Examine reasons for changes in pattern of world development

Who knew how powerful the 1960’s would be? You had the civil rights movement, Woodstock, Vietnam War, and an explosion in rock and roll, as well as soul? Exactly, and that’s just in America. In Africa, countries were gaining freedom and independence. By 1980 the British, French, Italians, Spanish, Portuguese, and Dutch were being conquered and most of Africa had claimed independence as countries, all the while apartheid was still going on. Even with the riots between warring states, weren’t enough to keep them. It actually caused them to lose more control. Countries demanded freedom and to end the apartheid across Africa. Nelson Mandela went to jail for his cause and was released in 1990, after twenty-seven years of imprisonment. Over seventy leaders were assassinated in order to keep control in Africa. I’m going to explain the problems they faced gaining independence in Nigeria and South Africa, as well as the political reforms going on as we speak since 1990.

Over time when the African civilizations failed to go with the technological advances of Europe. Blacks and the minorities are

Africa has become aid dependent in the sense that “few of its states can carry and routine functions or deliver basic public services without external funding and expertise”(Goldsmith, Foreign Aid and Statehood in Africa). Foreign aid is meant to be used as a means of creating the infrastructure and institutions to carry out the functions of a nation. African nations have become so used to foreigners providing many basic functions and necessities of their people they do not feel the need to provide it themselves. This thinking has allowed for unneeded increases of foreign aid because of the lack of progress made by Africa with the current spending. Western nations have done little to nothing to give African nations incentives to use the foreign aid in an effective manner so that less and less foreign aid has to be provided to

New leaders, who were union leaders, soldiers, and educated university student, arrived and skillfully promoted the "Africa for Africans" vision in hopes of independence and nationalism.

Jeremy Williams published an article on the political factors of certain countries that tend to make them less developed. His article states that governments need to do lots of things to encourage development (Williams 2009). Countries need to build and maintain infrastructure and raise and spend finance wisely on the right projects (Williams 2009). When governments are inept at managing infrastructure, development is impossible (Williams 2009). This shows that for a country to obtain a more developed, wealthy, and established country, it must have a stabilized government. Africa’s government has been quite unstable throughout the years, which has caused it’s lack of wealth (Williams 2009). Another political factor that has affected the reason why Africa is less developed is the burden of a long term conflict (Williams 2009). Somalia for example, has been going through a raging war, which seems to be the main focus of the country, leaving no room for development (Williams

However, Africa’s turmoil and backwardness, although possibly seeded in slow development, has been perpetuated by outsiders claiming to do good for the people but doing otherwise. Despite this damage, Africans have worked hard for the past couple of decades to improve their image and create an Africa that is thriving and modernizing. Africa may still lag behind other regions of the world in many factors, but what is undisputed is that Africa is overcoming its challenges and moving to the

INTRODUCTIONBackground Sub-Saharan Africa continues to present the world with its most formidable developmentchallenge. During the last two decades the number of the poor in Africa has doubled from150 million to 300 million, more than 40 percent of the region’s population. About one thirdof the region’s population lives in countries affected by or emerging from conflict. Moreover,HIV/AIDS continues to threaten African lives and livelihoods. Africa is the only region thatremains behind on most of the MDGs. On current trends it will fall far short of meeting the2015 targets, (The World Bank, 2005).Africa has come a long way in its efforts to achieve sustainable development. Lessons of thecontinent’s development over the last two decades consistently highlighted the need for moreintensive efforts to effectively address some of its major development constraints. Acombination of ineffective policies, outright mismanagement (in some countries), heavyexternal debt burden, poor governance, and conflicts precipitated the massive economicdecline in the early 1980s. The recovery in the latter half of the decade was partly due tomajor economic policy reforms as well as growing socio-political pluralism and economicstability, which were consolidated in the decade of the 1990s. Yet, much still remains to bedone, as the African continent entered the 21st century faced with numerous developmentchallenges. Some of these challenges

Third World Debt In 1957, Ghana, a promising and growing African country, had a higher

I discuss below major developmental challenges in Africa (by extension other poor countries) which have roots in contemporary imperial relations with the West. These include: debt burdens, structural adjustment programmes, operations of multinational corporations and external aid.

Poverty on the continent of Africa is a direct result of European Colonial Powers leaving abruptly after World War II. Poverty can be minimized by establishing stronger forms of government, which will then allow Africa to trade, more people will be educated, which will then increase the amount of people working, and improving infrastructure, which will allow for better access to poor countries.

Africa had to fight for their rights against curious Europeans who wanted their goods for many centuries. Between the years of 1960 through 1980, most African countries had become independent or were trying to do so. Gamal Abdel Nasser led the project to build the Nile Dam in 1968 which improved irrigation and provided Egypt with electric power. In 1974, economic reform began with the “open door policy.”

With lack of knowledge, money, supplies and without the use of the internet it is easy to see that Africa needs help unless it was to be completely forgotten to other countries. For example, OConnor makes the point, Africa has to overcome their obstacles before using the internet. This suggests that Africa t has to be able to run a country efficiently before fitting in with other countries with the internet. Other countries need to help Africa solve such issues as malnutrition and deadly viruses. In addition, Professor Akwule, professor of communications at George Mason University, believes the lack of education separates Africa from other countries. In addition, Professor Irving, head of the National Telecommunications Information Administration, states, Youve got to get people to open up their markets. Its going to take efforts on a global basis to open up markets, and it has to be government

Africa and other less developed countries, although not completely opening itself up to globalisation, is accepting the internet and other telecommunications as an opportunity to gain access to knowledge and services from around the world in a way that would have been unimaginable previously. The internet and technologies such as mobile telephony allow developing countries to leapfrog steps in their development of infrastructure. A poor land line telephone system in the Philippines, for example, is being rapidly bypassed by mobile phones with internet access. The spread of globalisation on this scale would have been unthinkable if the Soviet bloc hadn't collapsed opening up new markets and cultures.

In Africa press freedom served as a form of liberty and democracy as the media began to be the voice of citizens in the national dialogue. However, this liberation and benefit of democracy only served a specific demographic in Africa, the powerful, the elite, and the wealthy. This socioeconomic geographic divide means those in urban areas are able to enjoy the use of digital media whilst those in rural areas are excluded. Mobile and Internet are hardly found outside the major cities because they are unaffordable. The infrastructure required to reach everyone through television or the internet is expensive. Rather expenses are prioritized towards a reach to the global market. Technological development and talent is present in the region but serves global markets rather than serving the needs of the local community.

The income gap that exists between the rich and poor countries has become substantial. In 2003, the richest fifth of the world’s population received 85% of the total world income, while poorest fifth received just 1.4% of the global income (infoplease, 2005).When the GDP is