The Major Problems Confronting African Governments or Countries

Problems facing African Governments; poverty, lack of basic needs, and illiteracy

Population may be defined as a group of individuals or species occupying a defined space at a particular time OR a collective group of organism of the same species (or some other groups within which individuals may exchange genetic information) occupying a particular space (Newman 1994:205). Africa is the second largest continent lies in southern pole of the planet Earth. It is termed as the third world continent because many of its countries are among the Less Developing Countries (LDCs).

The human population in the current less-developed countries (LOCs) has grown since the Second World War at unprecedented rates from less than 2 per cent per annum to about 2.5 in the 1960/70_s. Put in a more thematic context, or in alarming terms, this increase in rates has shortened the period in within which the population could double correspondingly, from more than 35 to 28 years and down to less than 23 years.

In that regard therefore, African governments are confronting the population problems such as rapid population growth, high mortality rate and high fertility rate, poverty (famine/food insecurity and malnutrition), overburdened health care systems, agro-ecological degradation and unemployment (Mbaku, 2004:102-103). The following is the assessment of these major population problems confronting African governments.

Rapid population growth

According to United States, Office of Technology Assessment, Congress (2000:180) rapid population growth is a global concern, and obstacle to economic development, and problem in needed of high level national attention. African countries confronting this problem in which the population growth is surpassing the available resources. Mbaku, (2004:102) asserts that the majority of African countries are characterized by relatively high population growth rates. In the last two decades, population-related crises in Ethiopia, Sudan, Somalia, Chad, Rwanda, and the Great Lakes region have reminded the world of the effects of excessive population increases on Africa and its fragile ecosystem (especially famine and malnutrition) in Somalia, Sudan Ethiopia and parts of Sahel. Rapid population increase intensify the competition for scarce resources and put pressure on an already fragile ecosystems. Unfortunately, the African national production capacities are not increasing fast enough to meet the needs of the ever-expanding population. 

Poor town/city planning

Urbanization

According to Mbaku (2004:104) urbanization has emerged as another population-related problem for many African countries. Since the mid 1950_s, many Africans have been abandoning the rural agricultural sectors and migrating to the urban areas. Although many reasons have been advanced to explain the large exodus of people, especially the young, from the rural areas the most important of them is declining returns to agriculture (due to primarily to poor farming techniques, lack of technology and excessive taxation of the sector by the state to generate benefits for the urban sector) and the absence of opportunities for social and economic advancement. In some regions of Africa, migration has been due to excessive population growth and overcrowding on the farms.

Increases in the rural population coupled with poor and adequate farming practices, have significantly reduced the amount of land available for agriculture, the occupation of the majority of the people who reside in this region of the world. As the result, many displaced farmers have been forced to exit the rural sector in search of more favourable opportunities for social and economic advancement – usually in the urban industrial area. In many rural areas in Africa, young school graduates often discover that they are too qualified for jobs in the farming sector and as a consequence must exit to the urban areas where they can search for work in industry. Unfortunately, when these youngsters arrive the urban industrial areas, they discover that they do not have the skills needed for gainful employment in the modern sector.

Continued migration of labour from the rural to the urban sectors decreases the manpower available for food stuff production and endangers national food security. Mbaku (2004:104) asserts that “Today most urban centres in Africa are severely overcrowded”; for example Johannesburg, Freetown, Dar es Salaam, Nairobi and Cairo. In addition to the fact that many Africa’s cities are unable to properly hose their inhabitants, existing health facilities cannot keep up with the demand for services. The disposal of sewage generated by the population has become a major problem for many of the continent’s cities as health-related problems, which include poor sanitary conditions, continue to pose significant challenges to policymakers. 

High fertility and mortality rates

Infant mortality rates for the African countries are higher than those for other regions of the world. However, the continent’s fertility rate remains the highest of any region in the world. In 1991, the weighted average total fertility rates for Sub-Saharan Africa was 6.4, a decrease from 6.7 a decade earlier. While the rate is expected to fall to 5.9 by the year of 2000, the region will still have the highest fertility rate in the world.

Since the mid-1970_s, fertility rates for all of the world’s regions have been decreasing. Africa’s expected fertility rates of 5.9 children per woman in the year 2000 is expected to be highest in the world and, in addition, will also be twice the world’s average. If the continent’s present population growth rate is maintained, population will double in only 23 years, compared to 398 years for the population of Western Europe.

One however, must recognize the horrible effects of AIDS on the continent’s population. International organizations and other agencies battling HIV/AIDS in the continent, state that unless African countries develop and implement more effective prevention measures (or a cure is found for AIDS), the pandemic promises to decimate as much as 20% of productive populations of many countries in the continent! Unfortunately, this is not an effective sustainable, or morally acceptable ways to deal with excessive population growth.

Poverty (famine and Malnutrition)

Poverty in Africa is a very complex problem. Dealing effectively with it requires significant transformation in the critical domains to make them more supportive of entrepreneurship and wealth creation. It is also requires government policies that enhance the ability of the local people to device and implement their own programs to deal with poverty and other social issues unique to their localities. As is emphasized throughout this book, imposing solutions or priorities set in the capitals of international aid donors or the board rooms of international agencies such as the IMF and the World Bank, is not likely to have much positive effect on poverty alleviation in Africa (Stepanek, 1999:37-67 as qouted by Mbaku, 2004:102).

Due to poverty African people are confronted with massive famine and high malnutrition levels like Sudan, Ethiopia, and Sahel. Mbaku says that “Starvation has already killed a lot of African, most of them young people in their productive years. Many of the Africans, who have survived, have been permanently maimed and are unlikely to recover enough to become fully productive and function at their full potential”. Perhaps more important is the fact that these individuals, whose growth and development have been severely stunned by poor nutrition, are likely to remain wards of society for the rest of their lives.

Thus, in addition to lost production, society must feed, clothe and care for these people for many years to come. Many of the malnourished are also more susceptible to infections and so are likely to get sick and increase the demand for health care services, further putting significant stress on already over-burdened health care systems.

This therefore, appeared as a challenge to Many African countries whereby they lack food to feed the starving population and sometimes they live by requesting conditioned (interest) loans and seeking help from outside the country (Europe and America[UN]).

Unemployment of the big population 

In Africa many individuals are unemployed in such a way that it is difficult to earn and sustain their lives and getting their basic needs. This is ultimately caused by population explosion vis-à-vis resources available for the utilization and generation of jobs. The mass exodus of unemployable youth from the rural areas has significantly increased the urban unemployment rate.

During the first decade of the new century, several African cities are expected to have populations of more than a million people, and unless the productive capacities of these urban centres are increased significantly, living standards of these Africans will continue to fall. Adedeji and Colley (2013:251) say that unemployment rates have been seriously calculated as between 7.9 and 10 percent of the active labour force in Africa. They said the detailed ILO study on Employment, Income and Equality conducted in Kenya in 1971, suggests that real unemployment may be much higher for the total population.

Thats study states that, with respect to the urban population, that when the same criteria are used in defining unemployment for men and women, it is clear that women are much harder hit than men.

Refugee population problems

Refugee population is another problem to African governments where by wars (political instability) is the major source of it. Mupendziswa, (1997a) as quoted by Rwomire (2001:192) asserts that the refugee population problem in Africa is perhaps the greatest single challenge that will face the continent in to the new millennium and beyond.

Africa’s refugee crisis is accelerating like an express train at high speed. The problem daily becomes increasingly intractable. While the state of the world’s refugees is not always one of unbroken gloom, the situation in Africa is such that as some refugee situations end, fresh ones begin with amazing regularity.

Solutions to population problems of Africa

As discussed by Kamuzora, (1986:2) in his article that the proper assessment of the origin of the population problem, which was identified above as essentially an imbalance between population and resource requires examination of the determinants of the two variables and the factors that have influenced their trends to the present state. The solution of these population problems can be:

African governments should formulate good population policies which declare and control population incidences/properties. A good population policy

Another solution is to give education to people. Education is the key to development, which in turn is the key to solving population problems: health education to improve nutrition and sanitation, maternal and child care; vocational education to improve agriculture, stimulate in industrialization, and increase management and manpower resources; general education to free women from their traditional roles and to make society more egalitarian; sex and family-life education to teach children how to accommodate to rapidly changing society.

Within the educational and developmental framework the problem of population change can be handled and policies can be designed, but, as one participant noted, the first goal of education must be to help people learn how to plan for a better and more secure future (National Academy of Sciences U.S. 1973:54).

Furthermore, to solve current employment problems and create greater job opportunities for their nationals, some countries in both West and East Africa are finding it convenient to curb immigration and legislate special provisions on ownership of properties and employment. Non-nationals are steadily eased out of “entrenched” and enviable positions in industry and commence education, and government. Such actions are consistent with the strong sense of nationalism felt and encouraged in African countries (National Academy of Sciences U.S. 1973:59).

Weeks (2008:301) identified three essential solutions to the refugee population problem in Africa. They include: first-the repatriation to the country of origin; second-resettlement in the country to which they initially fled; and finally-resettlement in a third country. None of these is therefore easy to accomplish and the situation is complicated by the fact that birth rates tend to be high among refugee groups, and therefore many of these refugees are children who have been born outside their parents’ country of origin. The problem therefore compounds itself, and there are no easy solutions.

Generally, despite the fact that Africa has done very well in attracting development assistance during the last forty years, the region has remained essentially poor and highly populated with the largest rate of increase than any other continent. Several reasons have been advanced to explain why this massive flow of aid has failed to have a significant positive impact on social and economic transformation in the continent. These reasons are: during the cold war (1991s) with the collapse of the Soviet Union, Western aid donors favored African countries with relatively high military expenditures; African countries have usually located very little aid to areas such as basic education, primary health care, nutrition, safe drinking water, and family planning that are very critical to economic growth and development; failure of African policymakers to utilize ODA effectively and efficiently due to primarily lack of appropriate incentive structures. Due to these reasons problems particularly those pertaining population emerge and confront the government.

REFERENCES

Newman, M. C. (1994). Quantitative Methods in Aquatic Ecotoxicology. Florida: CRC Press Inc.

Mbaku, J. M. (2004). Institutions and Development in Africa. Eritrea: Africa World Press Inc.

United States, Office of Technology Assessment, Congress. (2000). World population and fertility planning technologies: the next 20 years. USA: DIANE Publishing.