Least Developed Countries in Africa

Abstract

Africa remains the most underdeveloped among the comity of continents across the world. It contains over 70% of the least developed countries (LDCs) in the world. Sadly, the African continent largely depends on aids, with most countries in Africa still running as mono-product economies, and a larger percentage affected by corruption, ethnoreligious conflicts, and civil wars (Akanji 2009; Omobowale 2015). To further indicate the criticality of this situation, out of the 47 countries that make up the global list of least developed countries, 33 of them are found on the African continent. All of Africa’s 33 least developed countries are in Sub-Saharan Africa, indicating the precarious nature of the subcontinent as shown in Table 1 below. Further, several reports that are based on empirical data suggest that inadequate access to basic livelihood needs, such as shelter, health, education, food, water, and transportation, compounds the precarious context of underdevelopment in Sub-Saharan Africa (United Nations Development Programme 2016).