Developing Economies

Developing Economies

Introduction

Africa is the second largest continent (after Asia) with an area of 30.3 million km. It is unevenly distributed across the four hemispheres. It is a continent with the least developed coastline. There is no shortage of basins, which have resulted from the decrease in the Precambrian basement, filled with sediments. Mountains are few. Africa is blessed with many valuable mineral resources. Large deposits of platinum, gold, silver, and oil has been found in the country. However, African countries lack resources and infrastructure to make use of these resources. African countries are mostly poor and come under the category of Developing Economies. In this paper, we will discuss the problems of Africa especially Nigeria.

Socio Economic Problems of Africa

Some of the African countries faces serious economic development issues as they do not have the infrastructure to develop. They have to rely on developed countries to provide aid and explore and extract minerals and oil in the country like Nigeria. However, few countries Morocco, Tunisia, South Africa, Namibia, Algeria, Congo are doing a good job. Typically these are agricultural countries, which, even with an abundant harvest cannot cope with feeding the whole country, because of high population. Over 15% of the population of Africa is malnourished. Years of drought and crop failures often cause famine, during, which thousands of people die (CBN, 2000).

A large share of agriculture in national income is a characteristic, indicative of weak economic advancement of Africa. Most people are employed in agriculture. Nearly two thirds of Africans live in rural areas (Iheduru, 2001).

The natural conditions, natural disasters, low productivity, and disease do not have a positive effect on agriculture, and as a result, the food needs of the population are not met. The soils of the Black Continent are infertile, which means that only 1/3 of the continent is used for agriculture. Only 6.5% of the fields are irrigated, with over half of them in Egypt, Sudan and South Africa. Grain yields across the continent are low and are 13q/ha.

In the last two decades, the growth rate of food production per person has slightly improved (by 3 - 10% in Angola, Benin, Chad, Egypt, and much, because about 22% - in Ghana). On the other hand, food production per person has been decreasing in other countries. The negative balance of food is being supplemented by imports and international aid (Iheduru, 2001).

Africa has a birth rate of 24%, which is highest in the world and is almost two times larger than the global average. The continent also suffers from the lowest GDP per capital.

Lack of adequate medical services causes spread of many diseases in various parts of Africa. In Africa, there are the world's largest numbers of AIDS cases. Adults and children are both affected with this disease (Marshall Cavendish Corporation, 2001).

The population of the overcrowded villages is moving to the cities in search of work and better living conditions. The cities do not have the capacity to resist to such a massive ...