AFRICA AND THE LACKED GROWTH IF WE WOULD HAVE ASKED

Development economists in the period right after World War 2, say in the 1950s and 1960s, who would be the star performer in the upcoming developing world, they probably would have said several African countries the reason behind choosing the name of Africa was because at that time they had a perception that wealth was created in the early stage of growth with the use of natural resources. Africa was rich and abundant in terms of natural resources, minerals, gold, oil and more. So many questions arise here, why does half of the African population live in poverty? Why 47%of the African population live on $1.90 or less a day? Why Africa is mostly concentrated with global poor? One in every 4 people in the Saharan region are malnourished. Then what went wrong from the beginning with Africa, the country that was going to lead the developed world after the post-war era still the one biggest trapped in poverty, hunger, and misery. The one who was provided with the head start in the race of development is still struggling to get a glimpse of the finish line. So, what was their mistake? 1. The mistake was to think that natural resources are one and only vital instrument for growth and wealth creation. It turns out to be its people, its human resources. The Asian economies were deprived of natural resources, they educated their people and transformed them into assets or human capital, and the assets are the fundamental basis of a successful modern economy 2. Africa struggled greatly at the time of decolonization because the colonies turned out to be countries and countries had characteristics that were a major problem for them, they made absolutely no sense economically. These colonies were governed in such a way that people didn’t think of them as a part of one nation rather they thought of themselves as a member of a religious, ethnic, or tribal group. The early leaders of Africa after the post-war era were not concerned about their economic challenge but were struggling to form a nation or country because one cannot have a national economy if one doesn’t have a nation. So, a good period of the war era was used to build nationhood and sometimes it worked when the leadership was effective. 3 from the late 1950s Bretton woods and world bank institutions began to shift their attention more towards developing countries. Newly independent countries faced urgent pressure to lift their population out of poverty, so they took assistance from these international institutions dominated by their former colonial powers. Even after many years of decolonization, the former colonial still controlled vital resources like minerals and land of their former colonies especially African nations due to the abundance of rich minerals 4 when the us dollar lost his commanded confidence as the world’s principal currency, it led to a collapse of fixed exchange rate and introduced system of floating exchange rate. This led to the change in international financial system in the mid-1970s. Earlier developing countries could turn to international institutions for loan and development assistance, but after the change they were forced to borrow from western commercial banks and private leading institutions. This led to periodic crisis and exploitation in the developing world, especially in Africa and Latin America

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