Mitä Afrikan resursseihin kuuluu?
Africa has a large quantity of natural resources, including diamonds, sugar, salt, gold, iron, cobalt, uranium, copper, bauxite, silver, petroleum and cocoa beans, but also woods and tropical fruits. Having a low human density, for a long period of time Africa has been colonized by more dynamic groups, exploiting African resources. Some economists have talked about the 'scourge of raw materials', large quantities of rare raw materials putting Africa under heavy pressures and leading to wars and slow development. Despite these abundance of natural resources, claims suggest that many Western nations like the United States, Canada, Australia, France and the United Kingdom as well as emerging economic powerhouses like China often exploit Africa's natural resources today, causing most of the value and money from the natural resources to go to the West and East Asia rather than Africa, further causing the poverty in Africa. A Guyanese historian, Walter Rodney, claimed that foreign ownership of African natural resources is the "most direct way" that rich countries continue to dominate African states without formally colonizing them: "When citizens of Europe own the land and the mines of Africa, this is the most direct way of sucking the African continent."
diamonds, sugar, salt, gold, iron, cobalt, uranium, copper, bauxite, silver, petroleum and cocoa beans, but also woods and tropical fruits