Africa is not a country….is it?
Africa is not a country.
This is hard to believe sometimes, given how often Africa is referred to as a homogenous blob (for want of a better word). In fact, if I consult the modern oracle that Wikipedia has become, I can quickly see that Africa is made up of 54 different countries, which speak 2,000 different languages.
Which begs the question - what exactly are people talking about when they want Aid for Africa!and Justice for Africa and Save Africa Now? Aid for all 54 countries? Is justice a myth in every single one of the countries? Does every child in every country in Africa need saving? Gosh, if that’s the case, this Africa place sounds terrible.
Maybe it is that terrible. But maybe it isn’t. The truth is, I don’t know much about the nuances within the umbrella term “Africa”. I know this is not a new idea, and I defer in particular to the genius of Hans Rosling who is a champion of the ‘understand what you’re talking about (with cool statistics’) cause.
But rather than just read over the ‘Africa is not a country’ statements made by Paul Collier or Dambisa Moyo or Jeffrey Sachs et al, I thought I’d give myself a challenge.
One by one I am going to do a bit of research on this mythological place called Africa, starting with the letter A.
UPDATED 18 September 2010: 6/54 countries profiled so far - see Algeria, Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, and Burundi. 
