Abstract
AbstractThis chapter is aimed at objectively assessing various possible reasons for Africa’s poverty and underdevelopment. It reviews the conventional or popular explanations for Africa’s prolonged predicament, as well as other factors possibly negatively impacting Africa. The topics addressed are colonial legacies, ethnicism and neo-patrimonialism; institutions, governance and democracy, the role of government; natural conditions like climate and geography, and other factors including corruption and globalization. The author sizes up the existing views or discourses from critical perspective and, in the process, sheds new lights on what are commonly misunderstood.
Highlights
This chapter is a prelude to the chapter, which will unearth the root cause of Africa’s underdevelopment
Can historical experiences have a profound impact on the nations to the extent that they leave a permanent imprint in their lives and determine their fate? Certainly, our civilization, cultures and traditions, social behaviour patterns and even the way in which we view the world can be affected by the events of the past
The colonialists’ indirect rule in Africa produced ‘decentralized despotism’, giving rise of new chiefs who become more despotic as they were empowered by colonial authority that was not embedded in local societies, which undermined the existing mode of accountability.[2]
Summary
Dismayed by Africa’s seemingly never-ending troubles amid concerns that the region may be entrenched in an ever-deepening fix, people from both the region and the development community may be inclined to either find scapegoats to take the blame or to come up with excuses. The objective of this book is to make the case that there is such a thing as a principal root cause for Africa’s underdevelopment and to provide ideas on how it can be redressed. I will very briefly discuss conventional explanations or arguments that are frequently made as to what constitutes a fundamental cause or a set of fundamental causes for Africa’s continuing poverty and other troubles. These include: colonial legacies; ethnicism and neo-patrimonialism; institutions, governance and democracy; the role of government; natural conditions like climate and geography; and other factors (geography, corruption, globalization and China)
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