The Challenges African States Faced at Independence

The Challenges African States Faced at Independence One of the most pressing challenges African states faced at Independence was their lack of infrastructure. European imperialists prided themselves on bringing civilization and developing Africa, but they left their former colonies with little in the way of infrastructure. The empires had built roads and railroads - or rather, they had forced their colonial subjects to build them - but these were not intended to build national infrastructures. Imperial roads and railways were almost always intended to facilitate the export of raw materials. Many, like the Ugandan Railroad, ran straight to the coastline. These new countries also lacked the manufacturing infrastructure to add value to their raw materials. Rich as many African countries were in cash crops and minerals, they could not process these goods themselves. Their economies were dependent on trade, and this made them vulnerable. They were also locked into cycles of dependencies on their former European masters. They had gained political, not economic dependencies, and as Kwame Nkrumah - the first prime minister and president of Ghana - knew, political independence without economic independence was meaningless.   Energy Dependence The lack of infrastructure also meant that African countries were dependent on Western economies for much of their energy. Even oil-rich countries did not have the refineries needed to turn their crude oil into gasoline or heating oil. Some leaders, like Kwame Nkrumah, tried to rectify this by taking on massive building projects, like the Volta River hydroelectric dam project. The dam did provide much-needed electricity, but its construction put Ghana heavily into debt. The construction also required the relocation of tens of thousands of Ghanaians and contributed to Nkrumahs plummeting support in Ghana. In 1966, Nkrumah was overthrown.   Inexperienced Leadership At Independence, there were several presidents, like Jomo Kenyatta, had several decades of political experience, but others, like Tanzanias Julius Nyerere, had entered the political fray just years before independence. There was also a distinct lack of trained and experienced civil leadership. The lower echelons of the colonial government had long been staffed by African subjects, but the higher ranks had been reserved for white officials. The transition to national officers at independence meant there were individuals at all levels of the bureaucracy with little prior training.  In some cases, this led to innovation, but the many challenges that African states faced at independence were often compounded by the lack of experienced leadership. Lack of National Identity The borders Africas new countries were left with were the ones drawn in Europe during the Scramble for Africa with no regard to the ethnic or social landscape on the ground. The subjects of these colonies often had many identities that trumped their sense of being, for instance, Ghanaian or Congolese. Colonial policies that privileged one group over another or allocated land and political rights by tribe exacerbated these divisions. The most famous case of this was the Belgian policies that crystallized the divisions between Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda that led to the tragic genocide in 1994. Immediately after decolonization, the new African states agreed to a policy of inviolable borders, meaning they would not try to redraw Africas political map as that would lead to chaos. The leaders of these countries were, thus, left with the challenge of trying to forge a sense of national identity at a time when those seeking a stake in the new country were often playing to individuals regional or ethnic loyalties.   Cold War Finally, decolonization coincided with the Cold War, which  presented another challenge for African states. The push and pull between the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) made non-alignment a difficult, if not impossible, option, and those leaders who tried to carve third way generally found they had to take sides.   Cold War politics also presented an opportunity for factions that sought to challenge the new governments. In Angola, the international support that the government and rebel factions received in the Cold War led to a civil war that lasted nearly thirty years. These combined challenges made it difficult to establish strong economies or political stability in Africa and contributed to the upheaval that many (but not all!) states faced between the late 60s and late 90s.

Abstract Thinking (4 Tips for Writing an Abstract)

Abstract Thinking (4 Tips for Writing an Abstract) Abstract Thinking (4 Tips for Writing an Abstract) An abstract is a short summary of a larger work, providing a convenient way for readers to quickly comprehend its contents. This makes abstracts an essential part of academic writing. In fact, students and academics have to write abstracts for everything from funding applications and conference papers to PhD dissertations and textbooks. Learning how to write an effective abstract is, therefore, highly advised. 1. Descriptive or Informative? There are two main kinds of abstract: descriptive and informative. A descriptive abstract briefly describes the subject area and issue addressed by a paper. This may include the aims of the research and methods used, but not the results or conclusions. An informative abstract, meanwhile, should do everything that a descriptive abstract does plus outline any results, conclusions and recommendations made by the author. This makes it like a shortened version of the paper, rather than simply a description. Make sure you know what kind of abstract you’ve been asked to write. As a general rule, descriptive abstracts will be shorter (often no more than 100 words), while informative abstracts can be longer (check your style guide or ask your supervisor if you’re unsure). 2. Keywords You may be asked to provide a list of keywords as well as an abstract. These are important terms used for indexing and searching articles, making them vital to your work being found. Even if you’re not required to provide a list of keywords, including important terminology in your abstract is a good way of making it easier to access via databases and search engines. 3. Keeping it Self-Contained An abstract should be self-contained and tell readers everything they need to know before deciding whether to read a work in full. As such, avoid vague statements that require further explanation or confusing terminology that needs defining. One tip here is to have your abstract checked by someone who hasn’t read your work. If they can understand what your research is about from the abstract, you’re on the right track. If they react like this, however, redrafting might be a good idea. (Photo: LaurMG/wikimedia) 4. The Anatomy of an Abstract The exact content of your abstract will depend on the type of abstract you’ve been asked to write. Nevertheless, we can set out a few questions that a good abstract should answer: Motivations – Why is the research important? Why should the reader be interested? Problem – What problem are you addressing? What is the scope of your argument? Methodology – How do you attempt to solve the problem? Which variables are tested? What kind of data is gathered? Results – What results did you achieve? Is there key data that can be included here? Conclusion – What conclusions are drawn on the basis of the findings? Are any recommendations made as a result? If you touch upon all these factors, while being careful to stick to the word limit, you should end up with a high quality abstract suitable for publication.