Why Africa is Still So Poor

Africa is rich beyond imagination. Blessed with natural resources from arable land, oil, and natural gas to minerals, forests, and wildlife. The continent is jam-packed with a sizable portion of the world’s natural resources, both renewables and non-renewables.

But its present is marred with abject poverty, with 429 million people living beneath the extreme poverty line, roughly a third of the continent’s total population. Today the land might be burgeoning with riches, but the haunting sites most resonant with Africa are those of starving children with vacant eyes getting fed by food aid workers. Why the stark contrast?

The videos are made by the same team that brings you The Infographics Show.

All videos are based on publicly available information unless otherwise noted.

[narendra]

Sungapore. The only reason the Chinese were there was because if the British. No British, no Singapore. The leadership of Singapore was British educated and the legal framework post colonialisation was English common law. All factors that were the basis of Singapore's success.

[Vega_Sports]

Glad to see we are not blindly blaming white people for everything

[dliu]

If you look more in depth, China still struggles with its food security

[mikebocchinfuso]

I think that it boils down to the politicians. If they are very corrupt (as they are here in the US) society stalls and goes down.

[orboakin]

Great video, friend. As a Nigerian, it's so refreshing to hear such such an objective analysis of Africa and it's issues. So many people just automatically parrot the notion that all our problems are due to colonialism or racism while ignoring more important factors like our geography, climate and sociocultural, political, and economic issues. Thanks for your objectivity.

[smackroscoe]

Wait! Are you trying to say it’s NOT the white man’s fault??? Well, that’s different. So that means…Oh My!

[FarsightAE]

Europe has wasted trillions(yes, really) in development aid for Africa for little to no progress, its definitely not Europe's fault.

[BVibezCDN]

A combination of factors results in any issue. It’s not just Europe, or just dictatorial rule, or Marxism… it’s a combination of these and so many other things. It’s important to have a video like this to legitimize all angles of the issue.

[StevenStarksjbirdcapitalllc]

Singapore was Westernized, most of Africa had proxy wars between the West and the Soviet Union.

[mikerilling]

Look at Rhodesia they had a stable currency, a thriving, economy, agriculture, industry, hospitals, airports, railroads, universities, paved roads, plenty of clean, water, electricity, air conditioning, plenty of petrol at all the filling stations, fully stocked grocery store, shelves, no trash on the streets, no graffiti on the buildings and then suddenly everything collapsed.
Rhodesia became. ZimmGhetto

[snuffeldjuret]

it is funny how these countries starve and starve, yet their populations are absolutely booming...

[PhillipTheHeretic]

I remember having a conversation a few years ago with my Saudi-born Nigerian friend about the backwardness of Africa. We discussed MANY issues weighing down Africa, but at the end we agreed that by far the most contributing factor is the lack of value investment mentality in most African nations. For example, in an impoverished community, if a family farmed a large patch of land, the community's attitude would be to use the crops to stave off immediate hunger instead of growing the farming activity. This African lack of prudent thinking is why Africa is poor and undeveloped.

[cladinshadow]

Who would have thought communism / socialism doesn’t work?! If only there was a plethora of historical examples to learn from.

[bighoss]

A country's wealth is determined by the intelligence and behavior of it's citizens.

[Vega_Sports]

The rich are getting rich off Africa. That’s the truth

[Kaede-Sasaki]

Europe after the fall of Rome was at tribal warfare. Chieftains fighting chieftains to conquer them and forcing assimilation, becoming petty kings. Petty kings fighting Petty kings conquered and forced assimilation, becoming kings over vast amounts of territory. Centuries later, after a fluid border by marriage, annexation, purchases, etc owned by the monarchs, nation-states were solidified and the borders made static until declared wars.

I wonder what would have happened if Africa had been left to its own devices. Would the various 2000 tribes or ethnic groups have conquered each other, assimilated them, and moved on, wave after wave until there were only 15 kingdoms with fluid borders, and then nation-states and then wars to knock down the number of nation-states to 7?

[bluebottlecoffeeaddict]

Basically, Asia is smarter and more disciplined. Africa... Not so much.

[mikerilling]

The natives have had sub Saharan Africa for 400, 000 years and only managed to rise to the technology of building a mud hut. 😂
You cannot blame Europe.😂

[Vuntermonkey]

Africa was (and often still is) a continent of hunter-gatherer tribes killing each other with sticks amd selling survivors into slavery. There was no going lower than this in term of civilization. Africa wasn't "broken", it was always a feral place.

[JoseAlba]

Hint: It Isn't Europe's Fault 🤣🤣🤣