just1World

just1WORLD

Welcome to the website of just1WORLD.

Our aims

Just 1 World seeks to discover why the nations of sub-Saharan Africa continue to languish so far behind most of the rest of the world in terms of development. We explore the issue of sub-Saharan African development and offer suggestions about how to encourage lasting and constructive change.

How things are

For most western politicians, the IMF and World Bank, international NGOs like Oxfam, church leaders, poverty campaigners and even pop stars, the world is divided up into DEVELOPED and DEVELOPING nations. However, as far as sub-Saharan African countries are concerned this is purely wishful thinking as both these terms imply progress. Before coronavirus took centre-stage, even with some economies there growing on average at 3%-9% per annum, with few new jobs being created, an ever-widening gap between the rich and poor and increasing numbers of mouths to feed, the best that can be said for most sub-Saharan African countries is that they are STAGNATING nations (STAGNATIONS). And incredibly even this new term fails to capture all countries there for some, like the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zimbabwe, have been UNDEVELOPING for years having left their best days far behind as their plundered and paralysed economies have dragged their people back to subsistence survival.

This dismal sub-continental under performance, which keeps hundreds of millions of Africans locked in perpetual poverty, is blamed on a combination of factors: climate change, bad geography, perennial famines, water shortages, pervasive illiteracy, chronic diseases, smouldering conflicts, weak institutions, tribalism, strangling bureaucracy, lack of property rights, dilapidated infrastructure, insufficient overseas aid, unpayable debts, restrictive trade barriers or transfer pricing/tax evasion by multinational corporations.


Most of the factors listed above are undoubtedly challenges but in other parts of the developing world many countries are successfully tackling them and getting on with the job of laying the foundations for improving living standards. What then prevents countries in sub-Saharan Africa, most of which have been independent now for nearly 60 years, from doing the same? The answer is CORRUPT and INCOMPETENT GOVERNMENT.


According to President Obama 'development depends on good governance. That is the ingredient which has been missing in far too many places, for far too long. That is the change that can unlock Africa's potential.' Similarly, former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan reiterated this point when he stated that 'Africa suffers from a leadership deficit.' Again, in the same vein, Mo Ibrahim, the Sudanese-born cellphone magnate, who sponsors the annual Ibrahim Index of African Governance, in delivering a recent report said that 'the main problem impeding our (African) development is governance - or rather the lack of it. All progress starts from good government; all drift and deprivation from feckless government.'


There may have been mitigating circumstances at independence some 50-60 years ago when many of these emerging nations started life with ex-guerrilla leaders who were ill-prepared and lacked the necessary skills, organisation and discipline needed to run a successful economy. However, this lack of ability, focus and drive still prevails across much of sub-Saharan Africa today meaning that people there are left continuing to lead wretched lives in crippling poverty. Yet that should all have been consigned to the past for as former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair has said, when it comes to governance 'there is ample evidence from around the world as to what works and what doesn't: the hard part for today's leaders is not knowing what to do, but doing it.'


The poor standard of governance and poverty of aspiration found in sub-Saharan Africa today are issues which African leaders and the international community have shamefully failed to confront for far too long. The African Union, basically a club comprising the current African leaders, is hypocritical - outwardly critical in words to appease the West but inwardly failing to censure its members and to foster positive change for fear of rocking the boat; western governments, afraid of losing influence or being branded neo-colonialist or racist, and with the need to justify the continuance of overseas aid to their electorates, prefer to sweep the glaring problems of corruption and mismanagement on the continent under the carpet, opting to believe, instead, that governance must be improving as economies grow; international non-government organisations (NGO's) like Save the Children, Christian Aid and ONE all do amazing work in Africa but for reasons known only to themselves are disingenuous when it comes to telling their supporters the truth about the main cause of poverty on the continent preferring, instead, to blame a shortfall in overseas aid, tax evasion by multinationals, etc.


Poor governance then is the (African) elephant in the room when it comes to tackling deprivation on the continent: deep down western governments and campaigning organisations know the problem exists but as the issue is politically sensitive few are willing to confront it. And so Africa's elites are allowed to carry on acting with impunity gorging themselves on the proceeds of mining rights, the sale of public land, bribes and often even ODA, whilst most of their people are left:


prostrated by pestilence,
perturbed by poor education,
paralysed by a paucity of provender,
parched by a lack of potable water,
pillaged by predatory presidents,
passed over by prejudice,
plundered by parasitic parliaments,
perpetuated in poverty.


And it could be said that this failure to confront the lack of leadership in sub-Saharan Africa lays western governments, international NGOs, churches and poverty campaigners open to the accusation of being complicit in keeping the majority of Africans poor. And it is not that Africa doesn't have talented people!


This weak and cowardly behaviour by us all in the West really needs to change for Black Lives Matter not just in the US, UK and EU but also across Africa where little thought seems to be given by campaigners to the plight of the bulk of the people living there in squalor. There are also ways of tackling the problem of governance without being confrontational.

What we do


On this website, we lay out what life is like for most Africans in comparison with that in the developed world. Then, under the various issues - FOOD, WATER, HEALTH, EDUCATION, TRADE etc., we examine more closely each category as it relates to Africa today. And in GOOD GOVERNMENT we lay out a template of what leaders should be aiming for to induce rapid and equitable development. Finally, in RECOMMENDATIONS, our comprehensive league table, 'Table of Truth', highlights the vast range of performance by governments in sub-Saharan Africa today in their individual efforts to lay the foundations for economic growth and social justice for their peoples. And, based on this league table, we go on to suggest how this information could be used by the outside world as a catalyst for improving governance and, with the practical input of rich countries, changing the face of development. This constructive partnership between rich and poor countries could then rapidly lead to a situation where all Africans ought to be able to start to access the basics of life which has been denied to so many for far too long.


Finally, to compare governance across the world we have taken the 'Table of Truth' and expanded it, with slight adjustments, to include all the nations on the planet. Positions in this table are not dependent on wealth, size, location, or experience but in putting in place policies for people to make the most of their lives.

This can be found under NEWS/COMMENTS - 'in a league of their own - how all the world's governments compare.'


Our world in 2024


As we stride further into the third decade of the third millennium, coronavirus notwithstanding, the United States (US) is still the largest and most dynamic economy the world has ever seen and its influence pervades every continent on the planet. Even after the sub-prime mortgage meltdown of 2008, with just 4.6% of the world's population the US economy comprises 24.7% of world Gross National Income*(GNI), absorbs 24% of the annual world output of natural resources, and pumps out 14% of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. The US is such a dominant player in the world that just one state, California, has an economy roughly on a par with that of Russia, whilst the third largest state, Texas, has a greater output than all sub-Saharan Africa. And incredibly, taking all the world's stock markets together, the US stock market accounts for 60% of global market capitalisation. One extraordinary nation!


The United States then is first amongst equals in the wealthy league of 35 advanced economies which includes all 19 countries of the Euro Zone**, Japan, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Norway, Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, Iceland, Hong Kong, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, and Israel. Collectively these countries are often referred to as the 'North'. And together with only 15.3% of the world's population they make up a colossal 50.6% of global output.


According to the Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report in 2021 total world wealth is calculated at US$463.6 trillion, equivalent to US$87,489 (£76,077) per adult, and is more than three times the US$117 trillion figure and US$31,378 (£27,285) per adult for 2000. At the same time, according to Oxfam, the gap between the richest and poorest has now become absurd with the world's 85 richest people having the same wealth as the poorest half of humanity. Switzerland has the greatest wealth per individual at US$696,600 (£605,740) followed by US with US$579,050; Hong Kong US$552,930; Australia US$550,110; Netherlands US$377,000; Denmark US$376,000; Belgium US351,000; New Zealand US$348,000; Sweden US$336,000 and Singapore US$333,000.


Wealth per adult ranges from US$560,486 (£487,379) in North America to US$180,275 (£156,760) in Europe to US$76,639 (£66,642) in China to US$64,700 (£56,260) in Asia/Pacific to US$27,717 (£24,101) in Latin America to US$15,535 (£13,508) in India to US$8,419 (£7,320) in Africa. The world average is US$87,489. North America (34%) and Europe (23%) together account for 57% of household wealth, but contain only 17% of the world adult population.


However, taking median wealth per adult into account shows Australia as No1 with US$273,900 followed by Belgium US$267,890; New Zealand US$231,260; Hong Kong US$202,380; Denmark US$171,170; Switzerland US$168,080; Canada US$151,250; Netherlands US$142,990; UK US$141,550 and France US$139,170. Now the US is in 18th place with US$93,270.


To be included in the richest 1% of the world's population you need assets minus debt worth US$1,055,000 (£917,000) or more, including the value of equity in your home. The top 1% hold more than 50% of global wealth. To get included in the top 10% of global wealth holders net assets of more than US$130,000 (£113,043) are needed and here it is estimated that this top 10% hold 82% of the world's wealth. For inclusion in the top 50% net assets of US$7,552 (£6,566) are needed. At the other end of the table the report suggests that the bottom 50% of the global population own less than 1% of total wealth. And the bottom billion people own less than US$250 (£217). [There are 56.1 million millionaires in the world, 39% of which reside in US.]


Most of the world's poorest people live in the developing world or the 'South', where things could not be more different from the 'North'. In 2020, World Bank figures suggest the GNI per head in the US was $65,910 (£57,313) as against $540 (£470) per head in Niger, a state bordering the Sahara Desert and one of the poorest countries in the world where 90% of the population are destitute. Already Americans are more than 120 times richer than people in Niger, where life has barely changed in centuries.


(In 1820 the ratio of living standards between the richest and poorest countries was some five to one. Then industrialisation cut in and the gap started to widen explosively. By 1913 the ratio was 11:1; 1950 35:1; 1973 44:1; 1993 72:1; 2005 90:1 and 2020 111:1)

In recent years some of the larger developing countries have made giant strides in increasing economic growth year on year and the five BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India,China and South Africa) now account for 24% of world GNI compared to just 12% ten years ago.


All of this has come at a price though in the increase in pollution leading to climate change which has led to more frequent and intense fires, floods, droughts, heatwaves and hurricanes across the globe. Areas affected by drought have doubled in the last 40 years, extreme rain and flooding are now 4 times more likely than 40 years ago whilst hurricanes are reckoned to be 60% more powerful than 50 years ago.


China currently accounts for 32.4% of world CO2 emissions followed by US 12.6%, EU 7.6%, India 6.7, Russia 4.7%, Japan 3%, Iran 2.1%, Indonesia 1.6% and S Korea 1.6%. South Africa accounts for 1.3% whilst UK for 1% along with Australia. However, taking CO2 emissions/population as a factor the US pollutes twice as much as China. Surprisingly, perhaps, top of the list for polluters taking populations into account are Qatar; Trindad & Tobago; Kuwait; United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Brunei. According to the UN, carbon emissions have risen on average by 1.5% p.a. over the past decade and it warns that on current trends global temperatures are likely to increase by 3.7ºC by the end of the century if nothing is done.


In 2020, due mainly to the pandemic, global co2 emissions fell by 8%. At the same time, last year, the UK had the greenest electricity in the world with only 1.6% produced from coal. (Reaching even the above targets will require more use of electric cars, low-carbon heating, renewable energy and cutting down on meat eating, less international travel by plane and even buying fewer new clothes. Swedish climate change campaigner Greta Thunberg has told her parents that she wants no more new clothes!)


In December 2022 195 nations signed up to the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework committing the world to halting and reversing bio-diversity loss by 2030. The target here is to protect 30% of the Earth's lands and oceans and should help slow the alarming rate of extinction of mammals, insects and all living creatures on the planet. In the last 50 years the world is estimated to have lost 70% of its animal population. Rich countries have promised US$20bn per annum by 2025 and US$30bn by 2030 to help the poorest nations deliver their biodiversity goals.


On a side issue, according to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 5 nations are responsible for 60% of global marine plastic - China, Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia and Thailand. The most polluted river in the world is the R Ciliwung which flows through Djakarta in Indonesia with an average of 18,000 pieces of plastic per hour. In Europe the most polluted river is the Seine in France with 700 pieces per hour. Thousands of seabirds, turtles, whales, seals and other creatures in the world's oceans are killed each year by ingesting plastic or becoming entangled in it.


Since the credit crises in 2008 and the Covid-19 epidemic of 2020/21, African economies have started to grow again thanks mainly to the insatiable demand for natural resources by China, US and EU. Unfortunately, though the gap between North and South may now be starting to close, the majority of Africans are no better off financially as few new jobs are being created, there are ever more mouths to feed and the domestic gap between the rich and poor continues to widen.


The world is also becoming more urban with more than half the population now living in towns and cities. And this proportion is likely to get bigger for economists calculate that urban dwellers are 50% more productive than rural workers and 30% more prosperous. Today across the world there are now also 33 megacities - large metropolitan areas with more than 10m people. The largest is Tokyo with 37.1m people followed by Delhi 32.9m, Shanghai 29.2m, Dhaka 23.2m, Sao Paulo 22.6m, Mexico City 22.2m,  Cairo 22.1m, Beijing 21.8m, Mumbai 21.3m and Osaka 19m. These conurbations are so vast that many people living in them have never seen the countryside! (In 1950 there were only 2 - New York and Tokyo.)


For most of us living in the North we still have everything we need to make the most of our lives. We live in comfortable well-heated homes within easy reach of shops where the shelves are stacked with food from all over the world, clean refreshing water gushes out of taps and costs very little, first-rate medical services are there for everyone from the cradle to the grave, schools give every child the golden ticket to compete in our modern world, where the choice of jobs has never been greater, and the welfare state is there for those falling on difficult times. At the same time infinite communications and entertainment can be easily accessed on our smart TVs/computers/mobile phones whilst future holidays are often planned before the next one has been taken.


Meanwhile, in most of the developing world, life as we know it, hangs in stark contrast.


Here 2.4bn people struggle to live on less than $2 (£1.60) per day, 2.5bn people have no access to a toilet, 663m people risk their lives everyday by drinking dirty water, 821m people go to bed hungry every night, medical services - where there are any - are overwhelmed and often unaffordable, 59m children do not attend primary school and electricity, which has powered economies in the North for almost 100 years, is still not available to 1.6bn people in the South. Then there are the horrendous living conditions in most shanty towns with stinking open sewers running through the streets where children play, leaking roofs that make everything damp for days on end and crime and violence that can erupt at any time in places where crushing poverty is a way of life.

All of this translates into a depressing death toll which should be at the front of all media reports in the North - for every single day in the South.


  • *** 25,000 PEOPLE DIE FROM HUNGER *** yet there is enough food for everyone in the world;
  •  *** 12,000 PEOPLE DIE FROM PREVENTABLE DISEASES ***;
  • *** 3,000 PEOPLE DIE FROM LACK OF CLEAN WATER OR DECENT TOILETS*** yet we have the technology to find and deliver fresh water and even produce it from the sea.
  • ***** 40,000 PEOPLE, IN TOTAL, DIE NEEDLESSLY EVERY DAY - MOTHERS, FATHERS, SONS, DAUGHTERS, GRANDPARENTS, COUSINS, NEPHEWS, NIECES, UNCLES, AUNTS - AND FEW PEOPLE SEEM TO CARE *****.


Yet the world does care when tragedy strikes as was shown by the phenomenal international response to the 2004 Boxing Day Asian tsunami disaster where an estimated 230,000 people lost their lives in 14 countries. Perhaps this was because it was a 'real' event where TV thrust the death and devastation directly into our living space and so people everywhere felt they wanted to help alleviate the suffering. As a result they gave magnanimously to the Disasters Emergency Committee and other charities to help save survivors and to rebuild lives and livelihoods. A similar number lost their lives in the earthquake that hit Haiti in 2010 leaving the country devastated. The worldwide response here, too, was not found wanting. (Haiti, the poorest country in the western hemisphere with its economy on its knees, needs colossal support and the US would seem to be an ideal candidate to help forge new lives for ordinary Haitians. But for some reason US governments shamefully continually to look the other way.)


The tsunami and earthquake were natural disasters and the international response was magnificent. However, the death of 40,000 men, women and children needlessly everyday is a preventable disaster which seems to pass the world by. And it is this ambivalence that sees many more TV programmes devoted to the plight of wildlife in Africa over concern for the world's poorest people; more thought given to the lives of black people in rich countries than to their cousins living in extreme poverty under the yoke of feckless government in poor countries.


For those who are 'lucky' enough to survive in the very poorest countries, the majority of the population are forced to endure monotonous lives as subsistence farmers, barely able to scratch a living for themselves and their families, from land long paralysed by constant use and drought. There a typical day breaks down as follows:-


  • 5 hours working in the fields
  • 4 hours fetching water
  • 3 hours cooking/caring for relatives
  • 2 hours collecting firewood
  • 1 hour milling

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 = 15 hours of DRUDGERY ~ DAY IN, DAY OUT; WEEK IN, WEEK OUT; YEAR IN, YEAR OUT; LIFE IN, LIFE OUT!


Most of the world's poorest nations are in sub-Saharan Africa. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in its annual Human Development Report calculates progress throughout the world by using three criteria in its Human Development Index (HDI) - life expectancy, mean/expected years of schooling and GNI per capita. It then places countries into very high, high, medium and low human development. In the 2022 HDI, in a list of 191 countries, 28 out of the 32 Low Human Development countries were in sub-Saharan Africa. One more country, Somalia, had figures been available, would surely have been in this group too. That means that 29 out of the 49 nations which comprise sub-Saharan Africa are hugely under-developed. Furthermore, excluding the island nations of Seychelles and Mauritius, NO country in this massive continent is to be found in the Top 100 countries in the 2022 Human Development Index.

And so, in this our modern world, with apologies to Charles Dickens:-

It is the best of times, it is the worst of times,
it is the spring of hope, it is the winter of despair,
it is a time of need, it is an era of apathy,
it is an age of decadence and desperation
amidst wealth, obesity and starvation.

In short, we in the North have won the international lottery whilst people in the South are still struggling to buy a ticket!


Former UK prime minister, Tony Blair, has called the current condition of Africa 'a scar on the conscience of the world.' And he is right. For in this modern age of globalisation, when man has never known a period of such creativity and technological advancement, why have so many people in so many countries in Africa been left behind?


Several reasons can be put forward:- poor climate, bad geography, perennial famines, water shortages, pervasive illiteracy, chronic diseases, smouldering conflicts, rampant corruption, dysfunctional government, economic mismanagement, weak institutions, a small middle class, tribalism, strangling bureaucracy, lack of property rights, climate change, dilapidated infrastructure (roads, ports, power, telecommunications), tax evasion/transfer pricing, unpayable debts, trade barriers and miserly overseas development aid (ODA). And under the various headings (e.g. FOOD, WATER, HEALTH etc.) just1WORLD tackles many of these issues and considers the present situation.


However, it is in RECOMMENDATIONS that we prioritise and deal with the main problem confronting the people of Africa as they seek to escape from poverty - rotten government. We then go on to offer constructive solutions which, if effected, could soon start to heal the ugly face of poverty found throughout most of the continent, without rancour.


* GNI per hd is basically the total of goods and services produced by a country plus income earned from overseas divided by the population of that country.


**European Union member states using the EURO:- Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Belgium, Ireland, Austria, Finland, Portugal, Greece, Luxembourg, Slovakia, Slovenia, Cyprus, Malta, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Croatia.
Non-EU nations within Europe using the EURO are Andorra, Kosovo, Monaco, Montenegro, San Marino, Vatican State.

Find out more about sub-Saharan African development: just1world@just1world.org

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