Apropos of nothing in particular, here's a list of the richest non-OPEC countries in continental Africa (no islands):
I was curious to see if the few countries that had never been European colonies did any better than the rest. It doesn't look like it. In fact, aside from oil, the main thing to look at is how far each country is from the equator:
Sub-Saharan countries are almost all desperately poor. The countries in the north and south are also poor, but not nearly as much or as consistently.
I'm really shocked Nigeria isn't near the top. They're a major oil producer, but they also have the largest population, so I guess that wealth is just really, really diluted. I've heard from a number of people who've been there that Botswana is amazing.
Also, Ethiopia *was* colonized/occupied by Italy from 1935 to 1941. So it wasn't a colony as long as some of the other British/French possessions in Africa, but not entirely untouched by imperialism, either.
The chart is non-OPEC countries. Nigeria joined OPEC in 1971.
Nigeria's GDP per capita (PPP) is about $6,300, so if they were included in the chart they would be between Namibia and Ghana.
Thanks -- don't know why I overlooked that right there in the chart. Derp.
Morocco was colonized by France and Spain. Liberia was a de facto American colony.
For the record, as people from Botswana will surely point out, Botswana was never a colony. It was, of course, a protectorate, and there's a significant difference between being a protectorate with your own king and being a colony with alien overlords.
Botswana is the outlier. Like Costa Rica, they somehow avoided having the oligarchy steal everything. They avoided the resource curse, and actually distributed the money from diamonds instead of putting it in Switzerland. It turns out that Africans can be just as entrepreneurial and educated as anyone else if they're not utterly ripped off.
Malaria, and tropical diseases in general, do cause problems. Guinea worm is almost eradicated, so that should (and already has?) helped.
There are trans-national park(s) in Africa and a number of re-wilding efforts. Hopefully any development will not just tolerate, but promote, protection of the environment and the species it contains.
What happened to Zimbabwe and Mozambique?
Botswana owes a lot to Seretse Khama.
The connection to latitude is a little disingenuous, as the clearest common feature of the richest countries in the chart is geographic or cultural proximity to Europe.
Being on the Mediterranean is obviously a plus, but southern Africa has both diamonds and, in South Africa, a strong advantage in European-derived cultural infrastructure. South Africa's long experience with white minority rule, unjust as it was, left a legacy of advanced development and global connectedness, which it has not frittered away in the last five decades of majority rule. Their economy is the continent's third largest in terms of purchasing power parity (and first in terms of nominal GDP), and the widespread use of English there doesn't hurt.
I should have said they've had three decades of majority rule in South Africa, not five.
Agree about Khama.
Kevin, you mean income, not wealth, right?
What about Sierra Leone?
There is certainly a correlation with mineral wealth - gold, diamonds, among other things. There would be more correlation if oil-producing countries were included.