Mr. Kim 's Pledge

In Africa for example, savings rates of around 17% of GDP compare to 31% on average for middle income countries. Low savings rates and poorly developed or malfunctioning financial markets make it more expensive for African public and private sectors to get funds for investment as higher borrowing costs impede capital investment. Moreover, in

Disease such as malaria are degrading the society and causing a lack of educated youth in the Congo. The children are the future of any society. The main goal of the United States is to have a well educated and effective group of children who will grow up and lead the country to success. The Congo off course would

In the late nineteenth century the European powers of the world began imperializing Africa. This annexation, occupation, and division of African territory has since led to much strife within the continent and has caused many struggles politically. This period known as the “Scramble for Africa” has led to the many problems that Africa faces today and has been the root of several wars in Africa to assume control. After World War II many European imperialists began to give African nations autonomy. This seemed like a step forward for African nations, but without any plan to transition into self governance many African nations have faced bloody civil wars and corruption. Along with political struggles, numerous African nations face rising debt and other economic problems. Many of these political and economic issues stem from the “Scramble for Africa”. Once the European countries left Africa had very little to support itself. To explain the issues left by imperialism the three African nations of Rwanda, South Africa, and Sierra Leone will be put under the scope.

McDoom, Omar S. 2013. ‘To Aid, or Not to Aid? The Rwanda-United Nations University.’ United Nations University. http://unu.edu/publications/articles/to-aid-or-not-to-aid-the-case-of-rwanda.html (October 23, 2015).

Few places are more treacherous than the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in Africa. For two decades, near-steady warfare has claimed millions of lives in the area.

Modern African states have various problems ranging from corruption, to armed conflict, to stunted structural development. Africa’s ongoing political instability and economic crisis have hindered the improvement of Africa. Thus, the lack of money, advancement in technology, and climate has hampered economic development. Despite European mistreatment and oppression African’s have endured hardships that have encouraged economy, education, and political

The large cash injection would then create a “greasing the gears effect” and allow for the jumpstart of economic development. Between the years of 1948 and 1952 the U.S. granted $13 billion to revamp the European economy (Dambisa, 2009: 35). This particular method achieved great success in post-World War II Europe and was known as the Marshall Plan. Due to its effective and unquestionable success in this era, the model was applied to economic development in Africa with the confidence that the same outstanding results would ensue. However, the application of the Marshall Plan to Africa is problematic for three reasons. One, the Marshall Plan had a rigid duration period of five years while, the concessional loans and grants to Africa over the last 50 years have been unending (Dambisa, 2009: 36). Two, European institutions were already in place to receive the aid efficiently and effectively. In Africa, however, these same institutions are either non-existent or grossly ineffective due to corruption (Dambisa, 2009: 37). The vast amounts of corruption have been heavily documented. Mobutu Sese Seko, President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo from 1965 to 1997, for example, stole an equivalent of U.S. 5 billion dollars from his people (Dambisa, 2009: 48). However, even the less corrupt rulers of many African countries had few options as to what to invest the aid money on. Consequently, the bulk concessional aid goes directly into consumption without a variety of investment outlets. This process does not solve the problem but instead, allows for the cycle to continue. Lastly, three, the money from the Marshal had specific targets to repair physical infrastructure such as, roads, communications, sewage, factories, and electric systems (Dambisa, 2009: 37) In Africa today, the scope of the

Stealing Africa is a staggering documentary about a money hungry company called Glencore. They are responsible for the destruction of land in Zambia that has left natives penny-less. The Zambian natives are now some of the poorest people in the world. What Glencore wants is their copper rich grounds that can make them billions of dollars. This copper is essential in the global economy and has caught the eyes of the world’s richest companies. Today, virtually all of the copper mines in Zambia are owned by multi-national corporations. In the past ten years they have extracted enough copper to be worth more than twenty nine billion US dollars. Ironically,

Despite its immense potential, very little of this wealth has benefited the Congolese people. Instead, all of its riches have attracted adventurers, warlords, corrupt governments, and unscrupulous corporations, and divided the population into competing groups. This is the main source of the conflict that rids the majority of eastern DRC (“The world factbook,” 2017).

The Eastern Congo is considered a weak state because of the corruption, poverty and war. The Eastern Congo has a large amount of natural resources which should be an asset to the country, but war and rebel groups are feuding over these resources. The corruption and feud over these resources weakens that state. The Eastern Congo has a large amount of farmland that is not utilized and could be used to feed most of Africa, but conflict and control deter the people from utilizing the farmland[1]. The argument over these resources is ultimately affecting the civilians. Many of these disputes have existed for decades. I was astonished to hear that there have been 5.4 million deaths since 1994 in Eastern Congo, most of which are civilians and less

4. Read Annual Editions Article 4.1, "Africa's Hopeful Economies: The Sun Shines Bright", pp. 116-122, and Article 4.2, "Can Africa Turn from Recovery to Development?", pp. 122-127.

The newly independent Congo was only two weeks old when Moise Tshembe declared the city of Katanga a separate nation. This decision had affected both countries mainly because of how wealthy and desired Katanga’s land was. Because of the city’s copper belt and profitable mining operation, when it succeeded the Belgians, French, and British rushed to support it in hopes to take advantage of its valuable land. The countries even took stabs at manipulating the unexperienced, tribal leader. Even though this was against U.N. rules, the countries placed mercenaries in katanga’s army. Back in the Congo, this was bad news for Patrice Lumumba. He soon appealed to the U.N. for weapons and soldiers to end the secession. The U.N. at first refused and deemed

At first, the United Nations had refused to take part in the Katanga succession because it was an internal conflict between the Congolese and the Belgians (Gibbs, 93). In actuality, the United Nations really just wanted to stay in good with the United States. The United States has a large amount of influence over the United Nations and even currently, the United States pays almost thirty percent of the organizations bills (UN.org, HowMuchDoesPeacekeepingCost?). The United States at the beginning had supported the succession of Katanga. The Central Intelligence Agency had even sent military aid to the Katangese military. Although it did not take long for the United States to understand that for the Congo to thrive it would need to have, “Superior forces and effective external support were crucial arbiters of political outcomes” (Duignan, 124). The United States could not allow for the Soviet Union to be that external support. United States had a fear of communist take over and believed that if the Congo turned communist then all of Africa would turn as well. The United States had believed that Lumumba was a secret communist, under the control of the Soviet Union, and it did not help that he had gotten aid from the Soviet Union (Dunn, 63). So in order to keep Congo and subsequently Africa, the United States came up with contingencies to get rid of Lumumba (Vanthemsche, 203). In Lumumba’s defense he had not been a

Modern African states have several problems ranging from corruption, to armed conflict, to stunted structural development. The effects of colonialism have been offered as a starting point for much of the analysis on African states, but the question of why African states are particularly dysfunctional needs to be examined, given the extent to which they have lagged behind other former European colonies in many aspects. In the first section, I will consider the problems with African states from the level of the state. That is, the nature of the states' inceptions and the underlying flaws may explain some of the issues that have been associated with African states today. Next I examine the development of, or lack of, civil

The country has been able to take advantage of the region’s positive prospects and should continue to do so in coming years. The country has good prospects for economic growth and foreign direct investment (FDI), import cover levels are comfortable, and political risk is relatively low.