only for prof Dan.

SAMPLE ESSAY

History shows that the success of developing regions and countries depends greatly on

the geography of the area. For example, the Fertile Crescent was monumental to the development

of the first civilizations. Even today, throughout Africa, we can observe how geography as a

whole puts constraints on the socioeconomic circumstance and economic growth of Africa as a

region, as well as specific countries within the continent. Underneath the broad topic of

geography lies two narrower factors named “Physical geography” and “human geography”

(Collier, 235). Physical geography encompasses smaller pressures such as disease burden,

resource scarcity, proximity to coastlines, good and bad neighbors, and the spillovers that occur

because of them. Human geography describes the political and social conflicts, civil unrest, and

results of ethnic diversity.

Physical geography has measurable, quantitative effects on growth. Factors that affect

growth can be both direct and indirect. History in other areas besides Africa proves that the

success and fortune of a small country’s large neighbors can cause spillovers that affect the

smaller country (Collier). Similarly, negative events in larger countries can lead to negative

spillovers into the smaller neighbor. Across Africa, there are regions that are landlocked and

resource-scarce, which are characterized as less fortunate due to the difficulty in accessing trade

lines along the coast. Political secessions that continue to happen today mean that the amount of

landlocked countries in Africa are growing. Globally, on average, for every 1% of growth in

neighbor countries, spillovers to the country itself should fall between .4 and .7% (Collier, 238).

However, in Africa, since coastal neighbors have not been achieving enough substantial, long

run growth, spillovers into the landlocked resource scarce countries lie at “a mere 2%” (Collier,

238). Collier points out that one of the only hopes for landlocked countries to prosper, and raise

Africa’s overall economic performance enough to be a global player is to combine the benefits of

e-trade and air trade.

Africa’s physical geography also allows for large disease burden to negatively affect

lives, and ultimately the economy as well. For example, across Africa there are approximately

300-500 million cases of malaria, 1-3 million deaths. A large proportion of malaria-related

mortality affects children, especially those that are 5 years and under. Sachs and Malaney present

data that suggests that Malaria leads to a smaller, less educated generation of African youth.

Statistics show that malaria causes “miscarriages, neonatal and infant mortality, and low

birthweight. Interestingly, in areas that are heavily burdened with malaria, higher fertility rates

are found. This is because families often compensate for infant mortality by having more

children to maximize the amount of survivors. Even risk-averse households will do this to

“ensure a sufficiently high likelihood of the desired number of surviving children” (Sachs,

Malaney, 682). High fertility leads to the “quantity-quality trade-off,” or reduced investment in

education per child (Sachs, Malaney, 682). Sachs goes on to explain this particularly hurts

women, because instead of going to school, most young daughters will be too busy with

domestic duties to actually attend school. Malaria has also been shown to negatively affect

children’s cognitive development, and nutrition. In general, less education in a society will mean

less socioeconomic prosperity. To be more direct about the economic pressure presented by

malaria, households in high-risk malaria regions have less savings than risk-averse households

due to medical expenses such as “doctor’s fees,” “bednets,” and “malarial drugs.” Morbidity due

to malaria causes low productivity of human capital. Also, the tourism industry has taken a

massive hit to this disease.

The TseTse fly is a small, but fierce insect that is indigenous and exclusive to the African

continent. It is harmful to humans, and wild game, but is lethal to domesticated animals. Since

domesticated animals are used for agriculture, transport of goods, and as a food source, this

means that increasing livestock mortality would directly cause less agricultural productivity and

rising transport costs, while indirectly causing more food scarcity, further leading to drops in

human productivity due to malnutrition (Alsan, 382-389) (Jones, Lecture 7 Notes).

Human geography entails the political and social affairs of a population in a given region.

According to the combined findings of the studies of Collier, Michalopoulos, and Papioannou,

the human geography of Africa lead to issues with lines tethered to the continent’s poor

economic performance. Since borders were drawn without consideration to the different cultures

that exist within them, there are many tiny countries with small, diverse populations. From a

growth-oriented perspective, this poses a few issues. The European occupation, colonization, and

division of Africa’s countries in the late 19th century led to much civil unrest, violence, and

economic misfortune that continues today. Data from ACLED allowed Michalolpoulos and

Papaioannou to “quantify the impact of ethnic partitioning,” and evidence shows that Africa is

riddled with violent battles and riots, as well as protests (Michalopoulos, Papaioannou, 54-56).

Small countries with extremely diverse populations make it more difficult for collective action

and major sociopolitical change to happen. Also, it may take longer to learn from societal

failures of the past (Collier, 242-243). All of this negatively affects Africa’s economy because

warfare and other forms of using force in a society is very costly, and slow change on the

country level only inhibits the change in growth possible on a regional or continental level.

Furthermore, all difficulties stemming from physical geography become more inflamed as issues

in human geography worsen. High diversity on a country level make it impossible for one-size-

fits-all “Pan-African strategies” to help the cause (Collier, 249).

In conclusion, geography as a whole has a large effect on Africa’s economic performance

and the fact that it is not a player in the global economy. Geography in itself can be broken down

to the physical and human form, where each side has its own issues. Some human factors, such

as civil unrest and violence, can be directly addressed, yet physical factors, such as landlocked

countries, and populations of species that cause disease, call for the circumstance around it to be

changed. Regardless, Africa’s diverse population and landscape calls for problems to be solved

on scales smaller than the continent-wide level.

Works Cited

Alsan, Marcella. "The Effect of the TseTse Fly on African Development." American Economic

Review105, no. 1 (2015): 382-410. doi:10.1257/aer.20130604.

Paul Collier, 2006. "Africa: Geography and Growth," Proceedings - Economic Policy

Symposium - Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, pages 235-252.

Sachs, Jeffrey, and Pia Malaney. "The Economic and Social Burden of Malaria." Nature 415, no.

6872 (2002)

Stelios Michalopoulos and Elias Papaioannou. 2017. “The Contemporary Shadow of the

Scramble for Africa,” in The Long Economic and Political Shadow of History, Vol. 2, pp. 50-66.