Booming Africa, Essay Example

Question 2:  Locals lose the most in natural-resource booms, and the loss is permanent.

Some economic booms benefit even the rural people who are displaced by development, by providing them with jobs, both in their ancestral lands, and in cities. Booms that originate in cities are more likely to do that. But natural-resource booms don’t do that and most of Africa’s booms are going to be based on natural resources for a long time to come. They are funded by distant money that only needs the resource, not the people. The equipment is imported. Much of the labor is imported too, as Omotunde Johnson points out in the case of Sierra Leone. An oil- or gold-boom does not create enough new jobs for enough locals, with many outsiders flooding in. So they have no choice but to migrate to cities and their growing slums. As the article points out, Luanda, Angola (of all places) is now considered the most expensive city in the world. But next door to the new penthouse is an old outhouse, still in use. It is nobody’s job to build a new one.

Question 3: Ethical responsibility to intervene is going to be tricky in the case of a profitable foreign-owned factory located next to a contested border that cuts through tribal lands of people who hate each other. In Africa, there might not even be a “core nation” because Africa’s nations are largely tribal in nature. President Obama’s Kenya visit has reportedly caused strain between clans among his bloodlines there. And “Africa” is so big and tribally diversified that as a political entity, it is really just a generalization. Like “Latin America,” it is the handle on the backpack of our misconceptions. Jack Christofides, the U.N. official mentioned in the article, can urge military force, but that can make the problem worse: imagine how intervening tribes from other nations might handle the terrorism of Boko Haram. Finally, some governments are influenced by their trading partners, like the Chinese. As the article points out, the Chinese are competing aggressively in Africa, cutting deals with kleptocracies. Some ethics are local.