Africa

E

Cultural Activity

Most traditional cultural activity centres on the family and the ethnic group. Traditional arts, music, and oral literature serve to reinforce existing religious and social patterns. The heavily Westernized elite, influenced by European culture and Christianity, first rejected African traditional culture, but, with the rise of African nationalism around independence in the 1960s, a cultural revival occurred. The governments of most African nations foster national dance and music groups, museums, and, to a lesser degree, artists and writers. Even so, Western ideas, habits, music, and fashions have—through film, radio, television, and travel—permeated all but the most remote areas—influencing local music, styles of dress, eating habits, and so on, especially among the young. In the 20th century, however, African art and music also had a considerable reverse influence in the West. Artists like Pablo Picasso were influenced by African artworks like the Benin Bronzes. More recently, African music and its practitioners have influenced many kinds of western music from jazz to rock and roll. Western interests in the many different types of modern African music led to the development of so-called “World” music. See African Art and Architecture; African Literature; African Music; World Music.

IV

Patterns of Economic Development

Traditionally, the vast majority of Africans have been farmers and herders who raised crops and livestock for subsistence. Manufacturing and crafts were generally carried on as part-time activities. Most markets were local, although numerous states over the centuries developed long-distance trade systems, and in these places complex exchange facilities as well as industrial specialization, communication networks, and elaborate governmental structures maintained the flow of commerce. They included the medieval west African kingdoms and empires of Ghana, Songhai, Kanem-Bornu; and of great Zimbabwe in southern Africa; trans-Saharan trade, which began before the Romans, continued until well into the 19th century.

Gold, slaves (on a small scale), kola, copper, kola nuts, ostrich feathers, and salt, were all items in Africa's export trade for many hundreds of years before the advent of Europeans. With the Europeans, initially, there came increased demand for one of the traditional staples of African trade—slaves (see Slavery: Slavery in the Modern Period). The numbers required, however, were vastly more than had ever been traded before, leading to distortions and disruptions in African politics and society, and robbing the west and centre of the continent of millions of its people. Colonization brought overseas demand for new agricultural and mineral products and internal labour migration; new and faster communication systems were constructed; European technology and crops were introduced, not always, by any means, beneficially; and a modern exchange economy evolved. Local industries and crafts—textiles and iron making, for example—were frequently undermined by cheaper or more prestigious European goods. Modern processing industries developed, as did new ports and administrative centres. A variety of consumer industries sprang up to fill newly created local consumer needs. A feature of the African economy is the side-by-side existence of both subsistence and modern exchange economies. Future growth depends on the availability of investment funds, the world demand for local raw materials, fair world prices for these raw materials, the availability of energy sources, the size of local markets, a solution to the foreign debt problem which is crippling so many African economies, and the willingness of the industrialized economies to reduce trade barriers to processed and manufactured African goods. See Development Economics.

A

Agriculture

Despite the expansion of commerce and industry, most Africans remain farmers and herders; although the majority of these are producing for the market, at least in a small way, and many are highly market orientated. In northern and north-western Africa, wheat, oats, maize, and barley are the important grain crops. Dates, olives, and citrus fruit are the main tree crops; a variety of vegetables are grown. Goats, asses, sheep, camels, and horses are the most significant livestock kept. In the Sahara region, nomadic herders raise camels and goats, and a few farmers, situated in oases, grow dates and grains. South of the Sahara, in the Sahelian region, and in the most fertile areas north of the coastal forests, slash-and-burn agriculture—a method in which small areas were burned, cleared, and planted and then allowed to revert to bush—has given way to settled farming. Grains, especially maize, sorghum, millet, and rice, are the main crops outside the rainforests. Yams, manioc, okra, plantain, and banana are important crops, especially in the coastal hinterlands and forested areas of central Africa. Cattle cannot be raised in tsetse fly-infested areas, which cover more than one-third of the continent. Outside the tsetse fly areas and dense forests, cattle are raised; many are still kept for traditional reasons of social prestige and wealth, but commercial stock rearing is increasing. Dairy farming is limited, located primarily around urban centres in eastern and southern Africa.

Although some 60 per cent of all cultivated land is in subsistence or semi-subsistence agriculture, commercial or cash-crop farming is common in all parts of the continent. Foodstuffs are grown for local urban markets, but cloves, coffee, pineapples, cotton, cacao, sugar, tea, maize, rubber, sisal, groundnuts (peanuts), palm oil, and tobacco are among the long-established crops grown by Africans for export. In the past 15 years there has been significant development of new export crops, aimed at the high-value end of the Western, primarily European market, including green beans, roses and other flowers, and kiwi fruit. For certain traditional African agricultural exports, such as cacao, groundnuts, cloves, and sisal, the continent produces the majority of the world supply. Large-scale plantations and farms, often owned by foreign companies or farmers of European descent, and found mainly in eastern and southern Africa, concentrate on citrus, tobacco, tea, and other export crops.

B

Forestry and Fishing

Although about one-quarter of Africa is covered by forest, much of the timber has little value except as local fuel. Gabon is a major producer of okoume, a wood used in making plywood; Côte d'Ivoire, Liberia (before the civil war), Ghana, and Nigeria are major exporters of hardwoods. Inland fishing is concentrated in the Rift Valley lakes and in the increasing numbers of fish farms. Ocean fishing is widespread for local consumption; it is commercially important off Morocco, Mauritania, Namibia, Mozambique, and South Africa.

C

Mining

Mineral extraction provides the bulk of African export earnings, and extractive industries are among the most developed sectors in most African economies. Almost half of Africa's mineral income comes from South Africa, mainly derived from gold and diamond mining but also from chromium, asbestos, coal, and copper. Other leading mineral-producing countries include Libya (oil), Nigeria (oil, natural gas, coal, tin), Namibia (diamonds, uranium), Algeria (oil, natural gas, iron ore), and Zambia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (copper, cobalt, lead, zinc), Zimbabwe (gold, asbestos, coal, chromium, iron ore, and nickel), and Ghana (gold, bauxite, and diamonds). Oil is also found along the western African coast, in the Gabon basin, the Republic of the Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Angola.

A significant proportion of uranium mined world-wide comes from Africa, chiefly in South Africa, Niger, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Central African Republic, and Gabon. The largest radium supply in the world is located in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Some 20 per cent of the world's copper reserves is concentrated in Zambia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Africa, and Zimbabwe. The Democratic Republic of the Congo and Zambia also possess about 90 per cent of the world's known cobalt, and Sierra Leone has the largest known titanium reserves. Africa produces some three-quarters of the world's gold; South Africa, followed by Zimbabwe, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Ghana, are the major producers. The mines of Botswana, South Africa, Namibia, Angola, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo produce the majority of the world's gem and industrial diamonds. Iron ore is found in all parts of the continent. Most of Africa's mineral wealth has been and is being developed by large, multinational corporations (MNCs). Increasingly, in recent years, African governments have become substantial shareholders in the operations within their own countries.