8 ms·

Typical African country. I've always wondered what's wrong with my continent. You can't literally point to a single African country that's developed and success

• tomjen3 4y ago
  >You can't literally point to a single African country that's developed and successful /me lifts hand and point finger to Botswanna.
  • Barrin92 4y ago
    yep. It's a small country but it's the oldest democracy on the continent, ranks quite highly internationally (30th on the democracy index, ahead of Italy), and has a gdp per capita only slightly lower than the baltics (20k). By most accounts a pretty tremendous success.
    • jl6 4y ago
      Any obvious reasons why it has enjoyed this success while its southern neighbour hasn’t?
      • quink 4y ago
        Competent forward-looking leadership. There's plenty of factors that helped, I can think of a dozen right off the top of my head, but the one that made a crucial difference is in my opinion really the above. Basically this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seretse_Khama#Presidency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seretse_Khama#Presidency
        • buyx 4y ago
          And this: https://www.tralac.org/news/article/6931-surge-in-botswana-share-of-sacu-revenues.html https://www.tralac.org/news/article/6931-surge-in-botswana-s...
      • buyx 4y ago
        It's a tiny country (population 2.3 million, vs South Africa's 60 million), mono-ethnic, rich in diamonds, strong culture of law and order. South Africa also props Botswana up via a customs union. https://www.tralac.org/news/article/6931-surge-in-botswana-share-of-sacu-revenues.html https://www.tralac.org/news/article/6931-surge-in-botswana-s...
    • erichocean 4y ago
      > has a gdp per capita only slightly lower than the baltics (20k) Your numbers are not even close. > In 2019, the GDP per capita (adjusted for purchasing power parity) was $36,701 in Lithuania, $35,853 in Estonia and $30,830 in Latvia. Source: https://wedc.org/export/market-intelligence/posts/strong-growth-in-baltic-economies-creates-opportunities-for-wisconsin-companies/ https://wedc.org/export/market-intelligence/posts/strong-gro... Botswana has a $7,347.55 GDP per capita according to Google (in 2021). That's at least 75% lower than the worst Baltic nation, not "slightly below."
  • concordDance 4y ago
    Hasn't really developed, it just has a tiny population while also having a lot of diamonds. Its economy is still almost entirely extractive. It's probably best compared to something like Qatar, where the hope is it'll be able to use the diamond wealth to found another industry.
• inglor_cz 4y ago
  It is my impression that Rwanda has been improving under the Kagame rule, but that the improvement is still precarious.
  • boeingUH60 4y ago
    Rwanda's GDP per capita is $834 [1]. That's way worse than my poor country (Nigeria) at $2,085 [2], so that improvement is very much in question and under a dictator nonetheless. Edit: Removed the part describing Kagame as genocidal because I mixed up his identity. He's still corrupt and power-drunk though. 1- https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?locations=RW https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?location... 2- https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?locations=NG https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?location...
    • inglor_cz 4y ago
      I am ignorant about the details in case of Nigeria and Rwanda, but GDP per capita may not be a good measure of living standards in nations with massive inequality. A couple of ultra-rich oil tycoons in an otherwise poor country will artificially increase the per capita figure.
      • thaumasiotes 4y ago
        To boost the per capita GDP of Nigeria from $834 to $2085, your two oil tycoons would need to have annual income of more than 130 billion dollars each. A couple of ultra-rich people can't really move GDP per capita figures anywhere; that's not how averages work.
        • inglor_cz 4y ago
          By "a couple" I meant something like several thousand. A tiny minority within the entire population. How many are, for example, the Saudi princes? Five thousand or so?
          • 4y ago
• concordDance 4y ago
  Building institutions and culture takes centuries and can be lost quickly. Take heart that the West is burning its cultural capital quickly and becoming low trust as people start to realize they're in a reputation poor environment.
  • georgeecollins 4y ago
    https://pjmedia.com/culture/jeff-reynolds/2017/05/31/things-are-better-now-than-theyve-ever-been-heres-why-n167600 https://pjmedia.com/culture/jeff-reynolds/2017/05/31/things-...
    • joenot443 4y ago
      Note this was written in 2017. A lot has happened since the which affirms what GP is saying about the degradation of cultural capital here in the west.
      • TapWaterBandit 4y ago
        Such as? From what I can see the most important parts of Western cultural capital are still in place and operating correctly (peaceful transition of power through elections, rule of law, freedom of speech)
  • User23 4y ago
    Why is that something to take heart in? It sounds ugly and spiteful to me.
    • thfuran 4y ago
      Is schadenfreude not your favorite flavor of ice cream?
      • User23 4y ago
        No I genuinely derive joy from seeing others, be it individuals or entire nations, do well. I’m not perfect of course, so sometimes I do feel schadenfreude. But I never mistake it for a good thing, but rather a sign of my own imperfection.
• lzooz 4y ago
  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2148945/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2148945/
• fatneckbeardz 4y ago
  i tend to disagree. Africa has some countries with very good GDP growth over the past 20 years, higher than some developed countries (Japan) that are struggling with debt and demographic collapse.
  • boeingUH60 4y ago
    Please name some...I really want to have hope. Most times, the countries people name like Rwanda are definitely improving but still far behind on a global development scale. Sure, Japan is struggling, but Japan's struggles seem like paradise to the average African country's struggles.
    • pepperonipizza 4y ago
      Ethiopia was having a rapid growth before covid. I am not sure after covid and the war in Tigray how it's doing at the moment
      • TapWaterBandit 4y ago
        Been outstripped by population growth. The trajectory of Ethiopia is bleak again. No African country has ever done a "Japan" and come even close to catching up with the West. Hell, I don't think any has even been able to catch up with middle income countries. I am starting to doubt it can even be done.
    • fatneckbeardz 4y ago
      GDP growth by percent, For 2021 Botswana - 12 Rwanda - 10 Ethiopia - 8.6 Kenya - 7.2 Burkina Faso - 6.9 Benin - 6.5 Zimbabwe - 6.3 South Sudan - 5.3 Uganda - 5.0 South Africa - 4.9 Compare: Japan - 1.6 USA - 5.6 Germany - 2.8 Korea - 4.0 Norway - 3.9 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_real_GDP_growth_rate#List_(2013%E2%80%932021) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_real_GDP_...
  • mschuster91 4y ago
    > Africa has some countries with very good GDP growth over the past 20 years The key question is: just how much of that nominal growth ended up back at the population, and how much ended up in anonymous Swiss accounts or shell companies belonging to autocrats and their families/friends?
• askvictor 4y ago
  Imperialism has a lot to answer for.
  • winReInstall 4y ago
    Yeah, kept china, japan, south-korea and Hong Kong down. 3 generations later, they still suffer. The atrocities were real, the explanation power for current day missery diminishes rapidly. My prefered theory is that human capital stays valuable even through crisis and that it pays of to be the direct cold conflict zone for two super powers, who then prop you up.
    • geysersam 4y ago
      China, and especially Japan were never colonized the way Africa was. You clearly don't know what you are talking about.
      • TheLoafOfBread 4y ago
        Except when Mongols took over in China or the "century of humiliation". Japan is also example for itself. They voluntarily isolated themselves for centuries and fell back in everything. They were shocked when Americans forced them to trade in steam ships. But instead of finding excuses and blaming Americans for waking them up, they started Meiji restoration.
        • geysersam 4y ago
          > Except when Mongols took over in China or the "century of humiliation". It's simply not the same thing. Sure, China was forced to humiliating concession by the European. But it's not the same. The borders of countries in Africa were drawn by Europeans. For hundreds of years large parts of the continent was dominated by European colonialism. If trade rights and relatively minor land concessions were considered humiliating by the Chinese... Just imagine
      • TapWaterBandit 4y ago
• fulafel 4y ago
  In most other countries this same problem is solved by raising prices. Which is better seems a subjective question - the zavway at least gives low income people access to some reasonably priced electricity.
• knaekhoved 4y ago
  • hef19898 4y ago
    That is some pretty disturbing comment.
  • xphilter 4y ago
    lol. I just love casual racism on HN.
• pessimizer 4y ago
  > I've always wondered what's wrong with my continent. It's a source of raw materials for powers outside of your continent, who pour money and arms into the hands of the cliques most willing and able to get those materials out of the country at the lowest price. Any hint that a resource-cursed country wants to reign in its elites, regulate its environment or labor, or negotiate better prices is replied to with a torrent of funds directed to the people most willing to murder the reformers.
  • jopsen 4y ago
    I don't believe every country in Africa have lots of resources. I think it's hard to build institutions, credibility and trust in a society.
• roomey 4y ago
  What's wrong with your continent? This whole thread is making me feel like I'm in an alternative reality... The continent was raped, looted and pillaged by Europeans and Americans. Complete populations were enslaved. Natural resources were stolen, cultures were destroyed. And of course, in the best traditions, divisions were sown where one set of Native people were marked as better than another set, in a move that takes many generations to heal. My country (Ireland) was colonised, we lost half our population to famine and emigration. We, almost, lost our language, out culture. We still have sectarian conflict. We didn't have one quarter the shit that was done to many parts of Africa. And, without Europe's money, we would still be a state completely dependent on our former colonisers. Healing will take time, but to not mention the damage done, and still being done there is nonsense. The top post on this thread is saying the apartheid government was bad yes... But they made the trains run on time!
  • recuter 4y ago
    > The continent was raped, looted and pillaged by Europeans and Americans. Complete populations were enslaved. Natural resources were stolen, cultures were destroyed. Our species is a violent one. The same can be said of other continents. Africa had the same problems long before America was hardly even a thing. You could just as easily give counter examples of say gunboat diplomacy cracking open Japan and hurling it out of stasis and into modernity. > The top post on this thread is saying the apartheid government was bad yes... But they made the trains run on time! You are not doing the people you purport sympathy for any favors with such an attitude. Trains need to run, electric grids need to work. The observation on competency in no way implies endorsement of the previous government. People are objectively worse off now, believe it or not (look into it before arguing), while you get to moralize from far away. Nobody is arguing for a return to the previous regime obviously. What you're doing simply isn't helpful.
  • pixelpoet 4y ago
    > The top post on this thread is saying the apartheid government was bad yes... But they made the trains run on time! I'm sorry to hear about your difficulties with reading comprehension, but if you're suggesting that I'm an Apartheid apologist for trying to explain how things got the way they are and how it's completely on-brand mismanagement from the ANC government, you've got completely the wrong guy.
• recuter 4y ago
  Look at a map of how alphabets spread and literacy rates. I think a more productive question would be not what is wrong with Africa but what was right with Europe. Religion played a part. The best selling book after the printing press emerged was the Bible and majority of book sales revolved around religious texts. There was money to be made from this so it spread. The great leap forward didn't come during the renaissance as many people imagine but as late as the 19th. The 20th for communist countries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_literacy_campaign https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_literacy_campaign Before the campaign, the rate of illiteracy among city dwellers was 11% compared to 41.7% in the countryside Present day Nigeria is still somewhere around 50%, somebody correct me if I'm wrong. Without universal literacy a country can't escape corruption, it is a necessary but not sufficient requirement to move to to the next stage. Not so long ago most everyone most everywhere was an illiterate peasant, the first places to grow out of that got first mover advantage. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse
  • TheLoafOfBread 4y ago
    > The great leap forward didn't come during the renaissance as many people imagine but as late as the 19th. The 20th for communist countries. Actually it is more like 18th century in Austria-Hungary where compulsory school attendance (6 years long - just read, write, count) was established in 1774 School Reform under Empress Maria Theresa and the elementary school as I know it was established by The Imperial Elementary School Act (Reichsvolksschulgesetz) of 1869 standardized compulsory schooling as a whole and increased compulsory schooling from six to eight years. Which is very nice history lesson, but does not answer the question of "why did European rulers even bothered with compulsory education at all".
• zosima 4y ago
  It's tribal and there is in most of Africa, no culture for rewarding merit or excellence. But there is always willingness to blame everybody else.
• forinti 4y ago
  I can think of a few that seem to be developing nicely: Botswana, Mauritius, Cape Verde, Rwanda, and Namibia.
• akomtu 4y ago
  Europe, America, China and even Russia have mercenaries corps (e.g. Glencore) that help African countries choose the right rulers, and when the ruler isn't right he gets replaced. The right ruler needs to be a chaotic plutocrat who cares only about himself and looks the other way when his home country is looted. As for IQ, it's a side effect of the above: NK and SK are the same people who live under different rulers for less than a century, but NKs are already much shorter. My guess is that in a hostile environments, the smarts and height genes stay dormant.
  • int_19h 4y ago
    Height difference between Koreas is not a genetic thing, it simply reflects the differences in child nutrition.
• pharmakom 4y ago
  I suggest reading Guns Germs and Steel for some context
• jcranmer 4y ago
  > You can't literally point to a single African country that's developed and successful... Botswana. If you want to count the island nations, Cape Verde, Seychelles as well too.
• TMWNN 4y ago
  Relevant: There Are No Successful Black Nations | And the indignity and helplessness of blacks in America won’t end until we have a first-world African nation to lift up our people. <https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueReddit/comments/4x2vbu/there_are_no_successful_black_nations_and_the/ https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueReddit/comments/4x2vbu/there_ar...>
• deleted 4y ago
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