Africa

It is the second largest continent of the world, with 54 countries. Sudan is the biggest one and the Seyshells the smallest.

The continent contains the largest desert of the world, tha Sahara. Accountable for the 14.6% of the world's total population with 1 billion people, 45% of which are Muslim; 40% Christians; and 15% are non-religious or practice african religions that come from the Animism.

Despite of what most of the pople might think, each country in Africa has its own culture an ideology and the stages of development are widely different from country to country. They do share 2 main sets of languages from which most of the rest come from: Arabic (in the north of the Sahara desert) and Bantu (in the south).

They all belong to thousands of different ethnic groups, some countries even have 20 or more inside their territories.

Each ethnic group has its own distinct language, traditions, arts and crafts, history, way of life and religion. Some of the more widely known ethnic groups in Africa are: Arabs, Ashanti, Bantu, Berbers, Bushmen, Dinka, Fulani, Ganda, Hamites, Hausa, Hottentot, Kikuyu, Luba, Lunda, Malinke, Moors, Nuer, Pygmies, Semites, Swahili, Tuareg, Xhosa, and Yoruba.

photo: An African Woman by Roger Frazer

Africa's history goes 6.000 years back with the first great civilization on the banks of the lower Nile. in the 15th and 16th century, Africa opened to Europe thanks to the search of maritime trade routes, leading to beginning of slavery, that lasted 300 yeas, and colonialism mostly by Britain, France, Belgium, Germany and Portugal.

Economy

Africa is accountable for the 17% of the world's GDP and bases its economy on the primary sector. There is a vast majority of LDC's with a fast growing population compared to the availability of resources generating an incapability to feed the entire population and combined with constant natural dissasters and civil wars the life expectancy index is very low, and the money the make is destined to pay their external debt they receive from abroad.

Mining is the biggest source of exports and incomes from exports of precious metals have indeed helped develop the economy. Although, most of the mines are owned and exploited by multinational corporations.

Blood Diamonds: in the year 2000 a coalition of governments, non-governmental organizations and the diamond industry worked together to address this issue and with the Kimberley Process Certification System implemented in 2003, backed by the UN, the 99% of the world's supply of diamonds is from sources free of conflict.

The profits from the diamond trade have helpped economic growth, created educational opportunities and are vital for healthcare infraestructure.

Oil Industry: Africa has the 9.49% of the world's oil reserves and the main producers are Nigeria, Libya, Algeria, Egypt and Angola with the 85% of the entire continent's production. Even though between 2002 and 2006, publicly-listed oil companies tripled their spending in Africa and the oil exporting countries show economic growth, there is still a very poor governance in the use of oil funds and high fuel prices, human rights abuses and corruption.

Multinational Corporations: there are 2 points of view towards MNC. They are either very compromised to fight against poverty (currently 60 companies) or, in company with politicians, they are exploting the natural resources, expropiating the land from the people and not investing in the countries.

South Africa

Apartheid: it means "separateness" in Afrikaan and it went from 1948 until 1994. The population was classified into 4 groups: blacks, whites, asian and colored and that was a moment where black people were stripped of their citizenry and the white minority (10% of the population) controlled over 80% of South African land and still today, control the vast majority of businesses through ownership or managerial status. Adicionally, Apartheid had a major effect on women, who suffered from both gender and racial discrimination.
Nowadays, whites still believe that blacks are inherently less capable than whites.

Managing Diversity in South Africa: the key words are multiculturalism, affirmative action and equal employment opportunities. Although, there is no real commitment towards applying these words within the companies.
Features:
- Management structures are still the domain of white males
- Strong influence of British and American systems in the management practice (Binedell, 1993)
- The diverse cultures working together implies that “management and workers see each other as enemies” (Human, 1993)
- Challenge for managers today: find ways to benefit from the diversity.

FDI: the FDI in South Africa (SA) is not very high compared to other emerging market countries: South Africa receives about a half of the flows of similar Asian or Latin American countries. For example, the relation FDI/Total investment in Colombia is 15.8%, while in SA is 9.9%.
And this can be explained by:
- Lower rates of growth
- Less trade openness
- Less deep telecommunication infrastructure
- Weaker labor skills
- Slightly less competitive tax rates
- Higher crime rate
- High labor regulations

Slavery in depth and the triangle trade system

The sugar from the Latin-American tropic gave a huge impulse to the accumulation of capital for the industrial development of England, France, Holland and also, the United States, and at the same time mutilated the economies of Brazil’s northeast and the Caribbean islands, and sealed the historic ruin of Africa. The triangle trade system between Europe, Africa and America had as the master pole the traffic of slaves. The history of a sugar grain is a whole lesson of political economics, politics and moral (Augusto Cochin)
England started slowly taking over the slavery trade business with the South Sea Company. This brilliant business made the London’s stock market go crazy and unraveled a legendary speculation. The slaves transport brought up Bristol, the main shipyard seat, to England’s second largest city and made Liverpool become the most important port of the world.

From Liverpool, ships would sail full with guns, fabrics, gin, rum and color glasses that would end up paying for Africa’s human merchandise, which at the same time were going to pay for sugar, cotton, coffee and cacao from American colony’s plantations. Ships would sail back to Liverpool taking with them all sorts of tropical products. Local African chiefs would receive merchandise from the British industry in the form of muskets and enough spirits so they could continue with the slaves hunting in the villages.

To put the profits from this trade in context, and average English citizen, back in those days, could live on around £6 a year; the slave traders of Liverpool accumulated annual profits of more than £1’100.000. This accumulated capital actually made possible the invention of the steam machine, since its inventor James Watt was granted by these traders.

The rum cycle
In New England, the situation was quite different as this trade facilitated its development as well as its political independence. The capital accumulation started the process for the industrial revolution in the United States of America: at mid 18th Century the slave ships from the north use to carry barrels full of rum from Boston, Newport and Providence to the coasts of Africa. In Africa they would trade them for slaves; those slaves were sold in the Caribbean and from there they brought back the molasses to Massachusetts where it was distilled and, to complete the cycle, made as rum. Some of the capital obtained from this slave traffic was used by the Brown brothers from Providence installed the smelting oven that provided George Washington with the cannons used during the independence war.

In the beginnings of the 16th Century and the agonies of the 19th Century, several millions of Africans, there is still no certainty on the exact number, crossed the ocean; it is well known, though, that were a whole lot more than the white immigrants that came from Europe, although, a whole lot less survived.

References:
- Galeano, E. 1985. Las venas abiertas de América Latina. En Siglo XXI editores, s.a, El rey azúcar y otros monarcas agrícolas: 123-130.

- Class presentation, by Sarah Sophia Schielinsky and Laura Patricia Orozco