The impressive growth figures of resource-rich African countries are not all good news

Imperialism created this mess by carving Africa into artificial entities that represented nothing except their own interests. The end of imperialism saw the emergence of countries with no historical basis. Societies were arbitrarily divided between different states. Many tribes and nations found themselves in a different state from their co-nationalists, often sharing this new state with other tribes and and nations with which they had never had anything in common.

The result was inevitable, the creation of a political landscape highly compatible to the rapid emergence of corrupt brutal elites with no desire or capacity to provide any semblance of decent governance.

The West, particularly Britain and France must finally take responsibility for their actions, and make amends, even if this means spilling some of their blood to remove the worst of the bad lot of leaders. Force created this mess, and unfortunately there is no way to solve it without some use of force. Considering how much African blood Europeans shed making this mess, asking to spill a bit of their own now to clean it up is not unreasonable.

I suspect there is a kind of leaning curve to go through. The book "The Spirit Level" makes a point (although I am suspicious of its politically oriented message) that the long-term path of human-kind is from primitive equality, through a transition of mega-rich aristocracy, toward an ultimately fairer society in which everyone benefits. It appears well-established that even though the rich are better off than the poor in a seriously unequal country, they are not as happy and healthy as the better off in a more equal society. Rich Americans have more money but shorter lives ( and far higher health-care costs) than wealthy Europeans.

In a similar way we go from a brutal selfish culture through religion which becomes a crusade and later matures into a gentler religion which forms attitudes but no longer inflames passions.

African and Arab leaders have mostly not arrived there yet, still engrossed with bling. Or Swiss bank accounts.

Africa suffers from resources curse is nonsense.
Poverty is not fatalistic.
God creates wealth.
Man creates poverty out of greediness.
Corruption = Giver and Taker
Who is the giver?
Why is the giver giving?
How do the givers take out wealth out of Africa?
Who is the taker?
Why is the taker taken?
Is he taken out of fear or out of greediness?
How do corrupt African leaders take out the siphoned money out of Africa?
Where do they take their money to?
Who keep the money for them?
How much are those who keep the money are paid?
Talking about the governments, what government are we talking about? The governments of the giver or the taker?
Some governments have been in office for decades? Do these governments know the theory of diminishing returns? Who is keeping such governments in office? For what purpose?
Let us start asking these questions? Asking the questions will drive us to find some answers.
How I wished that the first responsibility to do something lies with African leaders themselves? How many lives have been wasted? Any enlightened leader who tries to change what I called the “GI” is put to silent or wasted.
What is the “Grand Irony, GI”?
The GI is Africa is rich and Africans are poor. The GI is a threat to the world stability. Business cannot flourish in chaos. Therefore the first responsibility to do something lies with international business leaders themselves.
Can business leaders do it alone? No
There is no where on earth that God has not created wealth it is up to mankind to find it. Only knowledge can unleash wealth.
Business needs the academia and people who aspire to building a better world to change the status quo in Africa. The changes are coming, Tunisia, Egypt,…
Kudos! Facebook, Tweeter, Gmail, Yahoo, Mobile telephone…
Innovation is changing the world. The real wealth is knowledge.
Africa resources are blessings and it is time to prove it. The real wealth is knowledge and it will be used to tackle the Grand Irony.

The transparency initiative is just to make the Western expoliters look legal, there are always ways around these things. Why do you think Shell dramatically reduced it estimates of reserves in the likes of Nigeria? It is so all the oil taken by 'bunkering' is legitimately lost - the rulers pocket the hidden sales receipts and the oil co's will have a kickback somewhere.
Foe every line of corruption there is a giver for every taker - the West is just as much to blame as the African leaders - the only ones who suffer is Joe Public who still doesn't get out of poverty.

Yoni, it's well past time to blame and high time to start getting to work improving the reality, transparency and governance in the African countries. If you're in an African country, that means you should work on improving it and stop blaming others for the problems. Southeast Asian countries, take Vietnam for example, had recent foreign intrusions. They've worked past the disadvantages and kick ass.

Egbin, your gibberish sounds like the counter-productive Christian BS I hear way too often in West Africa that makes people delusional and counterproductive. Yes, resources don't necessarily have to be a curse, but they often are, with very common and important examples.

I hate kleptocrats! It is an irony that the sight of animals in despair enkindles pity in the hearts of plutocrats but they feel disgusted when they see the sufferings of the poor.

The plutocrats of Africa have exploited the poor for a very long time & the UN should make sure that it ends.

A largely unsurprising article, IMO. The Economist's thoughts on the impressive growth figures of African countries that are not so resource rich - such as Ethiopia - would be most welcome.

The first step would be for all those truly concerned for the plight of the African people should be to quite clearly state that no one can be cursed by minerals lying beneath the surface of the earth. The only curse in Africa is the curse of poor governance and leadership. While abundant natural resources help to facilitate this poor governance in the end the only ones responsible for the misdeeds of the corrupt rulers is the rulers themselves.

Assigning blame for their actions to inanimate objects makes as much sense as blaming the gun instead of the one firing it when someone is shot. Perhaps it is time to ban all inanimate objects since they do seem to be the cause of a great deal of misery and death.

Ronando2/

Ethiopia growing fast? First time I am hearing that one.

One can only hope that Egypt will provide an inspiration for the people of Africa to stand up and demand better from their leaders.

And like Mauritius...even though many doubt about Mauritius being and African country. A good resource to start with is Democracy!

You write “No place without the institutions to hold powerful men to account can completely escape the temptations of huge resource wealth”

That is not entirely right, a much more correct phrasing would be, “no institution, no matter how strong, will be able to stand up against powerful men armed with resource wealth when this exceeds some limits“

For me the limits of resource revenues that government can receive before everything goes haywire is an amount that should never surpass 5% of GDP, 15% of its exports, or 25% of all tax revenues received from the citizens. Those are the limits I am fighting to impose in my oil-cursed country Venezuela.

And this is why I dislike it so much when foreign well intended organizations like the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative, EITI, for no good purpose at all declares as its second principle “We affirm that management of natural resource wealth for the benefit of a country’s citizens is in the domain of sovereign governments to be exercised in the interests of their national development.” Sincerely these international well-doers, just as the government bureaucrats, have no idea of what a real oil-curse is; only we oil-cursed citizens do.

More transparency? Great, but let us not forget that sometimes this only means letting the tortured be able to see when they are pulling his fingernails out.

Per Kurowski
An oil-cursed citizen
http://theoilcurse.blogspot.com/

Ps. Just in case you forgot let me remind you that the European taxman even at current high oil prices gets more revenue out of each barrel of oil than what any country that sacrifices a barrel of oil for ever…

Only a select few will enjoy the fruits of the potential national resources. The poor hapless masses will continue wallowing in grinding poverty, misery & hardships, till Kingdom Come..

Surely the inherent assumptions of what is 'good' and 'bad' in this article show a fair degree of hypocrisy on the part of The Economist, or at least some strong contradictions.

correction: "life expectancy is very, very low"

All these commodities, which no longer can be called commodities by its definition of "common" and therefore cheap, will not hold current prices for "as long as China keeps on eating". The ones that think China is uthopically responsible for this price increase will be very disapointed, cause that has been done by INCREASE IN MONEY SUPPLY IN USD. So as long as the FED keeps on hitting the "Print" button, prices will continue up (with a strong help from levereged speculation, or do you think OIL should have reached 150 in 2008, just because of the Chinese?). Now when they seal this button for another 30 years (As normal aconomies work), you will see demand's face. And that's not as big as people think.....

Blame the poor growth of African nations on avaricious leaders that the continent has been cursed with, the too docile followers that sadly might have been made too vegetative in their reasoning and actions by overwhelming penury.It's arguably true that an average African young mind do not think beyond living a large life because of hard life he had been forced to contend with while growing up. Our destiny in Africa is in our hands still, our potential growth in every stratum of our lives relies heavily on our ability to hold people in positions of authority accountable, set and water systems that strictly put in checks all-grabbing leaders that dominate our lives in Africa.

It's really sad but we still have alot of battles to contend with in Africa as a continent if we're to be reckoned with in the comity of continents in the world.It's good enough that God has placed on our laps good resources to build our continent but good management of those resources is where we have been unsuccessful. But the mind-boggling questions I keep asking myself are "Do we really deserve the kind of people we have at the helms of government affairs in Africa"? "Do we lack managers of resources in Africa that even in the twenty first centuries, things are still not looking really upward for us"? "Can the people of Africa face the challenges of solving their myriads of problems all alone"? I am really sad that we still don't have model nations in Africa, that's really underwhelming for a continent so enriched in natural resources.

Yes, Equatorial Guinea also should spread wealth among the population. Even if it is suppose to have a high income per head similar to Western Europe....average life expectancy is very,very law. Infraestructure is bad. Health care is Third World. The rulers can end like Mubarak if they don´t spread the wealth among the people. There is a big difference between the earnings of the rulers, who are just managers, and the earnings of citizens, who are the owners of Equatorial Guinea´s resources. Those in Government are just MANAGERS, NOT OWNERS. And if their management is bad compared to the money they earn, then they shold leave the country. And if they have stolen money from the People sending it to a European or American Bank, they should return that money to the PEOPLE.

Yoni is quite right, and it's something that I explore in my new book, African Lions (out today: www.africanlionsbook.com). The geopolitics of Africa’s resources looks quite troubling: they have come out of an era of colonialism and look to be going right back into it, thanks to the influx of foreign companies that threaten to reap the benefits of their resources without giving them decent recompense (or rather, giving the corrupt leadership the recompense, which is almost certainly never going to find its way down to the masses).

There is a very strong argument to say that we shouldn’t be so kind on Africa, passing the blame for their mismanagement to our colonial history with them – but that’s too detached and calculating (what I describe in the book as colonial celebratist). Likewise, we shouldn’t be the total opposite and be too interventionist or apologetic (colonial apologists, in African Lions’ terms). Rather a medium way is necessary, where we’re mindful of what happened – and what could happen in the future – but not too eager to step in with unwanted and unhelpful aid.

I’m keen to hear other people’s thoughts. Buy the book from www.africanlionsbook.com (it’s just under £10, £6.99 as an ebook download) and let me know how you feel the geopolitical issues surrounding Africa’s gas and oil should be dealt with.

Holymackerel
You are surely holy because your comments sounds exactly like the preaching of those holiness who in the name of god has kept and still keeping people under bondage in West Africa. They preach that African Resources are a curse from god. And those important examples are the results of their work. To an honest intelligent being, resources cannot be a curse. A resource is a blessing. You only know this fact when you are knowledgeable. God is God.