Sub Saharan Africa
What is Development?
According to the World Bank, development of a country is relative depending on the perspective from which an individual looks at it from. For instance a country can develop in terms of economic growth hence increasing a nations wealth. This could in turn be used to improve the social well being of the citizens. The downside to this kind of development is that it pays attention to creation of wealth with a total disregard on the consequences that the activities leading to the creation of the wealth will have on the population or even the environment.
According to the UNDP’s report of 1996 titled Beyond Economic Growth, “human development is the end- economic growth the means.” This school of thought advances the opinion that all development should be geared towards the general well being of the citizens and not just wealth creation. This has come to be referred to in the recent past as sustainable development.
Whether sustainable development or just economic growth, how much of “development” have different African countries achieved as independent nations? In order to be in a position to answer this question we may …show more content…
Despite the fact that most African countries gained their independence close to forty years ago or more they still wallow in poverty largely as a result of the leadership strategies that have been continuously adopted by the elite.
At the beginning of this paper, I tried to define development and either way you look at it, the leaders in Sub Saharan Africa have in many occasions got the development agenda wrong for their countries. For instance let us assume that their intention was to create wealth even without minding so much about the well being of the citizens, in many instances such wealth is often created for individuals and not the country. An example would be the Golden Berg scandal that rocked Kenya in the
According to the World Bank, development of a country is relative depending on the perspective from which an individual looks at it from. For instance a country can develop in terms of economic growth hence increasing a nations wealth. This could in turn be used to improve the social well being of the citizens. The downside to this kind of development is that it pays attention to creation of wealth with a total disregard on the consequences that the activities leading to the creation of the wealth will have on the population or even the environment.
According to the UNDP’s report of 1996 titled Beyond Economic Growth, “human development is the end- economic growth the means.” This school of thought advances the opinion that all development should be geared towards the general well being of the citizens and not just wealth creation. This has come to be referred to in the recent past as sustainable development.
Whether sustainable development or just economic growth, how much of “development” have different African countries achieved as independent nations? In order to be in a position to answer this question we may …show more content…
Despite the fact that most African countries gained their independence close to forty years ago or more they still wallow in poverty largely as a result of the leadership strategies that have been continuously adopted by the elite.
At the beginning of this paper, I tried to define development and either way you look at it, the leaders in Sub Saharan Africa have in many occasions got the development agenda wrong for their countries. For instance let us assume that their intention was to create wealth even without minding so much about the well being of the citizens, in many instances such wealth is often created for individuals and not the country. An example would be the Golden Berg scandal that rocked Kenya in the