Why Is Africa in Poverty?

There are many factors that keep the continent of Africa in poverty, including its rapid population growth, lack of education, disease and conflict. Africa is the fastest growing continent with a population growth rate of 2.7 percent per year, and the fertility rate has declined much more slowly than elsewhere in the world. This makes the demographic transition very slowly as well.[1] In fact, about half the population of Africa is under the age of 15.[2]

Also, fewer than 20 percent of African women have access to education, and uneducated women are twice as likely to contract AIDS and 50 percent less likely to immunize their children.[3] In the sub-Saharan region, more than 32 million children, mostly girls, are not in school.[4] More than a million people die every year from malaria, many of them children under the age of five. Malaria deaths in Africa make up 90 percent of all malaria deaths worldwide. Conflict also perpetuates poverty in Africa; the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees reports that more than 18 million people are of concern to the agency. In recent years, that number has rapidly grown due to the crises in the Central African Republic, Nigeria and South Sudan.[5]