Why is poverty still endemic in Africa?

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The continent of Africa has for many generations been regarded as the poorest continent in the world. Experts in the fields of economics, human rights, history and international politics have dedicated their entire academic lives to explaining the problems associated with poverty in Africa. General themes of drought and famine, poor infrastructure, disease, post-colonial civil wars and often corrupt governments are evident across the entire continent, and have been for the last sixty years. For the purpose of this paper, two of the most populous countries in Africa will be examined in more detail – Nigeria and Ethiopia. Although they are not the poorest of the African nations, both share the same socio-economic problems – high unemployment, inflation, inherent need for constant international aid and consequent sub-standard living conditions. The future of Nigeria looks brighter than it ever did, but unfortunately the same can not be said about Ethiopia. For Africa as a whole, it remains bleak, with vast portions of the population subject to a significantly poorer standard of living than in the West. The 1880s saw a flurry of imperialistic ventures into Africa by the most powerful nations of Europe. Known as the “scramble for Africa”, Great Britain, Spain, Belgium, Holland, France, Portugal, Germany and Italy carved the continent up between themselves, giving very little to no regard to existing populations. Inevitably, such rapid colonization and very little forward planning lead to the odd flare up of tensions between rival powers, and between existing kingdoms. Only Ethiopia and Liberia remained independent throughout this colonization period up until 1914. Africa both in the First and Second World Wars became a battleground between the warring European nations and while much of fighting took place between European soldiers, local populations were also
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