Causes of Poor Governance in Africa

Before we can talk about the effects of poor governance on the underdevelopment of Africa, we must first examine the causes of the problem. One of the foremost causes is the capacity and strength of governmental institutions in many African countries has wavered throughout the years. After many African countries gained independence in the 1960's they were not well prepared to handle the rigors of a newly independent nation, and to add to all of this they also had to deal with previous ethnic tensions exacerbated by the colonial rule (Bräutigam and Knack 259-260). Secondly, economic crisis is another factor in the poor governance of Africa. During the period of post-independence, African nations were struggling to pay back loans and deal with skyrocketing inflation rates. This led to understaffed government offices due to the fact that the employees were being underpaid or in some cases not even paid at all (Bräutigam and Knack 259-260). Lastly, another major cause of poor governance in Africa is political instability and war. After independence, many different groups of Africans were trying to consolidate power in many of the same regions. This led to civil wars and coups which were extremely detrimental to the development of Africa due to the lack of a stable government and economy. Now that we know about some of the major causes for the poor governance in Africa we can now proceed to explore the different aspects of the problem and the effects of it as well as try and come up with a solution for it.

Source: Bräutigam, Deborah A., and Stephen Knack. “Foreign Aid, Institutions, and Governance in Sub‐Saharan Africa.” Economic Development and Cultural Change, vol. 52, no. 2, 2004, pp. 255–285., www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/380592.