1.

Poverty
I. Introduction
2. East Africa Food Crisis 2011


There have been over 9 million refugees and internally displaced people from
conflicts in Africa. Hundreds and thousands of people have been slaughtered from
a number of conflicts and civil wars. If this scale of destruction and fighting
was in Europe, then people would be calling it World War III with the entire
world rushing to report, provide aid, mediate and otherwise try to diffuse the
situation. This article explores why Africa has been largely ignored and what
some of the root causes of the problems are.


Poverty is at the heart of Africa's problems.
This is an overview of some of the economic
challenges facing the continent.

Most of Sub-Saharan Africa is in the World
Bank's lowest income category of less than $765
Gross National Income (GNI) per person per year.
Ethiopia and Burundi are the worst off with just
$90 GNI per person.

Even middle income countries like Gabon and Botswana have sizeable sections of
the population living in poverty. North Africa generally fares better than Sub-
Saharan Africa. Here, the economies are more stable, trade and tourism are
relatively high and Aids is less prevalent. Development campaigners have argued
that the rules on debt, aid and trade need reforming to help lift more African
nations out of poverty.



Into mid-2011, the worlds worst food crisis is being
felt in East Africa, in Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya.
Despite successive failed rains, the crisis has been
criticized as avoidable and man-made. This is because
the situation had been predicted many months before by
an international early warning system. Both the
international community and
governments in the region have been
accused of doing very little in the
lead up to this crisis. In addition,
high food prices have forced food out of the reach of
many people, while local conflicts exacerbate the
situation.
3. Lack of Domestic Leadership Education
4. Middle East and North Africa Unrest
5. Environment
As the international organization Oxfam describes: 12 million people are
in dire need of food, clean water, and basic sanitation. Loss of life on a
massive scale is a very real risk, and the crisis is set to worsen over
the coming months, particularly for pastoralist communities.



Africa is not poor, Africa has a leadership problem. For
any society to prosper it should have a endogenous system
of identifying, training and coaching its future leaders.
Some countries do it through their military services, some
do it through elite schools, and some others do it through
informal coaching and assistance organizations or secret
societies.



A wave of protests has erupted
throughout the Middle East and
North Africa. A combination of the
global financial crisis, rising
costs of living, high unemployment
especially of educated youth,
frustration from decades of living
under authoritarian and corrupt
regimes, various document leaks
revealing more details about how
governments around the world are
dealing and viewing each other,
have all combined in different ways in various countries, leading to a
wave of rising anger.
Some protests have become revolutions as governments such as those in
Tunisia and Egypt have been overthrown. Others have not got that far but
have sometimes been peaceful, other times met with very brutal repression.
Is this a wave of democracy that cannot be stopped, and will forever
change the region, and the global power politics?


Africa faces serious
environmental challenges,
including erosion,
6. Population growth
7. Air Pollution
desertification, deforestation, and most importantly drought and water shortages,
which have increased poverty and hunger by reducing agricultural production and
people's incomes. Many of these challenges have been caused by humans; the
environment can be said to be overexploited. Deforestation, for example, has
been caused by humans seeking new places to live, farm, or obtain firewood.
Drought, water shortage and desertification in Africa have been caused to some
extent by global warming, which has mostly been caused by the effects of human
energy use outside of Africa.


Africa's population has been increasing rapidly,
growing from 221 million in 1950 to 1 billion in
2009. Africa, the world's poorest continent, has
the highest population growth rate. A woman in sub-
Saharan Africa will give birth to an average of 5.2
children in her lifetime (Guardian 2011). This rapid
growth, along with other negative factors such as
harmful economic systems, conflict and
deterioration in the environment, has limited growth in per capita income,
causing poverty and hunger.



The air in Africa is greatly polluted due to multiple reasons stated below. The
primitive method of farming that takes place in most areas in Africa is certainly
a causal factor. The United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization estimates
that 11.3 million hectares of land are being lost annually to agriculture,
grazing, uncontrolled burning and fuelwood consumption. Combustion of wood and
charcoal are used for cooking and this results to a release of carbon dioxide
into the atmosphere, which is a toxic pollutant in the atmosphere Also, due to
the poor supply of power, most homes have to rely on fuel and diesel in
generators to keep their electricity running. The World Health Organization
reports of the need to intervene when more than one third of the total Disability
Adjusted Life Years was lost as a result of exposure to indoor air pollution in
Africa. Fuel is needed to power lights at night. The fuel being burned causes
great emissions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Because of the increased
urbanization in Africa, people are burning more and more fuel and using more
vehicles for transportation. The rise in vehicle emissions and the trend towards
greater industrialization means the urban air quality in the continent is
worsening. In many countries, the use of leaded gasoline is still widespread, and
vehicle emission controls are nonexistent. Indoor air pollution is widespread,
mostly from the burning
of coal in the kitchen
for cooking.
Household coal and wood
burning for cooking
inside the house causes
indoor pollution.
Compounds released from fuel stations and nitrogen and hydrocarbon released from
airports cause air pollution. Carbon dioxide other greenhouse gases in the air
causes an increase of people with respiratory issues.