The major movements into the continent in the past few centuries have been of European settlers into northern Africa and of European and Asian settlers in Southern Africa. The Dutch migrations into Southern Africa began in the mid-17th century. Originally settling on the coast, the Dutch—or Boers—later moved inland to the Highveld region, where a series of military conflicts occurred between them and the Bantu speakers in the 19th century. Other European settlement took place mainly in the 19th century: the British particularly in what is now KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa but also inland in what are now Zambia and Zimbabwe and in the East African highlands, the Portuguese in Angola and Mozambique, and the Germans in what is now Namibia.
The presence of large settler populations delayed the achievement of self-government by the African peoples of South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Angola, and Mozambique and resulted in much bitterness between the indigenous peoples and settlers. In North Africa, by contrast, where the extensive settlement of Europeans from France, Italy, and Spain occurred, the growth of Arab nationalism and the emergence of independent states such as Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia led to the return of between one and two million colonists to their homelands in the late 1950s and early 1960s and to the political dominance of the indigenous peoples.
The greatest outward movement of people was that of Africans—particularly from western Africa and, to a lesser extent, Angola—to the Americas and the Caribbean during the period of the slave trade from the 16th to the 19th century. (For further discussion of the phenomenon, see slavery.) Earlier estimates that between 15 and 20 million Africans were transported across the Atlantic have been revised to a figure of 10 million, which appears more realistic. While their contribution to the development of the New World was of crucial importance, the effect of the loss of manpower to the African continent was considerable and has yet to be satisfactorily analyzed. The slave trade was also active on the east coast of Africa, where it was centred on the island of Zanzibar.
There were few permanent population movements in Africa during the 20th century, although an extensive settlement of Hausa from northern Nigeria took place in what is now Sudan. Warfare produced some significant population displacements, usually of minority groups fleeing the dominant majority. In 1966 the Igbo people of northern Nigeria, for example, returned en masse to their homeland in eastern Nigeria, the number of refugees being estimated at more than 500,000. The conflicts in the Horn of Africa since the 1960s have caused similar displacements. Indeed, Africa has millions of refugees. Such refugees are among the poorest and most vulnerable people in the world, and their numbers are substantially augmented by those fleeing drought and famine. The countries to which those people flee often find it extremely difficult to cope with them.
Somali refugeesSomali refugees in Ethiopia, 2011.Carola Frentzen—DPA/Landov
Most movement occurs across uncontrolled borders and between people of the same tribal groups. Much is seasonal, in any case, and is restricted to migrant labourers and nomadic herdsmen. Controlled immigration and emigration are generally negligible; contemporary examples, however, include the employment of mine workers in South Africa, the forced emigration of Asians from East Africa, and the expulsion of people from neighbouring western African states caused by such actions as the enforcement of the Alien Compliance Order of 1969 in Ghana. Robert K.A. Gardiner Davidson S.H.W. Nicol John F.M. Middleton John Innes Clarke The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica Economy
With the exception of South Africa and the countries of North Africa, all of which have diversified production systems, the economy of most of Africa can be characterized as underdeveloped. Africa as a whole has abundant natural resources, but much of its economy has remained predominantly agricultural, and subsistence farming still engages more than 60 percent of the population.
Until the beginning of the 20th century this system of farming relied on simple tools and techniques, as well as on traditional organization of the family or community for its labour. Because of poor transport and communications, production was largely for domestic use. There was little long-distance trade, and wage labour was virtually unknown. The small size and vast heterogeneity of polities at that time also made exchanges very limited. There were, however, notable exceptions, especially in western Africa, where for many centuries societies had engaged in long-distance trade and had elaborate exchange and craft facilities, communications, and a political infrastructure to maintain their trade routes.
Africa experienced considerable economic development during the 20th century, and, while this provided many benefits, it also gave rise to a number of serious problems. The first significant changes occurred under colonial rule in the first half of the century: wage labour was introduced, transportation and communications were improved, and resources were widely developed in the colonial territories. The legacy of this, however, has been that the export of two or three major agricultural products or minerals—such as peanuts, petroleum, or copper—has come to provide most of the foreign-exchange earnings for nearly all African countries. Fluctuations in the prices of these commodities have made the economies of these countries vulnerable and fragile. The situation has been exacerbated in countries in the marginal dryland zones, where the increasing frequency of drought conditions have undermined agricultural productivity.
The second major change was the vigorous promotion of industrial development, often with foreign assistance, that took place in the two decades (1960–80) following the political independence of most African countries. The political fragmentation of the continent, however, also became a major constraint to industrial growth, because it created numerous small markets. Consequently, most African countries became saddled with excess industrial capacity, coupled with enormous foreign debts incurred in large part to build this capacity.
In nearly all African countries a poor economic situation has been aggravated by rapid population growth, which has kept per capita gross domestic product low or in some cases caused it to decline. Thus, any hope for improving economic conditions in most of Africa rests on two factors: population control within individual countries to give their economies the chance to grow; and the organization of groups of states into regional economic blocs in order to create internal markets large enough to sustain growth. Resources Mineral resources
Africa’s known mineral wealth places it among the world’s richest continents. Its very large share of the world’s mineral resources includes coal, petroleum, natural gas, uranium, radium, low-cost thorium, iron ores, chromium, cobalt, copper, lead, zinc, tin, bauxite, titanium, antimony, gold, platinum, tantalum, germanium, lithium, phosphates, and diamonds.
Major deposits of coal are confined to four groups of coal basins—in Southern Africa, North Africa, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Nigeria. Proven petroleum reserves in North Africa occur in Libya, Algeria, Egypt, and Tunisia. Exploration has been concentrated north of the Aïr–Ahaggar massifs; there may also be major Saharan reserves to the south. The other major oil reserves are in the western coastal basin—mainly in Nigeria and also in Cameroon, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, and the Republic of the Congo—and in Angola and South Sudan. Natural gas reserves are concentrated in basins of North Africa and coastal central Africa.
Southern Africa is said to be one of the world’s seven major uranium provinces. In South Africa the unusual degree of knowledge of reserves derives from the joint occurrence of uranium with gold, a condition that also decreases the cost of production. Other countries with significant uranium deposits are Niger, Gabon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Namibia. Metallic deposits