Environmental Assessment
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is a sub-Saharan African nation that has suffered through 32 years of totalitarian rule followed by coups and ongoing political turmoil (Zapata, 2011). Since February 2013 the Congolese government has been in talks with the largest rebel group M23 (The world factbook). Ongoing turbulence related to armed conflict has led to significant misplacement of the population and an increased death rate.
The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2011 (million US$) was 16,069 and the GDP per capital (current US$) was 237.0. The DRC has a population growth rate of 2.6% nationally with an urban population growth of 4.2% and a rural population growth rate of 1.8%. In 2012 the urban population was 34.8% of the national population with 45.8% of the national population falling into the 0-14 year old age group; those aged 60 years or older (F/M %) are 4.6/3.8 for the same time frame. Additionally, the life expectancy at birth for women is 50.6 years and for men it is 47.3 years with an infant mortality rate of 109.5 per 1000 births. The fertility rate is 5.5 live births per female with a contraceptives rate of only 20.6% in the 15-49 year old age group (Democratic Republic of Congo). The incidence of HIV/AIDS greatly impacts the population statistics and is incorporated into them (The world factbook). Difficult lives with armed conflict, AIDS and high infant mortality rates lead to shortened lives and a slow population growth.
The DRC has a large workforce however much of the employment involves children and substandard working conditions. Most Congolese work in agriculture and the average income is insufficient to adequately support a family, therefore requiring support by the extended...
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...at supports a family and their education.
Works Cited
Congo, Democratic Republic of The - Working conditions. (n.d.). Retrieved December 27, 2013, from Encyclopedia of the Nations: http://www.nationsencyclopedia.com/economies/Africa/Congo-Democratic-Republic-of-The-WORKING-CONDITIONS.html
Democratic Republic of Congo. (n.d.). Retrieved December 27, 2013, from UN Data: http://data.un.org/CountryProfile.aspx?crName=Democratic%20Republic%20of%20the%20Congo
The world factbook. (n.d.). Retrieved December 10, 2013, from The CIA website: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/cg.html
Zapata, M. (2011, November 22). Congo: Colonialism through dictatorship, 1400-1997. Retrieved December 27, 2013, from enough the project to end genocide and crimes against humanity: http://enoughproject.org/blogs/congo-colonialism-through-dictatorship-1400s-1997
The book mainly chronicles the efforts of King Leopold II of Belgium which is to make the Congo into a colonial empire. During the period that the European powers were carving up Africa, King Leopold II of Belgium seized for himself the vast and mostly unexplored territory surrounding the Congo River.
Hochschild concludes that the world must never forget the events of Leopold’s Congo. This event is evidence that it is the result of human greed that led to so much suffering, injustice, and corruption.
King Leopold and his allies’ had great power over the Congo, which he soon exploited for its large supply of rubber. As said in the King Leopold’s Ghost, “For Europ...
The land Leopold had obtained was about eighty times larger than that of Belgium itself. Plus, Leopold was proclaimed the “sovereign” ruler of all the Congo Free Sta...
During the 17th century, slavery was a widely used commodity with the Europeans, little do people know however that African kings also had and accepted slavery in their own nations. King Nzinga Mbemba of Congo and the King of Ouidah had similarities on the issue of slavery; they tolerated the use of slaves. Congo’s king had no contingency with slavery; in fact, he had slaves in his country. When the Portuguese were purchasing goods in Congo, the king had men “investigate if the mentioned goods are captives or free men” (NZ, 622). The fact that the king differentiates the men between ‘free’ and ‘captives’ illustrates that not all people in Congo are free. Whether these captives are from the country of Congo or not, they are still caught and held all across the nation against their will. King Mbemba kept slaves because the population of Congo was vastly declining due to the slave trade. In his letter, he pleads with the king of Portug...
Zins, Henryk S. "Joseph Conrad and the Early British Critics of Colonialism in the Congo." Lubelskie Materiały Neofilologiczne 22.(1998): 155-169. MLA International Bibliography. EBSCO. Sun. 08 May 2011.
Wages are classified as being below “living wage”, and are not enough to support a family. Workers are paid less than 1% of the retail price of the product, for example, Honduran garment factory workers were paid US$0.24 for each US$50 Sean John sweatshirt (Sean John Setisa Report, 2003). We are often shocked at the wages in developing countries, but we must analyse the wage by the country standards in which it is being paid. In developing countries the main concern is food and shelter, so when the living standards are low, the money can go a lot further.
For decades, Uganda’s economy has suffered through disappointing economic policies and instabilities. These setbacks have been put forth by a chronically unreliable government, leaving it as one of the world’s poorest countries. Uganda’s weak infrastructure and corrupt government are two of the primary constraints against a continuation of economic growth. Uganda has ongoing military involvement in the War on Congo, wrongly taking money from the already deprived country and into the war. Many villages in Uganda also have to waste their precious money and time in pursuit of hiding places. They are faced with a group known as, The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). LRA is infamous for their twenty years of massacre and slaughter in Uganda, causing an estimated 1.5 million internally displayed persons. Several people are questioning why the LRA is still terrorizing the country and criticizing the government’s commitment to putting an end this horrific group. The Inspector General of Government (IGG) ...
Over the course of human history, many believe that the “Congo Free State”, which lasted from the 1880s to the early 1900s, was one of the worst colonial states in the age of Imperialism and was one of the worst humanitarian disasters over time. Brutal methods of collecting rubber, which led to the deaths of countless Africans along with Europeans, as well as a lack of concern from the Belgian government aside from the King, combined to create the most potent example of the evils of colonialism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century’s. The Congo colonial experience, first as the Congo Free State then later as Belgian Congo, was harmful to that region of Africa both then and now because of the lack of Belgian and International attention on the colony except for short times, the widespread economic exploitation of the rubber resources of the region, and the brutal mistreatment and near-genocide of the Congolese by those in charge of rubber collecting.
It is widely debated why exactly King Leopold decided to conquer the Congo, but the general consensus seems to be that it was out of the belief that “the highlands of the Congo may be as rich in gold as the mountains of the western slope of the American Continent” (Stead). In the mid-1870s, the King hired Henry Stanley, who was familiar with many parts of Africa, to help him go about conquering. During the following years Stanley stayed in Africa, talking various tribes into signing over their lands and rights. After this was completed the King officially took over the Congo, renaming it the Congo Free State. This was especially ironic because all natives of the country were either forced to give up their way of life in exchange for virtual slavery in the ivory trade, agriculture, or the rubber traffic, or die trying to escape fate. Leopold was undeterred by the amount of suffering and death in the Congo, brought on by his rule. Belgian soldiers and officials were known for their cruelty in their methods to make, and then keep, Congo natives wo...
At the height of the conflict, about one third of the country's people were displaced. The chronic financial crisis became severe and the economy was close to collapsing. Poverty has become deeper in the rural areas of the Congo where poor people are now powerless, vulnerable and isolated. This is a big contributor to the poverty Congo is experiencing today, because little has improved and won’t improve until these problems are fixed. Overall, Central Africa’s dependence on agriculture could improve the wellbeing of the people but a long history of corruption, violence, and prevalent transportation issues have hindered an improvement in the economy resulting in poverty in the region.
Through global economic integration and the birth of global factories, many “underdeveloped” countries believed that these corporations would resurrect their dying economies by providing jobs to their many unemployed workers. However, these corporations did not hire the unemployed male but women usually between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one who worked approximately ten hours per day in extremely poor working conditions for very low wages. As a result, this left mostly the unemployed male (and/or the unemployed female over twenty-one) in a position to either migrate for work or become a caretaker for their families’ children.
Emizet, Kisangani N. F. . (2000). Explaining the Rise and Fall of Military Regimes: Civil-Military Relations in the Congo. Armed Forces & Society. 26 (2), p203-227.
Over a period from 1960-1965, the first Republic of the Congo experienced a period of serious crisis. There was a terrible war for power that displayed senseless violence and the desperation to rule. There were many internal conflicts among the people. The country eventually gained independence from Belgium. For many countries this would be a time for celebration. Unfortunately for the people of the Congo this became a time to forget. Almost immediately after independence and the general elections, the country went into civil war. Major developed cities like Katanga and Kasai wanted to be independent from the Lumumba government. Different factions started to fight the government and Katanga and Kasai tried to secede from the rest of the country out of fear of the mutinous army that was out of control looting and killing.
...ile the pandemic will absolutely leverage the rate of financial development, structural alterations are furthermore expected to be one of the prime economic hallmarks of the AIDS pandemic (Arndt 427-449). The effect of the HIV/AIDS epidemic can be visualized by the overwhelming change in mortality rate of South Africans. The yearly number of mortalities from HIV increased distinctly between the years 1997, when about 316,559 people died, and 2006 when an estimated 607,184 people died ("HIV AIDS IN SOUTH AFRICA"). Those who are currently assuming the burden of the increase in mortality rate are adolescents and young adults. Virtually one-in-three females of ages 25-29, and over 25% of males aged 30-34, are currently living with HIV in South Africa (UNAIDS). The good news, thanks to better supply of ARV treatment, is that life-expectancy has risen vastly since 2005.