Analysis in brief: Instead of African countries shipping out raw commodities, a host of benefits derive from locally transforming these natural resources into consumer and industrial products, which are now being manufactured overseas. Governmental policies are finally favouring this common-sense economic reality.
End of the “resource curse”
Africa’s “resource curse” has inflicted the continent for centuries. Diamonds, gold and other valuable minerals have attracted colonisers, marauders, war-lords and neo-colonial exploiters. Endless conflict has resulted, with the great historical irony that Africans that should have been enriched by these resources were made more impoverished as their countries were destabilised by these exploiters. From its independence in 1960, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has not known a day’s peace as militant groups, greedy dictators and foreign mercenaries compete to loot the country of what would make it one of the world’s most prosperous countries: its natural resources.
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