Africa

So these days I'm working on a term paper for the course Development Econ. I'm writing my paper on a population policy for Pakistan, with 6 other people. My bit deals with the trials, tribulations, successes, failures, and learning that African nations faced in their development process. You've probably heard of the fact that countries are organized into 3 categories depending on their stage of development: High, Mid, and Low Developed Countries they are called.
Now most of Africa falls into the LDC category, and there are several reasons. They fall into 2 major categories: Historical, and Self-created.
Historical reasons are the reasons why africa is the way it is right now, based on what happened and how it was dealt with by the European economies that exploited it, colonized it, and then left it bare to fend for itself without developing any infrastructure on which it could take flight. Classic winner-takes-all-loser-stands-small situation? I think so.
Secondly, there are ethnic and cultural reasons, which i called self-created. now cultures devise ways by which they keep their population stable, growing, or receding. the unique bit about africa was that it's religion and culture was primarily concentrated around families, or tribes, and thus a person's life after death was based on how many children he'she left behind: thus the need for children.
there were other tribal norms as well. for example, the Maya Unga of New Guinea married women from enemy tribes, and so the men were scared of sharing huts with their wives, in case they killed them *rolls eyes*. so, the men slept in the Mens' Huts to thwart any such attempts. Thus, population was kept in check.
Another tribe on the same island, experienced a replacement level population, and thus widows were courted before their husbands were cold in their graves!
so, as you can see, these are some of the milder problems which led to population growth, and a population recession in varius parts of africa.
The most important factors tho, are the ones that led to the population explosion in many parts of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), which is the area most grossly affected by overpopulation. These are manifold, and these are the main contents of my but of my report.
although i know these, i will write it all up tomorrow, and after i'm done, i'll put it up here for you guys to get a full picture of the african scene, and how african experiences can help pakistan make its won proper policy to tackle overpopulation.
peace out!