Why is Africa so messed up?? (that's the only way I could think of putting it)?

Question

Our school has been donating thousands of dollars raised by a Benefit Concert held each year. Every time we go to nominate our candidates for the coming year's recepient, our minds always seem to travel to the ones that need it most-for the past quite a few years, the recipieants have been cayses to help out Africans (Africa Project twice, Save Darfur Coalition, now Doctors Without Borders for Plumpynut malnourished aid).

Is it the faulty governments? Even so, how can that many countries-all in proximity-have one thing in common-chaos?
Fatal Epidemics here (Ebola Virus/HIV?AIDS), genocide there (Sudanese Janjaweed genocide).

Most of all, why isn't there anything being done by governments of the more privileged countries? (such as us, the US). Okay, so we've tried...but has anything really been done? Is Africa going to keep surviving on minute help from comparatively insignificant aid (such as school fundraisers and small volunteer groups)?

www.doctorswithoutborders.org

Look at ourselves! Are we seriously talking about places with no electricity or running water or even a sufficient amount of food in this age of unbelievable technological advancements? If we are able to send man to the moon, we are able to save people from starving to death and prevent people from having to live without basic amenities...

This is insane...

Answer 1

because islam spread into africa thousands of years ago and they think they are better than everyone, so the kill off the other religions (genocide) and the US does not help because it is not our business we tried that with somolia and it back fired.

Answer 2

The present situation is due to the history of colonialism in Africa which has been from the 17th century very largely a story of exploitation of the natural resources of the continent by other nations notably from Europe and America although the Chinese are now getting in on the act.
Most of the countries of Africa are purely artificial entities which were created by government officials in Europe drawing straight lines on a map with no reference to the tribal loyalties or culture of the indigenous peoples. The result is a lot of countries have ethnic tensions which make it difficult for a democratic society to function.
During colonial times the African was kept uneducated so that he would be subservient to the white man with the result that when these countries eventually obtained independence there was hardly any middle class and power became concentrated in the hands of corrupt despots who were often backed by the ex colonial power.
The result of all this is that the natural resources are still being used for the benefit of foreign corporations and a small ruling elite while the majority of the people live in poverty and disease.
You would think that foreign governments would help but they have their own agenda which is a desire to control the natural resources so they usually deal with the corrupt ruling classes and so the problems of colonialism are perpetuated.

Answer 3

I do think that certain African governments have a lot to answer to,regarding the sharing of resources. I did'nt really appreciate the size of the problem untill I flew over Africa, I was living in the Uk when I went to Botswana, it takes approx 2-3 hours to fly to the south of Spain and then another 9-10 hours to fly to J'burg in South Africa, and you are flying over majority of desert and open plains, the country is so vast that the climate is the main problem, it just seems impossible to do anything about it, because of the heat, if you think of the size of Russia which is larger than Africa they do'nt have any such problems or indeed Australia wheras majority of the population live on coastal areas, and the centre is almost barren of population because of the desert, if those two rich countires can't use their vast open spaces what chance does africa have, and of course Africa is made up of a lot of different countries, so, where can the people go, hence the fighting poverty and genocide, how can we solve that,? we cant stop the weather, just change Governments and their greed and lack of compassion, so, yes we do have to continue to support the people and do even more, they cannot help themselves, we are the fortunate ones to be living where we are, which means we are the ones who can help to change things, hopefully.

Answer 4

The answer is greed. You can send aid via their own government but they're gonna spend it on themselves. I read an article about 15 years ago where the US sent 4 billion $ to a country in Africa that was in dire need. The heads of state kept as much of it as they could and threw a big party to help themselves stay in power. There was a big thing on the news about it..
With all the warring factions, we can send help via the Red Cross but their trucks get hi jacked and the medical supplies are taken by the factions to help their soldiers. The same happens to the food we send.
Then you have well intentioned people who figure they'll go teach them how to build a well to get clean water. They go over there and pick a needy village and round up everyone to show them and work side by side with them to build a working well. Everyone is happy and they go home. warring factions come in and chase the people off. If they don't leave, they kill those who stay. Without tools to go build other wells, they feel the purpose is defeated.
The easers of the factions want power. Money. Prestige.
Anyone that goes there with intent of helping improve the lives of the people have to have a huge following of body gaurds or they take their lives into their own hands. Those warring factions don't want us helping. If they can keep those people down, then they win. If their people have hope, then they will attack them and force the message that we can't stop all the violence they inflict. It's primal in nature. Makes you wonder who the animals really are.

Answer 5

Africa is a continent with a conveyor belt of problems. This conveyor belt goes round and round and round. We help this guy, who gets wiped out, then we help that guy, who gets wiped out, and then we....it has to stop somewhere. So we don't help that guy and we look bad. So we decide to help the people instead. Uhm. The army grabs all the goodies, OR, the goodies never get transported and rots at the airport or on the docks at port!! So then we send the goodies with some guys who will take them to the people: only to have a variety of problems along the way, usually caused by the army, or the by the "bad guys" that the army is trying to get rid of. Eventually, we give up. That is where we are with Sudan. They do NOT want any help, and they do what they can to chase it away. Why? They want to make a little kingdom of their own....and kill off everyone who doesn't kowtow to whatever it is that they hold dear. How do we help people like that? Answer: we don't. We should help the countries next door to Sudan, so that they don't fall from the weight of all those refugees.

Answer 6

the problems started with the freeing of the colonial states(most of which were made like the middle eastern states drawn up on a map with out regard to real political and social and ethic reality's) after the Europeans left the people in power started to fight for the control of assets (diamonds,metals,timber, etc). then came droughts and famines that the richer country's gave vast amounts of the wrong type of help(tractors for farmers who used 10th century methods of farming,equipment that only worked while the westerners were around, food s that the people could not eat)

then the cultural mores of many society's caused the spread of terrible diseases and stopped the treatment of the same . the continent is now overpopulated for the amount of food produced and there is little in the economic development going on. until the political social and economic forces stabilize the Africa Continent will continue to be a basket case no amount of money and help will cure

Answer 7

a part of it is the fact that gov'ts of the various countries in africa don't own the scarce natural resources that they have, they are owned by western (european and american) companies as a result of the european colonialism in africa during the 19th and 20th century. this makes it so that the people today end up working for the wealthy western companies providing the west with more wealth; and with wealth comes corruption. the problem is that western companies have been taking advantage of africa for years, depleting their resources and they "own" africa legally. how do we get them outta there? in terms of health issues, there are several problems such as the brain drain, educated people such as doctors find better wages in western countries such as the U.S. and the gov'ts of less developed countries (LDC's) encourage this because the educated people that move abroad send $ (remittances) to their families in their home countries, which in turn benefits the economy of the country. there are several programs such as the gates foundation that were founded to give money and deal with some of the health issues in LDC's, but the problem with these programs is that they send too much moolah to certain health issue areas which harms the public health infrastructure of the countries that they are TRYING to help.
diggity.

Answer 8

Not all parts of Africa is poor and dry. There are acually places in Africa with electricity and water ect. Africa can be a very beautiful and good place but in some places people are too poor or cant move to go to the places with electricity. I know for a fact Mitchel Jackson goes to the Africa with electricity all the time

Answer 9

Africa has many challenges:

Unstable governments
Political dictators
Lack of education (high illiteracy rates)
Non-existent health care
No industrial base for economies
Lack of national resources (i.e. oil, coal, gold, minerals, etc.)
90% farm based economy - all family farms without modern farming education or technologies.
Continuous drought conditions
Lack of sanitation resulting in diseases.
Lack of insect control resulting in diseases such as malaria.
Tribal and religious fighting leading to genocide.

Throwing money at the problems will not solve them. The problems need to be solved from the inside out. First, they need stable governments (which only they can create), education (which only their governments can create and make mandatory) and an infra-structure to support communications, healthcare and safety (also must be done by their governments).

Answer 10

You're having to deal with the tribalism, a lack of education, witchcraft, ignorance, traditionalism, corruption and a lust for power. Sorry if that sounds harsh, but when you have the health minister of South Africa support diet as a means of combating Aids (not the mention the vice president is reported to shower after sex as a precaution, against Africa's deadliest disease) then you just shake your head in despair.

Answer 11

We were lucky enough to meet three African aides orphans.

Apparently aides is carried by primates. The animals are immune to the virus, which is a deadly curse to men.

Africa is now as short on men (due to men dying of Aides and civil war) as China is short on women (due to the "one child" preference for boys)!!!

Sexual experimentation with bestiality (with Aides carrier primates), then among promiscuous men, brought us the incurable "gay" curse of sodomy!!! How sad.

Slowly...too slowly... that situation is changing!

Even Africa is no longer being included in the "3rd world" generally, as far as statistical trends are concerned.

Have You Got 20 Minutes to Learn Something?

I've here included a web link for a great video (20 min.) which details the current misconception of the developing world statistically.

At the time of the statistics analysis, and the video, only Africa was 3rd world as an entire continent...

...but now, in the short time, 2 years, since the video was made, much of Africa has CHANGED tremendously (as you will see visually) with animated graphs...

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4237353244338529080&q=genre%3Aeducational

The video is rated 5 out of 5 stars on average by 1,050 ratings at ...

video.google.com

Hans Rosling, the presenter, is very intelligent and funny and his animated graphs show our changing world in a way you will remember!