21/10/2018
Africa’s Wealth
Africa is extremely wealthy! In fact, it is the wealthiest land mass on the face of the earth. This wealth can be found in its abundant mineral resources and in its huge agricultural potential. Africa’s mineral wealth includes a wide variety and huge volume of resources that are critical to the technical and industrial development of humanity, e.g., gold, platinum, diamonds, manganese, colbalt, cromite, coltan, coal, radium, iron ores, chromium, copper, lead, zinc, tin, titanium, antiomony, tantalum, germanium, lithium, phosphates, bauxite, uranium, petroleum, and natural gas. Similar figures could be provided regarding Africa’s agricultural potential, which remains largely untapped. Although there are an estimated 632 million hectares* of arable land in Africa, only 179 million hectares are actually cultivated, i.e., less than 30% of its arable land. As with Africa’s mineral resources, this arable land is unevenly distributed. In fact, in just four countries (the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria and the two Sudans), where nearly 40% of this uncultivated land is located, there is enough agriculturally-rich land to feed Africa’s 1 billion population several times over. However, because this wealth is unevenly distributed, showing no relationship to the artificial, imperialist imposed division of the continent, this wealth can only benefit the masses of African people when it is shared on a continent-wide basis.
Edward Mitole is senior political analyst at GPAN and the founder of African Renaissance project, he is the candidate Doctor of Philosophy of Development studies at Univeresity of Pretoria.
Kwame Nkrumah once said ‘Africa must unite or perish!’ Without genuine African unity, our continent