preview

Sub-Saharan Africa

Decent Essays

The world is evolving, moving toward a better lifestyle and a more comfortable way of living and conducting business, yet two thirds of the world’s population is striving to get the basic needs, living in extremely poor life conditions and suffering from several complicated issues and challenges that hinder the economic development in their countries. On the other hand, people in the other part of the world enjoy a high quality of living standards where the income per capita is high. The entire world is accordingly divided into two groups, rich and poor countries, where the richest nations with the highest income per capita are known as the “developed world” and these include the United States, Canada, most of the countries of Western Europe, …show more content…

Sub- Saharan encompasses all African countries situated south of the Sahara Desert, such as Ghana, Ethiopia, Congo, Niger, Uganda, Somalia and others.

In fact, the situation in those countries is relatively complicated and not easy to assess. Several aspects contribute to the destructive conditions in the sub-Saharan region. Basically, poor education systems, insufficient infrastructure and inadequate healthcare services are at the top of the list. Each of these aspects will be separately analyzed in the following paragraphs.

To begin with, the poor education system is considered to be a major barrier to economic development. Despite the massive advance in education methods and ways of teaching around the globe, education systems in the sub-Saharan region suffer from various setbacks and failures which have negatively affected economic growth. One of the major issues in this area is the high rate of out-of-school children. Recent statistics published by UNESCO (2014) indicate that there are about 57 million children worldwide who are of school age but not attending school- in which sub-Saharan Africa accounts for more than 50%; most of them are girls. The report also indicates that the number of youth who are not enrolled …show more content…

In Niger for example, The United Nations states that for every 100 boys there are fewer than 41 girls at school (The Economist, 2013). In reality, educated women promote economic development and assist societal improvement in several ways, so they can get better jobs, contribute to the family income and raise healthy children. A further challenge in the education sector is about the high rate of the pupil/ teacher ratio. There is a shortage in teachers’ recruitment compared to the increasing number of pupils’ enrollment. The recently published statistics show that pupil/teacher ratio in primary education is exceeding 40:1 (UNESCO,

Get Access