Paradox Of Africa Case Study

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Introduction
Maathai believes that Africa needs to unite and find their cultural inheritance. They should fight of the legacies left by colonialism, endemic corruption, poverty and climate change together to build a better continent for all Africans. This is done through transparent, ethical leadership free from western influence, but from within African civil society itself, through grassroots movements (Maathai: 2009). Maathai highlights the paradox of Africa; it is a con-tinent rich in natural resources such as diamonds, oil, copper and many more, yet it is still one of if not the poorest continent on the planet. There are many explanations into what could cause this paradox. This essay will try to explain this paradox through two contrib-uting …show more content…

The two factors interlinks and deplete Africa’s natural resources through exploitation and destruction. The legacy of colonialism plays an important role in the explanation of the emergence of corruption and conflict within Africa seen throughout this essay. This essay will start by looking into the question of poverty. What is it actually? I will then move on to look at corruption, more specifically what it is, how it came emerged in Africa through neo-patrimonialism; Presidentialism and Cliental-ism. Then exploring how this can help answer Maathai’s question. A case study of Sierra Leone is used to look at examples of how corruption can contribute to poverty. The second half of the essay will focus on conflict. Again I will begin with two theories of conflict, Col-lier and Hoeffler’s greed and grievance theory and Jackson’s explanation to explore why conflict occurs. Then an exploration of the case of Somalia is used to show, through exam-ples how conflict can …show more content…

Individualism explains poverty through causal explanations, all of which is specified by an individual’s behaviour. It highlights that those more vulnerable to poverty are: individuals from a single mother family; the old; young; women; those who be-come parents in their early life; the unemployed and those of poor education and/or life ex-perience. Individualism states that these people are likely to become vulnerable to poverty due to bad behaviour. These individuals are likely to show self-destructive and counter-productive behaviour. At the extreme end of this theory it turns towards a biological expla-nation suggesting these people have ‘hard-wired’ traits that constrain their socio-economic achievements. The poor allegedly have a lower IQ. In simple terms, individualism explains poverty as a string of bad decisions and behaviours exhibited by those they believe vulnera-ble (Brady:

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