Discussion of poverty in Africa has generally been framed by one, reductive question, namely: “Why do you not run your country properly?” From the tedium of this rhetoric-a constant refrain in both political and media circles-the conclusion drawn is that all that is wrong with Africa stems from bad governance, corruption, incompetence, or an inherent incapacity of Africans to run their societies. This overlooks more substantial and often neglected causes of underdevelopment in Africa.
In many ways, the DRC constitutes a graphic case study of how historical factors, through external exploitation and systemic global inequities, have retarded development in the nation.
Understanding the challenges facing the DRC therefore provides additional clarity to perhaps the biggest question: why is Africa poor?
Historical Exploitation: A Century of Plunder
To understand the situation with DRC, you have to start with its colonial history. King Leopold II of Belgium seized the Congo Free State as his fiefdom in 1885. During his rule, the Congo was a vast labour camp where millions of Congolese were compelled to work in extracting rubber, ivory, and minerals for exportation to European markets. This system led to an approximate death toll of 10 million persons due to forced labour, disease and starvation. The after-effects of such exploitation have left deep scars on the country, making it poor and backward in comparison to its history.
The international uproar over the atrocities by Leopold led the Belgian government to annex the Congo in 1908. However, instead of engendering development, Belgium continued its exploitation and plunder of natural resources; thus, there was very limited infrastructural development, education, or health for the people of the Congo. When the Congo attained independence in 1960, there were less than 20 university graduates who had any experience in running their government. The colonial administration succeeded in installing a system where only Belgium would benefit, not Congo.
The Cold War and the Assassination of Hope
The independence of Congo in 1960 was a moment of high optimism under its first prime minister, Patrice Lumumba. Lumumba passionately tried to free the country from colonial rule and retake its natural resources for its citizens. However, his nationalist attitude and policy were seen as a great concern and danger to Western powers, especially the United States, which feared that Congo would become allied with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Within a few months of coming into office, Lumumba was overthrown in a coup engineered with the help of the CIA, and he was then killed in 1961.
In his stead, the US and Belgium promoted Mobutu Sese Seko, who ruled Congo, later known as Zaire, for over three decades. Corruption, dictatorial leadership, and continual exploitation of Congo’s rich mineral resources were the hallmarks of Mobutu’s rule supported by foreign nations. He amassed personal wealth, while the people of Congo were steeped in poverty. What prevailed during Mobutu’s era was the same extraction and exploitation system established during the colonial era; this time, however, it was legitimized by global powers.
Neocolonialism: The Exploitation Continues
Now, in 2024, the DRC features among the poorest countries in the world, yet it is super-endowed with natural resources. This country boasts of vast deposits of cobalt, copper, diamonds, and gold minerals that are vital to modern technologies. However, this wealth is siphoned by multinational companies such as Glencore, dominant in mining activities in Congo. These companies, often paying little in taxes and failing to invest in local communities, perpetuate systemic economic inequality.
The extraction of resources in the Congo continues to enrich foreign firms at the same time as it impoverished the nation. This is neocolonialism, if one wills to hear of it: where the promoted form of exploitation creates an insidious self-propelling vortex of poverty and underdevelopment within the Congo. It has been an inherently unequal system that reflects a wider pattern found throughout the African continent, whereby resources are extracted for the benefit of global markets with scant regard for the well-being of those on whose land it is extracted.
Call for a different system
The question is tautological: “Why don’t you govern your country well?” is a gross oversimplification of the historical and structural elements that have led to this situation in Africa. The issue is not entirely a matter of governance or theft; instead, it is one of colonialism still alive today; the influence of foreign intervention, and above all the merciless exploitation of its natural resources by international forces which have forever condemned the African continent to poverty.
What Africa needs is no more lectures on governance. What is needed for Africa is a different system, not based on exploitation and domination by alien corporations. African countries need freedom and self-determination to handle their resources in the way they see fit, to serve the best interests of their people, not under the dictates of foreign powers and corporations.
The international community, too, bears huge responsibility. Western governments and corporations bear strong responsibility for perpetuating poverty in Africa, and that requires recognition of and an end to the exploitation of resources without compensation, policies that further economic justice, and a fair share of the resources in the world economy for African countries.
The question should therefore not be, “What is wrong with Africa?” but rather, “What is wrong with the system that keeps Africa poor?” Until this problem is addressed, Africa will never realize its potential and is therefore likely to continue bearing the brunt of a system that was never designed to see it through.
Haleed Sulemana Namyella (send him mail) is a Human Rights Advocate & Development Professional . He Serves as a research Associate of the Institute for Liberty and Economic Education (ILEE). Mobile Phone: (+233) 24 051 0973.
DISCLAIMER: “The views expressed on ileeghana.org are not necessarily those of Institute for Liberty and Economic Education (ILEE)”.
References
– Burgis, T. (2015). The Looting Machine: Warlords, Oligarchs, Corporations, Smugglers, and the Theft of Africa’s Wealth. PublicAffairs.
– Gibbs, D. N. (1991). The Political Economy of Third World Intervention: Mines, Money, and U.S. Policy in the Congo Crisis. University of Chicago Press.
– Hochschild, A. (1998). King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa. Mariner Books.
– Nzongola-Ntalaja, G. (2002). The Congo from Leopold to Kabila: A People’s History. Zed Books.
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