Ivory Coast, officially the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire is a country in West Africa, member of the African Union. It has an area of 124,503 sq mi. The country population was 23,202,000 in 2012. Ivory Coast political and administrative capital is Yamoussoukro (Abidjan remains the commercial capital). The official language is French and the currency is CFA franc. The country is part of ECOWAS.
The economy, mainly focused on the production of coffee and cocoa, known during the first two decades an exceptional growth, making the Ivory Coast a leading country in West Africa. In 1990, the country faced periods of social and political turbulence. These problems experienced an exacerbation in the death of Félix Houphouët-Boigny (first President) in 1993. The adoption of a new Constitution and organization of the presidential election in 2000 that brought to power Laurent Gbagbo did not appease the social and political tensions, which trigger a political and military crisis the September 19, 2002. After several peace agreements, the country engage itself on March 4, 2007, in a new process of crisis based on a political agreement in Ouagadougou
The 2011 report of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), said that in Ivory Coast, the multidimensional poverty index is 61.5%. On the Human Development Index (HDI), the country ranks 170th out of 183.
On an estimated population of 20 million in 2008, nearly 13 million people are poor! Their daily consumption expenditure is less than 661 CFA (1.36 dollar)! Over the year, these expenses do not exceed 241 145 F CFA (about 497 dollars)! The information contained in the Document Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) in 2009 indicated that on two Ivoirians one live below the poverty line. These figures ...
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...e displacement of populations, the flight of foreign investors, worsening the unemployment rate combined with the deterioration of living conditions of households.”
In fact, now that the war ended, we should be focused on developmental problems because daily life is hard for the Ivoirians. Today, thousands of workers are jobless. This situation contributes to the decline in purchasing power. Meanwhile, the price of food on the market is growing. For many households, it is a luxury to afford three meals a day. They opted for sudden death (One meal a day). Faced with the difficulties of access to health care, people turn to traditional medicine or street drugs. Free care established by the government is far from being a reality, especially in rural areas. Informal settlements appear as the solution to housing problems. Sometimes without drinking water and electricity.
Location-Ethiopia is a country located in the horn of Africa and its capital is Addis Ababa
The number of poor people in 2012 was 49.7 million, or 16 percent. That exceeds the record 46.5 million,...
...bances began to emerge, and the economy began to drop. Unrest cost many lives, until demands for change were heard and the political system was revised. In 1994, the South African people went to the polls for the first time and held a democratic election in which Nelson Mandela became president. The country of South Africa has made strides in healing their broken country.
In today’s world poverty is not only viewed in terms of average income/wealth, but as the lower end of distribution regarding income, education, health accessibility, nutrition, productivity, participation in politics, etc. Thus, poverty is defined as the “economic condition in which people lack sufficient income to obtain certain minimal levels of health services, food, housing, clothing, and education generally recognized as necessary to ensure an adequate standard of living” (Funk & Wagnall 1). Adequate, however, depends on the standard of living for each country.
When someone mentions the state of Africa the first thoughts that enter your mind is poverty, poor government structure, and hungry people. But that has not always been the case. This was a rich, resourceful and beautiful country. The picture of pre-colonial Africa is much different than our ideals of it today. We see it as a land stricken with poverty. The colonists saw it as a land with unlimited resources full of people that did not take, what they thought was full advantage of it's treasures. Europeans used agricultural and religious differences to create a gulf between them and the Africans. Using such differences Europe colonized Africa for the ever growing European market. The depletion of the African resources forced the people into a food crises. The only hope exists is the organization from within the rural class. Such organizations are fighting for basic human rights and others are coming together to make labor sharing possible.
...onditions in an inner-city or a rural community in the United States” (8). Most of the countries in Africa there are well over 50% of people below their poverty line. For an example, Lusted states, “In developing regions, extreme poverty is usually defined as earning less than $1.25 a day. In the United States, extreme poverty means earning less than half of the official poverty line” (10). But Africa isn’t the only country struggling with poor people. Poverty and Homelessness by Merino writes, “...3.7 percent in Denmark, 5 percent in Finland, 5.5 percent in Norway, 6.9 in Slovenia, 7 percent in Sweden, 7.2 percent [in] Hungary, 8.3 percent in Germany, 8.8 percent in the Czech Republic, 9.3 percent in France, 9.4 percent in Switzerland” (32). Poverty is a struggle all around the world and thousands of people die each day due to the lack of basic necessities to live.
United Nations Development Programme. Poverty Reduction and UNDP. New York: United Nations Development Programme, Jan. 2013. PDF.
Benin, independent nation of W Africa, formerly called Dahomey. Once a French protectorate, it is a country of 40 ethnic tribal groups and a low-level economy.Land and EconomyLocated in the bulge on the S side of W Africa, Benin is bordered by Nigeria, Toga, Berkina Faso, and Niger, with 75 mi (121km) on the Gulf of Guinea. The coast is hot and humid, and there are two rainy and two dry seasons; average annual rainfall is 32in (813mm). Benin has three plateaus, one fertile, another of bare rocks, and a third with streams flowing to the Volta and Niger rivers and including the Atakora range. The E section is a plain. Subsistence agriculture is the economic base.
"Major Problems Facing Cameroon Today." AFRICAW: Africa and the World. N.p., 9 Sept. 2011. Web. 14 Apr. 2014.
...esult, 1000 civilians died, but majority of the fundamentalist group was taken out. In 2009, Goodluck Jonathan assumed presidency when Umaru Yar’Adu died (BBC News Africa, 2013). In 2011 elections, Goodluck Jonathan took majority of the vote against military opponent, Muhammadu Buhari. Observers have stated this election is the most fair it has ever been in history, but Buhari’s supporters opposed the results. Quickly after, the fundamentalist group, Boko Haram, made resurgence and there were daily attacks in the country. As a result, the Nigerian government declared a state of emergency and dispatched troops. In January 2012, Goodluck Jonathan removed the country’s fuel subsidy to repair the tattered economy, but only caused fuel and food prices to rise. In response to the rise of prices, Nigerians began to protest, which eventually led to reinstating the subsidy.
The overriding challenge Uganda faces today is the curse of poverty. Poverty, ‘the lack of something”(“Poverty.”), something can be materials, knowledge, or anything one justifies as necessary to living. Associated with poverty is the question of what causes poverty and how to stop poverty? The poverty rate in Uganda has declined from the year 2002 from the year 2009, which shows the percent of residents living in poverty has decreasing. Yet, the year is 2014 and the poverty rate could have drastically changed over the course of five years. One could assume the poverty rate would continue to decrease, which would be astounding and beneficial, but does poverty ever decrease enough to an acceptable level or even nonexistence? Poverty is a complex issue that continues to puzzle people from all across the globe. Poverty could possible be a question that is never truly answered.
Congo's Civil War began on November 2nd, 1998 when Laurent Kabila tried to drive out Rwandan militants who helped him overthrow Mobutu Sese Seko.2 Sese Seko came into power in 1966 when he led a rebellion to overthrow the government of Patrice Lumumbra. Sese Seko led to Africanizing of the country by requiring that all citizens drop their Christan names, and by renaming all the geographical locations with more African names.3 During the 1980's Sese Seko's government received support from the United States, in response to communism's rising popularity in Africa. Because of the misuse of the funds and wealth generated by natural resources, the rich got richer and the poor fell farther into poverty. Sese Seko abused Congo's natural resources and eventually helped lead the country into a state of economic ruin. In 1997 Sese Seko was overthrown by Laurent Kabila. When Kabila took over the country it was in terrible condition but he did nothing to try and improve the state of the nation. When he tried to expel the same Rwandan rebels that helped him come to power, he started a war that eventually led to his death. Many various ethnic and rebel groups inside of Congo who relied on the Rwandans for protection joined the uprising.4 Africans inside and around Congo chose s...
Ethiopia an African country officially known as the Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, and famously know as one of the oldest location of human life to scientists. Ethiopia is located in the horn of Africa (east of Africa). It is argued that Ethiopia was the only African country to defeat a European colonial power and retain its sovereignty as an independent country. It is argued that Ethiopia was conquered by Italy in 1935 and regained its independence in 1941 on the 5th of May and the ruler of that era was Halie Selassi. Ethiopia’s major economic contributor is the agriculture sector with a 46% of gross domestic product and a labour force of 85% by agriculture (Ethiopia’s gross domestic product by sector). Ethiopia is a federal republic state this means that there is no monarch and that the state exercise democra...
In rural Nigeria, up to 80% of the population (as compared to 70% of Nigeria as a whole3) live below the poverty line, despite their fast-growing agricultural economy4. According to Nigerian author Anthony Maduagwu, it is in places such as these where we can find the solution to Nigeria's economic predicament. In his article “Alleviating poverty in Nigeria”, he says, “only the poor understands poverty and it is also the poor that know how their poverty could be alleviated... the fact is that the poor usually have quite good perceptions of their own needs and goals and of what would be required to satisfy and make progress toward them”5. He made the case that while government-funded “poverty alleviating programmes” help poverty rates in one place, the create poverty in another6. This is supported b...
What is poverty? Well, according to Webster's Third New International Dictionary, poverty is "lack of money or material possessions; poor." Two-thirds of the world's population fits this definition. I know that many times we think of being poor as not being able to buy the car we want or take the trip we can only dream about. However, being poor, living in poverty, hits a lot lower than that. For example, a resident of the country of Chad will only bring in $100 each year. Since many people can make more than that in one week, some in one day, can you imagine having the feed a family of five or six, or even a family of two, on only $100 a year? These are the conditions that exist in poverty-stricken countries.