ONCE UPON A TIME AFRICA

Reality: poverty in Africa

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The African countries are among the poorest of the world.
Africa is the second largest continent on earth, and occupy's 20% of the Earth's land area. From North to South, Africa is about 5,000 miles and from East to West it is about 4,600 miles. The population of Africa is slightly less than 14% of the total world population. About 50% of the world’s diamonds are produced in Africa and yet 32 of the 38 countries in Africa are highly indebted poor countries. In front of poverty all the African countries are not equal. In fact the Sub-Saharan countries are poorer than those in North Africa. For instance most of Sub-Saharan Africa are in the lowest income category with less than $765 Gross National Income (GNI) per person per year. Ethiopia and Burundi are the worst off with just $90 GNI per person (World Bank report).

REASONS OF POVERTY
Many reasons can explain the current poverty in Africa. There are some of them:

1.Mental poverty

Mental poverty is one the important reason because it deals with the creativity of African people. Many African people are so poor mentally that their imagination is used to survive and not for innovation and development. The mental poverty is observed in all the sphere of the society (governments and the rest of the population). It affects the way of living and thinking that some consider themselves. People are not thinking on how they would help their country to develop or go out of poverty. There is a kind of resignation.

2. The land is a major problem in Africa

In many African countries where there are productive lands we notice a serious problem of land management that leads to degradation. The distribution and ownership of land in some countries – it is the case in austral countries like Zimbabwe – are so confused that there are no real efficient policies. We can also point out the unreliability of rainfall that causes the absence of irrigation in