Human resources
Best 5 Human resources and Economic development in Africa. Human resources and economic development. The human resources in any country is of great importance as it is people who bring out development. The people who bring about development are those with skills. A country needs to train her citizens well so that they obtain the required skills for development.
The African continent is rich in human and natural resources. Of some 900 million people, over 75% live in rural areas including small towns and villages. These rural populations depend heavily, although not exclusively, on the production and use of natural resources for their livelihoods: this high level of reliance on natural resources will remain through at least the next generation.
Agriculture is not only a key to both rural and urban food security and to household livelihoods, but is also a major contributor to the export economy and thus to foreign exchange earnings. It is the most important source of employment in most countries of the region (Felicity Proctor, 2005). Despite that fact most of the African agriculture is still very poor, there is a big percentage of people involved in agriculture but the outcome of their work is very much limited and so contributing very little in their countries GDP.
Strategies
To change the situation the African leaders must come up with deliberate strategies so as to boost up the agriculture’s contribution in the country’s economy. The strategies should include the modernization of the activity which will lead to the mechanization of the African agriculture. Furthermore, they should adopt the irrigation technology and so avoid the seasonal rains, which in most cases, are not reliable at all. Africa should reach a point where it can feed her own people, without depending on the outside World.
Regional and international cooperation is an essential requirement to the African development. Most African politics, economies and societies are very weak and so making it impossible for individual countries to catch up with the rest of the globe. Cooperation with others should therefore be a central objective of African countries. This cooperation should start at the sub-regional level and extend to the regional level.
In this respect, the multiplicity, capabilities, functions, objectives, and accomplishments of the surplus of sub-regional inter governmental organizations in the continent must be analyzed with a view to their rationalization, so as to ensure that they make effective contributions to sub-regional economic cooperation and integration, a sine qua non for regional economic cooperation and integration.
In addition to sub-regional and regional cooperation and integration, African countries, should energetically strive for South-south cooperation. This form of cooperation made a positive contribution to Africa’s independence and was a vital and influential force in international political and economic relations in the 60s and 70s, under the tutelage of the group of seventy seven and the Non–Aligned Movement.
The South –south cooperation is needed now more than in the past, as no region of developing countries, acting alone, has the capacity to transfer the existing international system and ensure that it promotes the interests of developing countries as a whole, rather than a few of them at best, and even then often for only limited periods of time (Addis Ababa 2002).
Market is yet another factor which is real important any country in the world will always strive to have a proper market for the goods it produces. There is no a single country in the globe that consumes everything it produces; all countries of the world are forced to look for other markets somewhere else. It is in there that the importance of regional cooperation is once again required.
Africa needs to unite so that it could form an emerging market, only found in South Africa in the continent. An emerging market will be large enough and will have sufficient growth potential to be attractive to international business (Roel Van Der Veen 2004).
Peace and security is one among the most important factors for sustainable development. It is only where you have peace and security that one can expect to have investors attracted for doing business with the host nation. Peace is not only the absence of war; it is also the establishment of peaceful international and domestic relations constituting the premises of a process of cooperation between states (General Carlo Jean 1996).
Some parts of the African continent are still having fightings, these conflicts need be resolved if at all we want to develop the continent. With the currently reigning situation in Darfur, Somalia it is just impossible to expect sustainable development (Rugumamu, 2005) or for Africa to catch up with the rest of the world.
Democracy
Democracy is another imperative attribute to any government wishing to develop to the level reached by the other parts of the world. The concept can be so controversial on using it; participants of the Addis Ababa meeting (2002) looked at the concept as imported to the continent and being imposed to the African governments. I will use democracy as that process which brings a leader into power only after being elected by the majority of the citizens, and having, through the manifesto of their political party, the national interest which is also people’s interest in their mind.
For Africa to draw near to the developed world, it will need a kind of democracy that which guarantees all types of freedom, including civic, political, economic, social and cultural freedom, which are guaranteed on the basis of gender, all ethnic and religious groups, and so freedom by all these to advocate diverse political views without any difference (Rugumamu, 2005).
Having seen many problems in the continent, one could ask himself is there hope at all to the continent? Oh yes, with the end of the cold war the World began changing fast. After decades of decline, it seemed that change could only be for the better. The sense of new possibilities produced a rush of enthusiasm and energy throughout the continent. Its first impact was in the domain that had become the greatest barrier to development: politics.
A wave of political reform swept over the majority of African countries, taking by surprise even those most directly involved, and raised the prospect of further perhaps much more far-reaching-advances (RoelVanDer Veen 2004). The continent and the world as a whole has witnessed a great deal of inspiration and hope giving acts occurring in the past few decades.
The Angola war, which lasted for a number of years, came to an end and so giving a new possibility and so hope not only to the people of Angola but of the whole continent. The Sudan government at last had agreements with the former rebel group of SPLA of south Sudan and so terminating another long civil war in the continent.
Apartheid
The end of apartheid and the formulation of a truth and reconciliation committee in South Africa, to resolve the many unfinished business of the minority regime, gave a big hope to mother Africa. The remedy of the situation in South Africa was real a big optimistic move, for the South African economy could contribute to enormous changes to the economy of the continent.
Furthermore, the world has witnessed important democratic elections being held in the continent: in Liberia; there were free and fair elections which, brought an end to the civil war in the western African country, and saw coming into presidency the first ever African woman elect. And just recently the World has lived the Congolese experience; first democratic elections since independence over forty years ago.
Congo-Kinshasa, is a sleeping giant, it is a country rich in many natural resources and the gain of peace in the country will stabilize the region and benefit the whole continent economically.
Cooperation in regional grouping has also been a feature that the continent has witnessed; the East African Community opened its doors to new members. Up to this November 2006 the-community had only three founding members, Tanzania, Kenya, and Uganda, with the new agreements reached in Arusha, Tanzania, the community will now include two new members Rwanda and Burundi. The move entails the enlargement of the East African market and many other benefits to the region and continent as a whole.
Trust is an important attribute in social capital; social capital enables an individual or community in that matter to succeed in their activities (Putnam, 1995). Africa, through the nomination of South Africa as the host to the FIFA World Cup in 2010, has gained trust an important element in business. The World will have the opportunity to see the continent at a close glance and so create the possibilities of commencing new businesses. Through football, the world will be coming to Africa, indeed the world needs Africa, and so does Africa need the world.
Africans value investment in human development, especially education is a crucial component for development. Studies have shown that there is an increase in the value of education. In many countries the buildings erected through voluntary efforts for primary and secondary education, for local training centres, and for health clinics attest to the willingness of households and communities to invest in the future of their children (Can Africa Claim, 2000).
