Africa is a continent that is behind other continents in terms of economic development. Some people might say that African nations lack resources but that is not the case. African nations do have the required resources but there are some other factors that are hindering the economic development which we discuss below:
Poor Education System
The level of education and the standard of education, two of the very important things that can help in the economic development of a nation are poor in Africa. These are because of poor governance and poor education system in the region. If there is good governance in a region then it provides opportunities for education to flourish but sadly, that is not the case in Africa.
Many children in Africa are deprived of education which is a basic human right because of poverty, poor governance, and poor infrastructure in the region. Due to all these reasons, there is a high rate of illiteracy in Africa when compared to other regions.
Political Instability
Another major hurdle in the way of economic development in Africa is political instability. In many African nations, there is political unrest and the political conditions are not favorable for economic growth. Along with this, African nations are also facing the problem of civil wars.
These civil wars and political instability are a major obstacle that is preventing the nations to reach new economic growth heights. There isn’t proper law and order in the country & corruption and other malpractices are also common in the region.
Trade Blockades
African nations also face the problem of trade blockades that prevent them from entering or accessing the international markets because of the rising political tensions. Because of rising political tensions and poor trade policies of nations, African nations are not able to dominate the international market which stops them from achieving the economic development that they are looking for.
Poor trade policies usually lead to a lack of investment, businesses facing losses, foreign investors not coming to the region, and ultimately, government revenue falling down.
Poor Infrastructure
Poor infrastructure is another factor that is hindering economic growth in Africa. The roads, water supply, electricity, latest technologies, etc are not that much developed or present in the region. Roads are poor & congested which leads to logistics services being expensive and sometimes so much expensive that they even cost more than their production. Poor roads also mean that people have difficulties accessing basic necessities such as health care, education, etc.
Poor infrastructure in the region leads to trade difficulties, political unrest, poor investments, all of the things which ultimately lead to poor economic growth in the region.
Natural Disasters
Unfortunately, Natural Disasters are also hitting the African region hard which has led to the people facing many problems such as displacement, poverty, and famine. There are some areas in Africa that are drought areas and because of lack of water, people have been facing famine there for several years.
This lack of water and the changing climate has led to a scarcity of crops in Africa which has led to food insecurity in the whole of Africa, with children in many countries suffering from nutritional deficiencies.
Lack Of Modern Technologies
The lack of modern technologies is also a major contributing factor that is hindering economic growth in the region. In Africa, people don’t have easy access to fast and cheap internet which has become a basic necessity in many places of the region. The whole world is dependent on the internet and using the internet for different purposes, even for earning money.
These opportunities are not available to people of Africa because they don’t even have access to the internet, let alone modern technologies. We are seeing people in the world using the latest technologies like the cloud and tools like JPG to PDF Converter that can convert any JPG file into PDF and Excel to PDF Converter that can convert Excel spreadsheets into PDF for free. These technologies are not available to the people of Africa which is why Africa is lagging behind other continents in terms of economic growth.
Dependency on Export of Natural Resources
Africa is known for its export of natural resources such as petroleum, diamond, copper, and other materials. Although these can contribute a lot to economic growth and development, some countries in Africa have become wholly and solely reliant on exporting only raw materials to other countries.
Since these countries start to rely on exporting raw materials, it limits their economic development because they start to neglect other industries and in the international market, they also don’t have any sort of control over the prices of their resources.
