|
To some people the overall economic development of Africa is very slow. We will explain how the governments of Nigeria and South Africa act to either help its economy or continue to ruin its economy. There are many factors to consider here, we will mainly focus on investing in human/capital resources, how distribution of natural resources affect a country, how government either encourage or discourage entrepreneurship, and how the literacy rate affects a country.
 A well known South African entrepreneur. Mark Shuttleworth is the founder of an early internet security company. Human capital is invested in, through many ways. It varies depending on the country. For example, in Nigeria, the government doesn’t invest in educating their people or better healthcare or stuff like that. The government is also corrupt, so they probably focus on staying in power rather than raising their GDP. Not investing in their human capital lowers their GDP, because the uneducated people make little money and have little money to invest. However, in South Africa, they invest in their human capital. They encourage entrepreneurship and educate their people. They are also helping the black Africans after apartheid ended. Their economy is well developing because they invest in their human capital.
Nigeria isn’t as developed and it doesn’t have as advanced technology. They are slowly working on building roads and hospitals and factories. Their GDP is rising a little, but corruption in the government isn’t helping it. In South Africa, manufacturing is very strong. The technology in South Africa is pretty advanced, because it is a more developed country. Their strong investment in capital goods, is improving their GDP by a lot more.
 To see a clear and bigger version of this picture please click on the picture.
Many resources are unequally distributed throughout Africa. In Nigeria, there are few natural resources and they become poorer because of that. Its economic development isn’t very good if they only have a few natural resources. They have to heavily depend on oil and natural gas to raise their economy. People also might not want to invest in Nigeria if they don’t have any resources. South Africa is abundant with natural resources. South Africa has lots of diamonds and gold, which boosts their economic development a lot. People will want to invest in South Africa, because of their abundance in natural resources. This unequal distribution of resources keeps some countries not as economically
developed, while others are very economically developed. If the resources were equally distributed, then the whole of Africa would be developed and not just some countries. Entrepreneurship is very important in a countries government. Entrepreneurs’ own businesses, that makes products. More produce raises the GDP. They also can attract people to invest in their business.
In South Africa, the black Africans are being helped and encouraged to own land. Making a business in South Africa takes time, but it’s not too hard to create one. In Nigeria, it often takes up to a year to create it. The government’s policies make it hard for Nigerians to create a business.  Literacy rates are very important. In a country where there is a high literacy rate, there are more advanced jobs. The literacy rate increases the standard of living. If you have a high literacy rate, then you have a high standard of living. If you have a low literacy rate, then you would have a low standard of living, with lower class jobs and uneducated people.
A short video describing the entrepreneurship opportunities in South Africa. |
Quick Summary:
Written by
 Members
Mateo Prit
Lorena
Grace
Becky
Sources: CNN Video
Wikipedia Public Domain Pictures
|