managed to push up the prices in the local tourist industry and the agricultural exports business, rendering them uncompetitive. Meanwhile the vast profits from copper were largely enjoyed outside Zambia by shareholders in Anglo-American and Chinese firms (the Chinese even brought in their own workers instead of hiring and transferring skill to local Zambians). As with aid, the large pot of money that comes with resources diverts the attention of entrepreneurs. The allure of that money can also be fuel for rebellion and civil war. Collier quotes the Zairean rebel leader, Laurent Kabila – ‘All I need to start an uprising is $10,000 and a satellite phone’ 7 . The money is sufficient to raise a small army and the phone is required to negotiate business deals for the country’s natural resources. Kabila reportedly made $500 million worth of deals with foreign businesses, promising them resource concessions in the case of a rebel victory in exchange for funds. The increased chance of conflict these resources bring can be very damaging to a countries economy. Civil wars are both expensive and likely to recur. Civil wars evoke a strong response from the international community, one that often heralds a sharp decline in foreign investment and aid. Capital stock and infrastructure are lost during a civil war, through being destroyed or just not maintained, making this drop in investment particularly damaging. Rape and mass migration make people particularly vulnerable to disease. Collier claims more people die from disease in civil wars than in actual fighting. Resources act as both an incentive and fuel for this. Any understanding of present-day Sub-Saharan Africa requires serious consideration of its colonial past. The major European powers turned their eyes to Africa in the second half of the 19th century, with a view to exploiting the ‘Dark Continent’, but ostensibly saving it with the introduction of Commerce and Christianity. Colonization required that some infrastructure was built, and some education introduced, as local administrators with elementary literacy and numeracy were required to work under Colonial representatives. There was little benefit to Africans beyond this. There was little transfer of technical skills while indigenous industry and institutions weren’t nurtured. These deficiencies became apparent during the 1960s when Africa was largely decolonized. Without the insulation of imperial powers African countries found themselves in trouble. There were virtually no indigenous university graduates. Legal codes, property rights and local administrative policies had been grafted directly from colonizing countries, only modified to facilitate efficient colonization rather than to accommodate local customs and needs. Given the role of indigenous people in colonized countries there was a lack of a political class when European powers withdrew. Supply of experienced leaders was low and post-colonial governments were poor. Another legacy of colonization is the arbitrary nature of borders. There is a special band of countries in Africa that experience the worst growth rates of the entire continent. These are countries that are both landlocked and don’t have natural resource wealth, examples include Rwanda, Burundi and South Sudan. These countries do so badly because they rely on their neighbours transport infrastructure to export. Landlocked countries with resources can afford to incur higher transport costs as what they are selling is so valuable, those without resources tend to have inward facing economies. Outside Africa 1% of the population live in countries like these. Collier observes that ‘Around 30% of Africa’s population lie in landlocked, resource-scarce countries. A reasonable case can be made that such places never should have become countries’ 8 . The disparity between the two figures, and thus the exporting difficulties many African countries experience, is because of the European partitioning of Africa. European powers paid no consideration as to how the states they drew up could ever be independent countries; instead they drew borders according to how they would impact their own gains. African countries suffer because of this today. Colonization
Research by William Easterly identifies two effects of imposed artificial borders. The first explains
7 ‘The Bottom Billion’ by Paul Collier (2007) p21 8 ‘The Bottom Billion’ by Paul Collier (2007) p57
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