In this paper, we investigated whether civil wars in Africa have economic and political causes. The model is based on the Collier-Hoeffler “greed” and “grievance” theory in which rebels will conduct a civil war for “loot-seeking” and “justiceseeking” reasons. Using logit models the propositions were tested empirically. In particular six variables - GDP per capita growth rate in the preceding period, the amount of natural resources (proxied by primary commodity exports-GDP ratio), peace duration, democracy, social fractionalisation, and population size - are significant and strong determinants of the onset of civil wars in Africa. The policy implication is the combination of economic diversification, poverty and population reduction, and political reforms so as to prevent conflict situations in African countries.