21st century so why didn't this happen earlier well this has a lot to do with the corruption that emerged after independence shortly before independence most african colonies became democratic and these democracies were very unstable because they had only been around for a few years in most cases we still see this today where recent democracies tend to be the least stable democracies and most african nations were not at all united some countries were lucky in that most people spoke the same language while other countries had hundreds of different languages and good luck trying to run a political campaign in over a hundred languages so instead politicians realized that they could more easily win votes if they targeted specific ethnic groups as a result politics was divided along ethnic lines and african countries became more and more divided with each election in the 1960s and 70s so now groups of people were not only divided based on ethnicity but also separated politically based on where they were born from the perspective of a politician this made perfect sense if you want to win votes appeal to certain ethnic groups but from the perspective of the country as a whole it made the country more difficult to govern over time and if a candidate decided to appeal to the whole country instead of specific ethnic groups then they would lose elections and so through a natural process african nations tended to become more divided after independence all thanks to the social and political systems left behind by their former colonisers a prominent example of what is went horribly wrong was rwanda with the rwandan genocide where over half a million members of the tutsi ethnic group were massacred along with many other crimes against humanity once a party got into power they would try to keep the power for themselves many africans saw democracy as nothing more than a mess of infighting with opposition parties abusing their power to hinder the greater national interest therefore a single party system was created in many african nations in the years following independence by crushing the opposition and in countries with hundreds of different cultures and languages it makes sense that you wouldn't want to deal with all of them vying for power by the 1980s the elites had taken full control over the political system in most african countries and so very little changed after independence with european elites replaced with african elites and those new elites were concerned that they would be overthrown in a coup so how are they going to keep themselves in power well by taking the money intended for economic development and handing them out as salaries to powerful government officials to keep them happy enough that they wouldn't start a rebellion but whereas colonies had oversight from their european government who would fire anyone getting too corrupt the new leaders had no such oversight and to show just how incompetent some of these governments are in the central african republic the government didn't even keep proper records of financial transactions by 1964 senegal spent 47 percent of the government budget on the elites 58 percent in ivory coast and 65 percent in the homemade now called benin and if outsiders wanted access to african resources all they had to do was bribe government officials to get access and so african governments and companies started paying money to the african elites to gain access to the resources rich nations needed to run their own economies as a result the elites became richer while the poor became even poorer so if you're an oil company all you have to do is bribe government officials and you can extract all the oil that you want the elites would get a portion of the profits while the people would see no benefits from resources taken from their own country this is a system which is still active in many parts of africa to this day and if you're a country or company who does not want to give money to corrupt politicians then there will always be somebody else who is willing to pay as a result anyone who thinks morality is more important than those resources will always be by the ones who are willing to pay the bribe thus you create a system where world leaders who are willing to pay those bribes will always have an advantage over those who won't pay bribes and over time bribes had become the norm in africa the africans were not stupid of course and saw what was happening they would often protest or even start rebellions to stop their own exploitation but in the 1960s african countries did not have a strong enough military to keep the peace so who did they call upon to restore order well they're former colonizers [Music] the french and british in particular suppressed rebellions and protests across africa in exchange for greater access to african resources for example in 1962 french troops broke up fighting in what is now called the republic of congo and put down a rebellion in cameroon the british meanwhile suppressed mutinies in kenya and tanzania by 1965 these military interventions became common across africa from algeria to congo benin the central african republic upper volta ghana nigeria ethiopia all independent countries and all had european troops stationed there to secure european access to african resources african nations experienced around 40 successful coups within the first two decades after independence and so africa gained a reputation for being a very unstable country so unstable in fact that almost nobody wanted to invest in africa anymore except for their resources and this highlights another issue people think of africa as a single entity a continent filled with poverty and war so when someone hears about for example boko haram in nigeria it is often grouped with the rest of africa as just being another war in a continent filled with war yet what most people don't realize is that the area in which they operate is over a thousand kilometers away from nigeria's economic centers and has almost no effect on business they are further away than amsterdam is from warsaw but companies will still refuse to do business in africa because of this belief and this creates a cycle people group africa together as a poor continent resulting in less business which results in africa staying in poverty it is for this reason that throughout this video i have used the words most almost all or few quite a lot to show that africa is a diverse area and simply cannot be grouped together in most cases due to this diversity in peoples landscapes and cultures despite all these issues some things did improve in africa by the 1980s african politics started to stabilize with fewer coups primary school enrollment went from 36 percent to 63 secondary school from 3 to 13. life expectancy rose from 39 to 47 and the medical professionals per person doubled on the whole though the average african was becoming poorer however africans were receiving better healthcare and education and this would be very important for africa by the 1980s because in the 1980s africa faced three major issues the first was that the infrastructure it did have started to break down meaning that raw materials became far more difficult to export the second was that africans who did receive a proper education decided to move to another country where they would receive a better salary meaning that africa was losing its smartest and best educated people and the third was the fall of the soviet union by the 1980s the soviet union decided to stop participating in the cold war and focus on its own economy as a result it was no longer sending as much money to african allies in turn western countries decided that they were also going to send less money to africa so all of a sudden african leaders no longer had enough money to keep themselves in power with the system of bribes and so african leaders decided to ask western nations for financial aid but this time those western nations were no longer interested in giving money directly instead african nations would have to sign loans with rich countries and in exchange african countries would have to reform their economies in such a way that it would become easier for companies to do business in those countries and while various industries were privatized and free markets emerged most african countries underwent few reforms and the reason they underwent so few reforms is that african dictators had an idea they could pretend to privatize their economy by selling the privatization to the highest bidder basically doing what they had been doing for the past couple of decades bribes in exchange for access to african markets so in effect nothing changed except that this time western institutions supported this process by rewarding those dictators through foreign aid packages making bribes even more profitable in nigeria for example the government privatized various state-owned businesses of which 80 percent of the shares were owned by the leaders of the country in effect not changing anything at all in kenya uganda zaire guinea and senegal they sold government businesses to the friends and family of government leaders the only businesses which actually saw significant investments were oil and mineral extraction which just like in the 60s and 70s had been sold off to the highest bidder by bribing government officials as a result the 1980s is often dubbed africa's last decade and why africa remained poor until 1989 because protests were erupting all over the world the soviet union eastern europe taiwan south korea china and africa africans were once again protesting their own oppression and so rich countries decided to switch tactics instead of giving money to dictators for fake privatisation they instead gave money to countries who reformed their government to be more democratic and so dictatorships faced two issues at once on the one hand their own people were getting restless while on the other hand their income was decreasing and so the elites allowed for a small amount of reform enough to appease the people and the rich countries but not enough that they would be removed from power spread across africa to zaire ghana nigeria togo gibbon cameroon kenya uganda malawi south africa until it spread across the continent with of course various exceptions while some governments resisted such as for example the central african republic most did democratize at least slightly each country had their own struggles of course but in general the continent made slow but steady progress towards democracy even today we still see this progress in action in africa as elections are often contested and often unfair yet it is more democratic than a complete dictatorship and this process has made africa more stable and more open for doing business in the early 90s and now new leaders were in charge of africa and these leaders had to fight corruption in order to fight poverty and by fighting poverty they could stay in power as this would earn them votes in future elections they reduce the government's role in the economy encourage growth in the private sector allowed africans who were much better educated than in the 1960s to use their skills to develop their country and attracted investors from abroad these policies primarily focused on using the strengths of africans themselves rather than by having policies enforced upon them by the outside world the african renaissance can only succeed if its aims and objectives are defined by africans themselves if its programs are designed by africans ourselves and if we take responsibility for the success or failure of our policies african countries started to work together more through institutions like the african union by reducing trade barriers to make trade between african countries easier investing in stable governments to make sure that you didn't have to worry about a civil war right across your border and by creating various agencies to cultivate african talents and these trends have had an effect in the last three decades with some african countries now being the fastest growing economies in the world and so we arrive in the 21st century where history is too recent to make any real historical analyses however there are some trends worth noting africa is still facing many issues they are the least prepared for climate change while probably suffering the most under it a third of all children are malnourished a third of children don't finish high school extremists find it easy to recruit the vast amounts of poor unemployed young people pandemics are common across the continent with covet being just one among many and the economic development of africa is limited to certain countries african countries are looking at the economic successes of east asian countries and are adapting those policies for their own countries this is resulting in factories agricultural centers and tech centers being opened across many african nations for example they are able to use the fact that africa and europe have the same time zones and take over various administrative jobs from european-based companies for a lower price a new generation of africans is entering the job markets that are better educated and better skilled than any african generation that came before with these hard-working and talented people african governments have created economic policies to harness the talents of africans by letting them set up their own businesses in a free market which generates wealth by africans for africans in africa for example take the hyacinth plant an invasive species on lake victoria african scientists developed a method of turning this invasive species into protein-rich animal feed this feed is now being sold across the world in the 21st century developments like these are creating a fast-growing middle class with rising spending power this middle class will want to buy things with that extra money and this will allow africa to sell more goods to other africans which in turn allows africans to create industries specifically suited for the african market a market often neglected by rich countries and while africa is still in the position where it mostly exports raw materials it is currently experiencing an economic development that if it continues will finally bring an end to the large-scale poverty that has systematically plagued africa for centuries africans are not just hopeful of the future but for the first time since colonization are actually gaining the tools that will create this future and yet despite all the information in this video there is a lot which i had to leave out such as for example the disastrous agricultural programs which cause famines in areas with some of the most fertile land in the world economic successes which eventually failed due to corruption are the french financial systems linking african currencies to france i therefore left articles and youtube videos in the description with more information about africa in particular information written by africans themselves if you're from africa or are an expert on africa then please share more information about this topic in the comments i will heart react once that provide more information so people can learn even more about africa and please leave a like comment and subscribe to appease the almighty algorithm this was avery from history scope thank you for watching

Channel: History Scope

Views: 716,141

Rating: 4.702105 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: TW46xDXNO3Q

Length: 40min 16sec (2416 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 28 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/Naekyr]

Poor management, poor education, constant civil wars

Africa is more like feudal Japan and needs to be more like modern Japan

[u/WhatZGoodInDaH00D]

One word... Corruption!

[u/Redsap]

This popped up in my video feed the other day. I thought it would be a waste of time, but I sat through the whole 40 minutes because it was very interesting and framed the commentary on this question both from an historical context, as well as a 21st century context.

For me it expanded my understanding of how complex societies are, specifically in terms of building generational capacity on the education / manufacturing / capital assets side of things, and how long after something has passed, its legacy still has a lingering effect on the present day.

[u/MaNaeSWolf]

Is this a long video describing how South Africa has had bad governments that always discriminate against a part of the population for more than a few centuries?