Africa still poorest of poor

2005-09-08 10:48

Vienna - A United Nations report released on Wednesday ranking 177 nations according to levels of prosperity showed the bottom 20 were all in sub-Saharan Africa, evidence of the grim plight of the continent.

Africa has lost ground in the world market, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) report said.

It said that if Africa had maintained the share of world exports it had in 1980, its exports now would be some US$119bn higher, an amount equal to five times the aid provided by rich countries since 2002.

"Today, for every one dollar's worth of Arabica coffee from Tanzania sold in a coffeehouse in the United States, a farmer now receives less than 1c," the report said.

It also said that Aids had hit Africa hard. "In 2004, an estimated three million people died from the virus worldwide .. . . with 70% of them in Africa," the report said.

"On current indicators a child born in Zambia today has less chance of surviving past 30 than a child born in 1840 in England," according to the report.

A press statement said that in the UNDP's human development ranking index, "South Africa has fallen 35 places . . . since 1990 and Botswana 21, stark declines precipitated mainly by the HIV/Aids pandemic."

The index uses life expectancy, literacy and gross domestic product to measure prosperity.

Norway was the most prosperous state and the bottom 20 were:

• 158. Nigeria
• 159. Rwanda
• 160. Angola
• 161. Eritrea
• 162. Benin
• 163. Ivory Coast
• 164. Tanzania
• 165. Malawi
• 166. Zambia
• 167. Democratic Republic of Congo
• 168. Mozambique
• 169. Burundi
• 170. Ethiopia
• 171. Central African Republic
• 172. Guinea-Bissau
• 173. Chad
• 174. Mali
• 175. Burkina Faso
• 176. Sierra Leone
• 177. Niger

- AFP