Africa

D

Manufacturing

Stemming from mineral and oil extraction are processing industries, such as refining and smelting, which are located in most mineral-rich countries with adequate energy. South Africa is the most industrialized of Africa's countries, but virtually all other countries have developed a manufacturing base of some sort; Zimbabwe and Nigeria as well as the North African countries have very sizeable industrial sectors. Heavy industry, such as metal producing, machine making, and transport equipment, is concentrated in southern Africa and Nigeria. Significant industrial centres have also developed in Kenya, Egypt, Morocco, and Algeria amongst others. Mineral-related industries are well developed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Zambia; Kenya, and Côte d'Ivoire have developed primarily in textiles, light industry, and building materials. In many other countries manufacturing is limited to making or assembling consumer goods, such as shoes, bicycles, textiles, food, and beverages. Such industries are often confined by the relatively small size of the consumer market. African countries' attempts to develop their manufacturing bases further, particularly by processing their agricultural exports to increase their added value, have been very much hindered by protectionism in the industrialized countries, which impose heavy tariffs on such goods. Poor intra-African trade connections have also been a problem.

E

Energy

Nigeria, Libya, Algeria, and Angola are major world producers of oil, and several other African countries are also oil exporters, including Gabon. Africa's natural-gas exports are centred in Algeria. Coal production is concentrated mainly in Zimbabwe and South Africa, although many other countries have sizeable reserves (such as Botswana), which await development because of a lack of markets. The bulk of African coal production is used internally. Most African countries must import fuels, especially petroleum and oil. The oil price rises of the 1970s were disastrous for many of them, precipitating many of the balance of payments and debt problems which undermined their economies in the 1980s and early 1990s. Although Africa has some 40 per cent of the world's hydroelectric power potential, only a relatively small portion has been developed owing to high construction costs, inaccessibility of sites, and their distance from markets. Since the 1950s, however, a number of the world's largest hydroelectric installations have been built in Africa; these include the Aswān High Dam on the River Nile, the Volta Dam on the River Volta, and the Kariba and Cabora Bassa dams on the Zambezi; the huge Highlands Water Scheme under construction in Lesotho also has a hydroelectric power component.

F

Transport

The economic development of virtually all African nations has been hindered by inadequate transport systems. Most countries rely on road networks that are frequently composed largely of dirt roads, which become impassable during the rainy seasons. Road and rail networks built during the colonial era tended to link the interior of a country to the coast; few provided cross-country links internally, or links with adjacent countries. Since independence, however, a number of important trans-African routes have been built providing road and rail links, notably for the landlocked countries. Most African nations support a national airline and there has been much improvement in recent years in coordinating timetabling. Rail and shipping systems are best developed in southern Africa.

G

Trade

The economies of most African states rely heavily on one or a few export commodities. The bulk of trade occurs with industrialized nations, which require raw materials and sell industrial and consumer goods. Trade between African states is limited by the competitive, rather than complementary, nature of their products and (to a decreasing extent) by trade barriers, such as tariffs and the diversity of currencies, and the fact that most are not “hard”, that is, they are legal tender only within their own countries, so most trade is carried out in US dollars or pounds sterling. Most former British colonies in Africa continue to have loose trade relations with the United Kingdom and keep monetary reserves in London. Most former French colonies have maintained closer ties with France, and the majority are members of the Franc Zone. In addition, most African states have economic ties with the European Union through the Lomé Convention, and benefit from some tariff barrier reductions. Few successful intra-African economic systems have emerged. The most durable are the Economic Community of West African States and the Economic Community of Central African States; the most successful are the Southern African Development Community, and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa. The Organization of African Unity also promotes intra-African trade and economic development.

V

History

Africa is generally agreed to be the cradle of the human race; genetic testing in recent years has confirmed archaeological finds. Some 5 million years ago a type of hominid, a close evolutionary ancestor of present-day humans, inhabited southern and eastern Africa. More than 1.5 million years ago this toolmaking hominid developed into the more advanced forms Homo habilis and Homo erectus. The earliest true human being in Africa, Homo sapiens, dates from more than 200,000 years ago. A hunter-gatherer capable of making crude stone tools, Homo sapiens banded together with others to form nomadic groups; eventually these nomadic Khoisan-speaking peoples spread throughout the African continent. Gradually a growing Bantu-speaking population, which had mastered animal domestication and agriculture, forced the Khoisan-speaking groups into the less hospitable areas. Today they are found primarily in the Kalahari. In the 1st century ad the Bantu began a migration that lasted some 2,000 years, settling most of central and southern Africa. Negroid societies typically depended on subsistence agriculture or, in the savannahs, pastoral pursuits. Political organization was normally local, although large kingdoms would later develop in most parts of the continent, and especially western, central, and southern Africa.

The first great civilization in Africa began in the Nile Valley about 5000 bc. Dependent on agriculture, these settlements benefited from the Nile's flooding as a source of irrigation and new soils. The need to control the Nile floodwaters eventually resulted in a well-ordered, complex state with elaborate political and religious systems (see Egypt: History). The Kingdom of Egypt flourished, influencing Mediterranean and, to a lesser extent, African societies for thousands of years. Iron-making, according to some theories, was brought south from Egypt around 800 bc, and spread into tropical Africa; other theories suggest independent development of Iron Age culture. Ideas of royal kingship and state organization were also exported, particularly to adjacent areas such as Cush and Punt. The east Cushite state, Meroë, was supplanted in the 4th century ad by Āksum, which later evolved into Ethiopia.

During the period from the late 3rd century bc to the early 1st century ad, Rome had conquered Egypt, Carthage, and other North African areas; these became the granaries of the Roman Empire. The empire was divided into two parts in the 4th century. All lands west of modern Libya remained territories of the western Empire, ruled by Rome, and lands to the east, including Egypt, became part of the eastern or Byzantine Empire, ruled from Constantinople. By this time the majority of the population had been converted to Christianity. In the 5th century the Vandals, a Germanic tribe, conquered much of north Africa. Vandal kings ruled there until the 6th century, when they were defeated by Byzantine forces, and the area was absorbed by the Byzantine Empire.