The world in which we live has witnessed a imposing economic growththan from the end of the East bipolar contrast Until today, also thanks to the much discussed process of the so -called “Globalization”allowed to subtract hundreds of millions of people from extreme poverty And spread well -beingonce an exclusive prerogative of“West”on a planetary scale. However, it is important to remember that the quality of the “Material life” and the diffusion of well -being They did not reach all the corners of the planet in the same way. On 8 billion people who live in our planet, about 1 billion still lives in conditions of extreme poverty (and many suffer the real hunger) and most of these very poor countries is located in Africa.
The legacy of colonialism and cold war
The fact that Most of the poorest countries in the world are in Africa It is linked to the fact that this continent, more than others, had to deal with the heavy legacy of colonialism and the cold war. To tell the truth, not only Africa, but also theSouth AmericatheNorth AmericatheAsiaThe Middle East el ‘Oceania They were invested in historical periods other than European colonialism, but the final results have been very different: in North Americain Oceania and in part of theSouth AmericaEuropean colonization gave birth to real “New companies” who have imposed themselves by replacing the native ones; theAfricalike theAsia and of the Middle Eastinstead he managed to maintain his Ethno-cultural specificity But, unlike the latter, colonization here still has Fragile tribal structures destroyed who regulated the life of almost all African populations.
Consequently, the African countries born during the “Decolonization” they were characterized by very weak political and administrative structuresunable to remove them from the risk of being sucked into the East-west contrastwho ended up transforming Africa into one of the most violent battlefields of the Cold War. This delayed the start of one for a long time economic developmentwhich only thanks toexpansion of globalization in the 2000s He began to take impetus.
The poorest countries
Even if, finally, The wind of economic development and of the Growth of material life He also involved Africa, it did not have the same effects everywhere, given the heterogeneity of the situations that are recorded today. Today, most of the African countries, because of theirs poor manufacturing basewas able to feed a certain economic growth only thanks to the generous presence of natural resources in the subsoil. Another element that can favor or not the growth of a country is its geographical position: those that present one outlet to the sea they enjoy a privileged access to international markets while those who are without them see Their possibilities are strongly reduced to apply for “sides” of commercial flows.
Yet, neither the availability of large reserves of mining resources, nor an enviable geographical position can compensate for limiting factors such as the weakness of the institutions, the constant burst of whole conflicts, poor respect for the state of law, corruption, illiteracy; Just to mention some pernicious phenomena that end up weighing on the development process of individual states such as proverbial boulders. Countries such as South Sudan, Burundi, Central African Republic and Mozambique, just to give a few examples, all appear in the list of the poorest countries in the world.
Poverty scenes immortalized in Kibera (Kenya). Credit: Eoghan Rice / Trócaire (Ireland)
The other poor countries of the world
Despite a strong over-representation of African countries In the ranking of the poorest states in the world, poverty it is not absolutely A phenomenon limited to Africa. In fact, by analyzing the reports and analyzes of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank it is noted that at the bottom of the ranking There are also Afghanistan, Yemen and North Korea. The Afghan and Yemeni cases are of particular interest because they confirm what has been said about African countries. Since 1978 theAfghanistan is sunk in a dramatic civil war that, although the decades have passed and the actors changed, he never stopped and frustrated any attempt on the part before the Communist blockthen of theWestand the same Islamist forces to impose absolutely alien political models at the deep cultural characteristics of Afghan populations.
In the same way, in the last hundred years the territory that we conventionally call “Yemen“(Even when there were two of them: the North Yemen and the South Yemen) crossed a crisis and a civil war after the other without ever anyone managed to completely control it and forge a coherent national identityfirst pillar to start a policy of modernization and development.
On the other hand, it concerns the North Koreawhich appears in the list of poorest countries mainly due to the Difficulty finding reliable information on his real economic performances for the continuation of a military development policy which subtracts huge resources from the possible civil and economic development.
