adminBetween 2009 and 2012, Africa expanded by an average of 4,5 percent while the world economy grew by an average of 3,2 percent. Africa is estimated to grow by at least 6 percent in the next decade and the world economy is expected to grow by about 3 percent during the same time.
Sadly, this spectacular economic growth has failed to arrest Africa’s perennial social ills such as unemployment, poverty, access to clean water and sanitation, access to health facilities and other critical social requirements such as education. Statistics from United Nations Food and Agriculture
Organisation shows that 239 million people in sub-Saharan Africa were is starvation in 2010 which is about 30 percent of people living in poverty in the world.
In 2008, 47 percent of the population of sub-Saharan Africa survived on US$1,25 a day or less, a principal factor in causing widespread hunger. A number of factors are responsible for this dismal outlook.
Firstly, the definition itself of economic growth. Does it mean that a country or continent with economic growth experiences improvement in human development index?
Here is what Mr Mugano, a top economist based in South Africa and a lecturer at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, says:
“The answer is either yes or no. There is a difference between economic growth and economic development.
“Africa is experiencing growth in output which is measured in Gross Domestic Product terms. Economic growth refers to a rise in national income or per capita income. Hence, if the production of goods and services in a country rises by whatever means, and along with it average income rises, the country has achieved economic growth. Economic development implies more — particularly, improvements in health, education, and other aspects of human welfare. Economic growth can lead to economic development if the is equitable distribution of income.”
He said the other factor is that the growth in Africa is heterogeneously contributed. Very few countries make significant contribution to Africa’s GDP. It therefore does not mean that Africa as a whole must see improvement in its social and economic indicators if there is increase in growth.
A closer look at just four countries in Africa (South Africa, Nigeria, Egypt and Algeria)respective GDPs as at 2012 are US$408,24 billion, US$244 billion, US$229,5 billion and US$190,7 billion. These four countries make up 57 percent of Africa GDP which stood at US$1,88 trillion last year.
South Africa remains Africa’s biggest contributor with its GDP contributing 22 percent of the continent’s.
As a result, South Africa has been rated a star performer in African context on human opportunities index which covers health, education, provision of water and sanitation in 2012 by the World Bank.
Political systems
Mr Mugano also touched on Africa’s political systems. He said control over resources and income is based on military, political and economic power that “typically ends up in the hands of a minority, who live well, while those at the bottom barely survive”.
Many African countries were suffering from pervasive corruption which is ravaging economies. “African countries in order to realise improvement in human development index and meet the Millennium Development Goals need to eradicate corruption.
The main challenge we face as a continent is disparity in income distribution in our own countries which means policymakers are failing to direct policy in an equitable distributive manner. In layman’s language, in many African countries including Zimbabwe monies earned from mining activities are used in cities while rural communities where these minerals are extracted are not benefiting.
Conflicts
According to recent reports from World Bank and UN High Commissioner for Refugees, conflict is a principal source of destabilisation in Africa which has brought human misery, including poverty and hunger thereby living no chance for human development.
Poverty rates are 20 percentage points higher in countries affected by repeated cycles of violence over the last three decades. Every year of violence in a country is associated with lagging poverty reduction of nearly one percentage point. People living in countries currently affected by violence are twice as likely to be undernourished and 50 percent more likely to be impoverished.
Their children are three times as likely to be out of school. Countries with serious human rights abuses or weak government effectiveness, rule of law, and control of corruption have a 30 to 45 percent higher risk of civil war, and significantly higher risk of extreme criminal violence than other developing countries.
The threat of death and serious injury resulting from conflict can result in such a desperate situation that people leave their homes. This is in spite of the fact that this requires leaving nearly everything behind: House and land, sources of income, and most possessions, becoming uprooted from the place where you have lived (which was home and loved), to go – typically a journey of great danger – in search of a better alternative, which is usually a very bare bones refugee camp or other marginal situation. Because of serious uprising in North Africa, termed the Arab Spring, Africa had an estimated 13,5 million refugees and internally displaced persons in 2011.
Online Reporter