4 - the influence of political, cultural and social factors on the development of two or more countries

Question 1

colonialism of africa

Answer 1

• In 1885, 16 leading diplomats met in Berlin to determine the future of the African continent. Negotiations between the colonial powers drew artificial borders on the continent as the land was divided up between the major nations of the time.
• These lines still exist today and lie at the heart of many potential barriers to development.
• By 1914, European powers controlled almost 90 percent of the continent, often through the use of unmitigated violence.

Question 2

neo-colonialism

Answer 2

the control of less-developed countries by developed countries through indirect means. The term neocolonialism was first used after World War II to refer to the continuing dependence of former colonies on foreign countries, but its meaning soon broadened to apply, more generally, to places where the power of developed countries was used to produce a colonial-like exploitation—for instance, in sub-Saharan Africa.

Question 3

china and africa relationship?

Answer 3

• In 2006 China’s African Policy was released. This was an official Chinese government paper aimed at promoting economic and political cooperation as well as energy development without interfering in each other’s internal affairs.
• China has taken advantage of the fact that Africa does not seem to have been a diplomatic and economic priority with the USA, Europe and Japan.
• Rapidly rising Chinese investment has been an important factor in recent economic growth in Africa. Real GDP in Sub-Saharan Africa increased by an average of 4.4% between 2001 and 2004. The rate of growth was 5.5% in 2005 with promising projections for the next few years.

Question 4

dependency theory

Answer 4

• Dependency theory is a Marxist economic theory that states that the poorer LDCs do not have the ability to develop whilst they exist in the global capitalist economy, as they are deliberately exploited by the superpowers for their own financial and economic gain.

Question 5

education in ssa

Answer 5

• only about half of sub-Saharan Africa’s 128 million school-aged children currently attending school are likely to acquire the basic skills needed for them to live healthy and productive lives.
• if you are a poor, female child currently attending school in a rural region you are far more likely to not be learning the critical skills, such as reading, writing and math.
• rural schoolchildren are the most disadvantaged from a socioeconomic perspective
• Rural schools generally have less qualified teachers and not enough teachers for the number of children enrolled in school

Question 6

health and welfare in ssa

Answer 6

• There have been sharp increases in the number of deaths in traffic accidents in recent years, a reflection of many more vehicles on the road and inadequate infrastructure investments
• HIV and malaria - of all the regions in the world, sub-Saharan Africa is the only region where there are more deaths and life years lost from communicable diseases than other types of illness and injury.
• The World Bank official says the road accident death rates in Africa are 100 times greater than those in the United States.
• A new United Nations report says the number of hungry people has dropped, but not enough to meet development goals.
• The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation says one in eight people are suffering from chronic hunger. That represents 842 million people worldwide, dropping from the estimate of 868 million last year. And it is 17 percent less than the number reported in the early 1990s.

Question 7

cultural factors in ssa

Answer 7

• Swayam Shikshan Prayog which translates to ‘Self-Education and Empowerment,’ is an NGO (non-governmental organisation) which has been operating in the Tamil Nadu region for over 15
  years.
• large-scale earthquakes in Maharashtra in 1993 and in Gujarat in 2001 meant SSP was responsible for mobilising women’s groups to participate in the processes of reconstruction
• womens group identified major problems of health, water and sanitation needs were critically failing to be met in many villages
• It was also seen that women were particularly vulnerable to health problems and less likely to use health services as a result of this reliance on private healthcare. Women commonly were neglecting their own health so that they could afford it for their children and husbands
• SAT primarily operates through the use of community-level trust banks. Each trust bank is formed of group of 20 to 30 local women whose income is assessed to be ‘very poor’
• short-term debt often means that rather than focusing on building profits or investing money, women are forced to focus on making sure they meet a daily target or they end up in debt, can pursue diversification

Question 8

corruption in ssa

Answer 8

• Isabel dos Santos got access to lucrative deals involving land, oil, diamonds and telecoms when her father was president of Angola, a southern African country rich in natural resources.
• The documents show how she and her husband were allowed to buy valuable state assets in a series of suspicious deals.
• One of the most suspicious deals was run from London through a UK subsidiary of the Angolan state oil company Sonangol.
• The leaked documents show that as she left Sonangol, Ms Dos Santos approved $58m of suspicious payments to a consultancy company in Dubai called Matter Business Solutions.
• It’s a similar story in the diamond industry. Ms Dos Santos’s husband, Sindika Dokolo, signed a one-sided agreement in 2012 with Angolan state diamond company Sodiam.