Most of Africa is not as resource rich as it is believed. It is just their scarce few resources were denied access to their local population, and carted off to foreign countries giving an illusion of resource richness.
Historically, the most important resource that has made many countries rich is energy — coal and oil. Britain had a lot of coal and later a lot of oil was discovered with it. That coal was a key catalyst for its industrial revolution. Later, a number of countries — including Norway, countries in Arab peninsula became fairly rich with oil & gas. Even those economies that made a lot of mistakes —- Russia, Iran, Venezuela etc were propped up by this one thing.
Where is Africa in the most key resource?
For instance, the continent’s largest oil producer — Nigeria — produces about 1.5m barrels per day. This sounds a lot, but is just 10% of what US produces. Again much less than Russia, Saudi or Canada. If Nigeria grows its middle class, it won’t have sufficient oil for its own population. And the oil did help Nigeria be among the richer in its continent. What about the rest?
Most of Africa’s population don’t have oil, coal or other key energy access. And nuclear power is nearly absent from most of the continent.
Here is water — the most critical resource for mankind. Most of the continent is either in red or yellow (deserts). The dark blue zone in the center is rainforests and not as suitable for farming. That leaves very few parts of Africa that are suitable for large scale farming.
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This leads to this map of farm lands.
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And that brings the food production. This chart is a bit old, but the ratio has not changed a lot.
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Let’s come to metals. The continent’s largest producer of iron ore — South Africa — produces about 77000 tons/year a third of India’s and less than 10% of Australia’s. And most of rest of Africa have hardly any iron ore mines.
The continent’s largest producer of Aluminium — Mozambique — produces 1/7 of India and 1/70 of China. Most of Africa have hardly any aluminium production. The continent as a whole have very limited Bauxite reserves.
In copper, the continent does a little better — Congo and Zambia have decent copper resources — but a fraction of what a major producer like Chile produces.
People think of diamonds, gold etc as profitable. But, they are not. South Africa and Botswana each export about $2billion a year worth of diamonds and they cost a lot to mine. India and Israel make far more money off these diamonds than the two African producers. Diamond Exports by Country $2b is not bad, but not world changing either. To put that in context, Norway exports $49b in Oil & Gas and they are fairly cheap to extract too. Whenever you think Africa has gold, diamonds, lithium etc, convert that to dollar terms and you would find it pretty average.
The countries in the continent that have some natural resources — South Africa, Nigeria, Botswana — are also among its richest. And the countries that are pretty poor also tend to be ones without a lot of resources.
We have to admit that we black Africans have a very complex of inferiority that we need to get rid of if we want to make real economic progress in our countries. What is wrong with us? Colonization cannot be used as an excuse. Ethiopia and Liberia were left alone way earlier than other countries. Liberia in 1865 and Ethiopia in 1941. Are they developed now? What about Haiti in the Caribbeans?
was watching some videos about the history of Uganda. I have many friends from Uganda and we were discussing what is going on there these days. It got me curious and wanted to find out “ how did Uganda get here”? The pearl of Africa.
Upon my research, I came across an Interview of a British reporter who was interviewing an Indian businessman in the 70’s. This is when the dictator Idi Amini had chased out all Indians in Uganda. The Indians were involved in every business in the country. Importation and Exportation. They were the bedrock of the Ugandan economy.
They exported Ugandan coffee and tea to global markets and imported goods from India and other places to Uganda. The interview went like this. The interviewee had lost 100% of his businesses and had given 48 hours to leave Uganda. His hotels, business, houses, all of them were rooted and he had lost it all. At some point in the interview, the reporter asked the question.
Reporter ( R): Are you going to miss Uganda?
Indian ( I): Yes, of course. My whole life was here. My children were born here.
Reporter ( R): How was the business in Uganda?
Indian (I): It was great! Life and business were good here. No competition. He continued; We were making some good profit margins here. Sometimes, 30 to 50% on some goods.
Reporter ( R): Why do you think business was good here? What made Uganda a great place to do business?
Indian ( I). Looks at the reporter straight in the face, glanced at the plane, getting ready to go to England. And he says: [SIZE=6]“ Africans don’t understand the business”.[/SIZE]
The Indian goes on to tell the reporter that Ugandans won’t be able to manage on their own. He said they just don’t have the knowledge and expertise. That was in the 70’s.
South Africa is largely Arid and Semi arid apart from the most southern parts around the cape province but still a net agricultural exporter lakini Congo na hii equitorial climate can’t even benefit from it’s timber exports. It’s the indians running the milling factories over there. You stated that the heavily forested regions are not suitable for food production but Brazilians have cleared up parts of the Amazon, turned them into soybean and livestock production areas. Brazilian farmers are making money selling Brahaman genetics all over the world. Actually the largest beef processor in the world , JBS, is from Brazil. What is stopping bonobos from replicating what is happening the world over? Personally I think it’s low IQ. From your charts food production in Africa has been collapsing post 1970s simply because white Zimbabweans lost their farms and Afrikaners have had their farms expropriated post 1994. Look up the Citrus industry in Zimbabwe before and after Mugabe expropriated their farms. Alafu angalia zebediela citrus farms in South Africa. I support mugabe’s measures though. Is