Much analysis of Africa fails to take into account the differences between its 53 countries.
When Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe began his campaign of farm seizures that forced white commercial landowners off their properties, neighbouring South Africa’s currency was hit hard. Fearing that the events in Zimbabwe would trigger a similar land-grab in South Africa, traders and currency analysts began an aggressive sell-off of the rand.
South Africans were indignant, arguing that the two countries were very different. Subsequent events proved the South African government’s resolve to avoid a similar raid on land: during a brief period when homeless people sought to occupy vacant areas, rapid response units were deployed to dismantle temporary structures and remove the occupiers. Even though the rand subsequently recovered, perceptions persist that it is only a matter of time before South Africa goes the same way as Zimbabwe.
While the two are neighbours, lending some plausibility to the contagion risk, it is common to read and hear startling assumptions and generalisations about African countries that are separated by thousands of kilometres.
Diverse continent
The 53 countries of Africa cover an area larger than the US, Europe and China combined. More than 2000 languages and dialects are spoken, there are different forms of government and many different religions are practiced. Different climatic conditions dictate agriculture policies and landlocked countries have different trade patterns to those bordering the sea. Some north African countries – Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia – are in some respects considered more Middle Eastern than African in terms of culture and customs.
These distinctions may be simplistic but they demonstrate the huge diversity in Africa, a fact that is often lost in analyses of the continent. Gross national income (GNI) per head averaged $650 in 2002 for all of Africa but was only $307 per head in sub-Saharan Africa excluding South Africa (see table 2). GNI ranged from less than $100 per head in the Democratic Republic of Congo to more than $7000 in Seychelles. Maternal mortality ranges from 45 per 100,000 births in Mauritius to 2300 per 100,000 births in Rwanda.
Underlying differences
Such differences stem from wide variances in the factors affecting development, including the quality of governance, the strength of institutions and the availability of raw materials. Botswana, for instance, capitalised on its significant mineral wealth, particularly diamonds, and has experienced sustained economic growth for more than 40 years. Nigeria, on the other hand, is endowed with rich oil and gas reserves but became a victim of the “resource curse” where wealth led to corruption rather than development.
The World Bank Governance Matters III project tracks the quality of governance across the globe. Six indicators were created to measure governance, based on 25 data sources at 18 organisations. Governance indicators are given as deviations from the global mean of zero, ranged between -2.5 and +2.5. The higher the score the better. Table 1 shows the performance of Africa’s 20 biggest economies for political stability, government effectiveness, regulatory quality and control of corruption.
The variations between countries emphasises the point that each African country is a unique environment.
