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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 whatsome 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.

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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 livingunder 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,

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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 anddeterioration 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 towardsgreater 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.

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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.