Colonialism gave nothing to Africa,expect poverty,famine, disease and Essay

Colonialism gave nothing to Africa,expect poverty,famine, disease and underdevelopment. Discuss - Essay Example The past has been so tragic that the future looks hopeless. Undeniably, the only known fact of African development for the foreseeable future is that underdevelopment and poverty will increase and intensify. The hallmarks of underdevelopment in Africa have been the increase in slums, stagnating agricultural production, widening elite mass gap, increase in diseases, foreign debt, and balance of payments deficit. Underdevelopment scholars have contended that the underemployment of human and natural resources and insufficient development was acquired by African nations as a result of historical circumstances such as colonialism, neo-colonialism and slavery. Colonial history of exploitation and extraction has been attributed the continent’s current status. Boahen (1987: 89) notes that there is no doubt that a huge amount of structural attributes of the process of economic underdevelopment has historical roots that go back to past colonial times. Experimental studies have confirmed that there is a connection between a nation’s past colonial experience and its current level of economic development. According to Cooper (2002: 76), colonization of African nations applied a direct effect on the post-colonial arrays of growth and human and physical capital build-up. This paper will focus on underdevelopment and poverty in Africa providing an account of the ancient roots of Africa’s underdevelopment. It will focus on the period before and during colonialism, and the effects of European colonialism on the development of the region. During the pre-colonial period, African nations had well-established laws, customs, ethics, conventions and rituals, which were particularly effective in resolving issues and conflicts both within and outside the community. These institutions were fruitful in overpowering numerous forms of predatory or rent-seeking behaviour (Boahen, 1987: 91). Rent-seeking behaviours are those acts of exploiting the political process in