HOME | FUNNY ARTICLES | TOP NEWS REPORTS | SUBMIT
|
Oct. 5, 2009 About twenty years ago, I recall reading that the GDP of Belgium exceeded the combined GDP's of all the countries of "Black Africa". I looked up the figures in Encyclopedia Britannica, in those pre-Internet days, added everything up, and discovered that the statement was true. I don't recall exactly what countries I considered, but I probably excluded South Africa, since, at that time, it was dominated by the white minority. And even today it might be argued that South Africa's relative economic success is due largely to the industrial and commercial infrastructure bequeathed by the deposed white minority. But how does the situation look in 2009? Has African development antiquated that rather dismal picture? We now have two versions to consider, one excluding South Africa, and one including South Africa, to see how the countries of Black Africa stand up in a comparison with other countries. First of all, let me be very specific about what countries I am including under the heading of Black Africa. There are 47 countries on mainland Africa. I have excluded Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Morocco. I might have excluded Mauritania and Sudan too. but I decided to yield the benefit of the doubt and assign them to Black Africa. I have included Madagascar, the large island just east of Africa, whose inhabitants are not Negroid but Austronesian. However I have omitted eight groups of small islands, like the Azores, the Comoros, etc., that are sometimes considered parts of Africa. So I have a list of 43 countries, the following: Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Cote d'Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe. I got the Gross Domestic Products from Wikipedia's article , List of Countries by GDP (Nominal): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal) I used the first column of figures, which is from the International Monetary Fund. If we don't count South Africa, the sum of the GDP's of all the countries above is $704,792,000,000. If we count South Africa, the sum is $981,800,000,000, slightly less than $1 trillion. Going back to the IMF's figures, we see that the sum of all the Black African GDP's, if we exclude South Africa, is now somewhat more than Belgium's GDP, but less than Turkey's. And we all know what an economic powerhouse Turkey is. If we include South Africa, the aggregate African figure is slightly greater than South Korea's, slightly less than Australia's, though Black Africans outnumber Australians by more than 30 to 1. So it looks as if Black Africa is not making much economic progress in spite of Africa's vast lands and limitless natural resources. You can see in the same list that Hong Kong's GDP exceeds Nigeria's, though Nigeria has 20 times as many people and much more land. Hong Kong was a British colony for 160 years, but Nigeria was a British colony for only 60, so blaming Africa's backwardness on colonialism is mere rationalization. The difference in human resources is the crux of the difference in economic achievement. Hong Kong's average IQ is about 105, whereas Nigeria's is about 75. IQ does make a difference. ------------ About the author Thomas Keyes: I have written two books: A SOJOURN IN ASIA (non-fiction) and A TALE OF UNG (fiction), neither published so far. I have studied languages for years and traveled extensively on five continents. Visit my website here. Email: udikeyes@yahoo.com Comment on this article here! 
------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
||||||
|
|
|||||||
|
