Sub-Saharan Africa

During the period of 600 BCE to 600 CE, the Bantu-speaking Africans gradually began to interact with humans and the environment by settling into varying parts of West and East Africa and creating a network with their neighbors in order to receive new technologies and foods. The Bantu exchanged goods with local hunter-gatherers, and the people cut into forests and settled down into villages. The Assyrians first brought iron to Egypt around 600 BCE and it quickly spread to Sub-Saharan Africa. Around 200 CE, Indonesians settled on the coast bringing Asian bananas and, since they had a higher yield than African bananas, they spread inland and improved the food supply. People from southern Arabia established settlements on the coast near the Ethiopian highlands and through mixing with local residents, formed a new language known as Ge'ez (later Axum).
In the years since the Second World War, the European powers had begun withdrawing from Africa. This process of decolonization is in response to nationalist movements within Africa, international pressure from the USA and the Soviet Union, and the European countries' own awareness of their economic weakness after two world wars. Decolonization was mostly completed within a few years of 1960, though white minorities effectively continued colonial rule in South Africa, while the Portuguese remained in Angola and Mozambique for the most part. Since independence, African countries have experienced many issues such as political instability, corruption, harsh poverty, and the HIV/AIDS pandemic. With the end of the Cold War, however, rivalries in Africa began to condense and more constructive approaches to Africa's problems have been evident, both on the part of the international community and within Africa