Exporting their Way out of Poverty

This chapter presents the major impediments to sub-Saharan countries prospects to successfully venture in foreign markets. One of the possible solutions to the continents socio-economic problems that is proposed by some observers is that sub-Saharan countries need to export and market their way out of poverty. According to the World Bank, the number of people living in poverty is larger in sub-Saharan Africa, and the poor are poorer, than in any other region in the world. Africa, alone, is home to 32 of the 47 poorest countries in the world, including such countries as Angola, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo Ethiopia, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan, and Zambia. A major congenital rigidity of most African economies is that their colonial masters encouraged the production and exportation of only a few primary commodities which, essentially, have no manufacturing value-added meant to service factories in Europe, a situation which, to date, has changed very little.