Africa problems: social & economic issues

It's not an overcrowded place, but it is under pressure

Despite a current population of some 800 million people, or some 13% of the world’s total, Africa is not for the most part an overcrowded place; its population density is low when compared with the rest of the world.

However a great number of people still live in abject poverty, and in some countries, wars, civil unrest and political instability continue to hinder economic progress.

These factors - together with unfavourable trade and macro-economic policies - result in putting great pressures on Africa’s forests, savannahs, wetlands and marine habitats and threaten many indigenous species of animals and plants.

• Poverty is widespread. According to a World Bank report in 2001, the African per capita GDP in 1999 was US$749 compared with a global average of US$5,403 (based on the value of the US dollar in 1995). Around 44% of the population live on US$1 or less a day and it is the only continent on which poverty is expected to rise during this century. Poverty has been and remains a major cause and consequence of environmental degradation.
  
  
• The life expectancy of Africans is 52.5 years compared to a world average of 66.3 years.
  
  
• It’s estimated that 500 million hectares of land have been affected by soil degradation since 1950, including as much as 65% of agricultural land.
  
  
• Coincidentally the number of undernourished people in Africa nearly doubled from 100 million in the 1960s to nearly 200 million in 1995.
  
  
• Africa’s dependence on rain-fed agriculture means that production is vulnerable to climatic variability, threatening food production. And the focus on oil and mineral extraction, cash crops and timber harvesting have also had detrimental impacts on the environment.
  
  
• Poor farming methods can often exacerbate environmental damage and threaten communities. Traditional farming practices tend to be inefficient and land-intensive, and significantly degrade scarce arable land. The draining of wetlands for agriculture also threatens habitats and biodiversity, and the livelihoods of nomadic communities who move their cattle and crops on to the rich floodplains exposed by regularly subsiding floodwaters.
  
  
• In Western, Central and Eastern Africa traditional biomass fuels provide most of the energy used, and the subsequent clearing of forest areas in order to harvest fuelwood has contributed to desertification.
  
  
• Water scarcity and pollution is a major problem and more than a quarter of the global population without access to improved water supplies live in Africa, where rural people spend much of their time searching for water. Poor water supply and sanitation lead to high rates of water-related diseases such as cholera and dysentry.