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Colonialism And The Destruction Of Africa

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The reasons for Africa’s poor economic growth cannot solely be explained by colonialism. Several academic articles and scholars have gone further to attribute the slow economic development to African countries internal policies such as internal factors of bad leadership and corruption. Furthermore, in the paper by Juluis Agbor and colleagues it was put forward that effect of colonialism on an African state depended on the type of colonialism implemented within the African state (Agbor and Fedderke 2010).
• Did Africans contribute to the destruction of Africa?
There are opposing stances on colonialisms role in the economic development of Africa. However, it cannot be said that colonialism can be the sole reason …show more content…

Authoritarian rule and tense election processes have become a key feature of African political landscape, as leaders are willing to remain or accede to power through the force of the military and the circumvention of the rule of law. This affects the economic development of African states as government and the presidents are more concerned with remaining in power than key issues of governance, national economic development plans, improving state institutions and service delivery (Ojo …show more content…

The lag in the African continents economic development has been attributed to the remnants of Colonialism effects directly or indirectly. An example is the disposition for African economies to be reliant on a single commodity, which makes their economies susceptible to the conditions of the global market. Also, the legacies of colonialism are manifested today in the poorly developed cross country connection and trade relations between African states. The poor cross country connections are because the infrastructure created was directed towards coastal areas and ports not the interior or other African countries. This lack of infrastructure or the concentration of infrastructure has led to certain cities or area’s in African states become over-populated whilst the rest of the country remains rural and backward (hartzenberg 2011). The concentration of infrastructure has led to a barrier for intra-African trade and increases the transactions costs of trade for African countries between each other (Ojo 2015). The poor trade relations between African states stems from colonialism where colonialism African countries

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