Verster, Empowering the poor: The Bible and the poor in informal settlements ...The authority of the African communal system was also broken. Artifi-
cial boundaries broke the relation between many people and the destruc-
tion of culture was also detrimental to the wellbeing of the people. The
denial of political participation was carried over to the post-colonial pe-
riod. It is therefore no wonder that many African countries still struggle
with the legacy of the past.
In the book “Why Africa is poor, and what Africans can do about it.” by
Greg Mills (2010:1), another aspect is also mentioned. He is of the opin-
ion that the main reason why Africa’s people are poor is because the
leaders have made this choice. Mills continues to say that the record
shows that countries can grow their economies and develop faster if
leaders take sound decisions in the national interest. Mills (2010:2) is of
the opinion that this should also have been Africa’s time. What is then
the problem? Why is it so that so many countries in Africa do not pro-
gress in a positive way? The reason for this, according to Mills (2010:10)
is that Africa’s leaders made bad choices.
Mills (2010:12) explains:
“That African leaders have been permitted to get away with ruinous, self-
interested decisions can be attributed in large part to a relative lack of de-
mocracy (or to single-party dominance) in Africa. There has been little bot-
tom-up pressure on leadership to make better choices, notwithstanding the
encouraging growth of civil society in parts of the continent over the past
two decades.”
Africa’s leadership is thus also partly to be blamed and the problem of
development in Africa lies also partly before the bad choices of the lead-
ers of Africa.
2.8 The need for solutions
The problems of Africa are deep and serious and cannot be met unless a
clear picture of all the different challenges are put forward and there are,
from this perspective, the possible interaction with these problems to
bring about new solutions. The Africa Progress Report (2010:4) views
Africa’s land and natural wealth as immense and increasing in value and
it calls on governments to use revenues to promote sustainable and
equitable development.
Bisoux (2008:42) mentions that foreign investment may not be the only,
or even the best solution to the seemingly intractable problems that
African countries face. The widespread availability of quality manage-