Intro:

Heres a rough draft....

For centuries the continent of Africa has been thrown back and forth to different hands. It began with tribes within the region fighting for territory, then it moved to other countries invading and throwing imperialism down on the land. The region was raped of their resources and eventually their identity. Life within the region grew worse as education, health and all around sustainability dropped. The current state of Africa is in turmoil because of the lack of sustainable development in areas such as education, medicine, changing family structures, and agribusiness.

-Rachel

Please work off of it, make it better, more concrete. Work your magic people!!!!

How about...

Jurisdiction/authority/control of the continent of Africa has been passed between various hands for centuries. Starting as a region comprised of tribal kingdoms fighting for territorial rights, the continent was taken over and sectioned off by European countries with the dawn of imperialism. Africa has been raped of its resources and its identity as a diverse conglomeration of nations. The current state of Africa is in turmoil due to the lack of sustainable development in areas such as education, medicine, changing family structures, and agribusiness.

For a couple hundred years, the only main European presence in Africa was in port towns along the coast for the purpose of trading with Africans and as a stop along trade routes to further destinations. However, in the late 1800’s colonization within the region accelerated rapidly and led to what is known as the “scramble for Africa”. At the Berlin Conference in 1884, European powers met to decide on a way to partition Africa so that each European country had at least one piece to control. These new boundaries were drawn arbitrarily according to European desires and did not take existing tribal boundaries into account. This foreign control has led to internal conflict within nations as well as conflict between different nations with effects that can still be seen today. However, in order to gain more control over the region, the imperialist nations actively underdeveloped the areas they controlled to cause the countries to be more dependent on them. This is a problem the world is facing in much of the “global south” (Africa, India, Southeastern Asia, and South America), which contains most of the areas that Europe conquered and controlled with this underdevelopment tactic. When Europe decolonized Africa, they did not prepare the colonies for independence and did not set up any sort of framework for political development of governmental structure. This has in turn caused many of the challenges the world is now facing on the African continent.

-Kathleen

RACHEL!!: This page has some good info on political crises as a result of colonialism if you wanted to check it out Colonial impact

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