BiAS 7 – The Bible and Politics in Africa
2.2 Poverty and governance in Africa
Due to problems in the political dispensation in Africa, the challenge
still remains to find a way in which Africa can become truly democratic.
At the moment, the challenge is to respond to the poverty of Africa by
democratic governments who are determined to benefit and to uplift
their people. In Africa itself, there are many serious challenges concern-
ing poverty and epidemic illnesses.
Poverty in Africa in itself challenges the government and the church to
respond to the issues at hand. Many issues are still unresolved. Some-
times the geographical impact and also the situation on the level of agri-
culture lead to definite challenges in poverty alleviation. Droughts, lack
of infrastructure and lack of developmental aid are often the reasons for
poverty in Africa. It must also be mentioned that globalisation offers no
viable solution to the problems of poverty in Africa. Although many of
the problems of poverty can be laid before the global north or the past
colonial governments it is not necessarily the only cause of poverty in
Africa. Carnes (2005:38) views corruption as a serious problem and
explains that the tragic reality of Africa's history is that help from the
outside often doesn't help and that billions of dollars of new help, prom-
ised by the world's wealthiest nations, makes little difference and even
makes things worse.
Colonialism, however, did much to plunder Africa and also did much to
take away from Africa’s own possibilities to feed its own people. It is
therefore very important that not only the church but also the govern-
ments in Africa tackle these serious problems and seek solutions. Africa
also needs to attend to the problems of government. The Africa Progress
Report (2010:18) refers to the issue:
“But much of this progress has been overshadowed by recent setbacks and
disconcerting trends. Chronic problems remain, including state fragility,
corruption and widespread lack of basic freedoms. The most high-profile
setback is the return of coups d’état – the last five years have seen violent
and unconstitutional changes of government in Guinea, Guinea-Bissau,
Madagascar, Mauritania, and Niger – despite the professed zero-tolerance
policy of the African Union. This period has also seen the enforcement of
shaky power-sharing deals in Kenya, Niger, Sudan and Zimbabwe, and the
refusal of many African states to support the indictment of Sudan’s Presi-
dent Omar al-Bashir by the International Criminal Court”.
Often in Africa the rising shine of democratisation is blinded by the
serious problem of military rule, one party states and dictatorships. To
look at the problems of Africa from a clear perspective, it should be