Why is there so much war in Africa?

"Tremendous land! Very fertile, enormous rainfall, tremendous agricultural resources. Minerals! We have oil and many other minerals – go name it!"

The paradox of rich resources and poor people hints at another layer of explanation about why Africa is poor.

It is not just that there is war. The question should, perhaps be: "Why is there so much war?"

And the headline question is in fact misleading; Africans as a people may be poor, but Africa as a place is fantastically rich – in minerals, land, labor and sunshine.

That is why outsiders have been coming here for hundreds of years – to invade, occupy, convert, plunder and trade.

The specters of slavery and colonialism hover in the background of almost every serious conversation with Africans about why most of them are poor.

It almost goes without saying that, of course, slavery impoverished parts of Africa and that colonialism set up trading patterns which were aimed at benefiting the colonizer, not the colonized. But there is a psychological impact too.

Hajia Amina Az-Zubair, the Nigerian president’s senior adviser on poverty issues, told me that colonialism "was all about take, not build", and that this attitude "transferred itself into a lot of mindsets".

Even today, Ms Zubair said it was sometimes difficult to design poverty-reduction programs that were inclusive:

"You sit round a table and ask ‘What are your needs?’ and you get an absolute blank. Because for years, they have been told what they’re going to have. So even the ability to engage has been difficult for us"

The resources of South Sudan have never been properly developed.

During colonial rule South Sudan was used as little more than a reservoir of labor and raw materials.

Then independence was followed by 50 years of on-off war between the south and north – with northerners in Khartoum continuing the British tactic of divide and rule among the southern groups.

Some southerners believe this is still happening today.

Source: our correspondent