World Poverty,

 In this FAO Poverty In Africa map,

Darker is Poorer but some light areas are just 'no data' - see our Poor in a Rich World page.

A majority of the worlds poorest countries today are in Africa. Of course some African countries like South Africa and Egypt are not as poor as others like Angola and Ethiopia. And though in recent years absolute poverty in Africa has been slowly slightly falling, average African income levels have actually been dropping relative to the rest of the world. So poor Africa is getting relatively poorer on average.

 famine in africa

1. The land is a major problem in Africa, with many African countries having confused land ownership so that much useful land is unused - and in some African countries
where rainfall is unreliable there is still little or no irrigation of land.

2. Financial aid going to African countries has often been either emergency food aid needed as short-term help with famines, and any longer-term aid has often been misappropriated for personal wealth by corrupt officials or for military spending. Where useful financial aid has been supplied to African countries it has often been in the form of loans with high interest rates that poor countries find too expensive a debt burden. Africa has to date attracted little foreign investment though much of that has been more stable longer-term European investment as in mining.

3. The terms of trade set by richer countries tend often to exploit poor countries and give unfairly low price for their exports of commodities such as tea, coffee, bananas and their other export products. And foreign businesses operating in Africa also often do not help the local economy as much as they easily could help. Some of these problems are of course not unique to Africa and are seen also in some non-African poor countries.

4. Education, medicine and drinking water are also often major problem areas in poor African countries - and transport. Widespread illiteracy, diseases like AIDS and malaria, and their many other major problems can often mean more civil-wars and other conflicts as well.

Many have noted that countries in Africa have often suffered from inadequate government, and this may be in part due to many African countries being artificial colonial creations with borders that make sustainable government more difficult.
Some of the poorest countries in Africa really need substantial prolonged aid to fund direct universal welfare benefit systems to help them climb out of poverty.

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