Template:Vital article

This article was on the Article Collaboration and Improvement Drive for the week of July 30, 2006.

This article is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

African diaspora B‑class Top‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject African diaspora, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of African diaspora on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.African diasporaWikipedia:WikiProject African diasporaTemplate:WikiProject African diasporaAfrican diaspora articles B This article has been rated as B-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. Top This article has been rated as Top-importance on the project's importance scale. Africa B‑class Top‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Africa, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Africa on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.AfricaWikipedia:WikiProject AfricaTemplate:WikiProject AfricaAfrica articles B This article has been rated as B-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. Top This article has been rated as Top-importance on the project's importance scale. Geography B‑class Top‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Geography, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of geography on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.GeographyWikipedia:WikiProject GeographyTemplate:WikiProject Geographygeography articles B This article has been rated as B-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. Top This article has been rated as Top-importance on the project's importance scale. WikiProject Geography To-do list: Here are some tasks awaiting attention: Article requests : See Requested articles/Social sciences/Geography, cities, regions and named places and Missing articles about Locations Assess : Tag related article talk pages with {{WikiProject Geography}}. To help assess the quality and importance of geography articles, please see: Unassessed geography articles and Unknown-importance geography articles. Cleanup : See Geography articles needing attention Deletion sorting : Listed at Geographic related deletion discussions Geographical coordinates : See Articles missing geocoordinate data by country Infobox : See Geography articles needing infoboxes Map : See Wikipedia requested maps Notability : See Geography articles with topics of unclear notability Photo : See Wikipedia requested photographs of places Stubs : See Geography stubs Template:WP1.0

Template:Outline of knowledge coverage

	Africa notice board
	Regional Notice Boards

The politics section currently starts with "Contrary to common misconception, Africa consists of more than 50 sovereign states.". The first part of the sentence is not verified and thus seems to be against the principles of neutral point of view or verifiability. It's unlikely that it is a common misconception among most residents of Mozambique or Guinea-Bissau. If we want to keep this sentence as it is, I think we need to demonstrate how this sentence is more relevant for Africa than for other continents (except Australia). — Stardust canopy (talk) 19:46, 27 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Stardust canopy: It doesn't need to be a common misconception everywhere for it to be a common misconception. The source identified it as a common misconception, although perhaps it could be worded differently. It was saying how people tend to generalize Africa as more monolithic than it really is, and assume all their economies "rise and fall as one", if I recall. It was reworded by another editor in a way that made it less accurate, I think. Benjamin (talk) 07:33, 11 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Benjaminikuta: Thanks for discussing! :-) Unfortunately, the source is paywalled, but I trust that the statement is in there. I find it strange to start a major section with a counterfactual statement. As a compromise: Would you be fine with creating a new section (or subsection) called "Common misconceptions" and export the sentence there? Stardust canopy (talk) 12:28, 11 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Benjaminikuta: Please check whether you consider the proposed new section an acceptable solution. Stardust canopy (talk) 12:40, 11 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Stardust canopy: Thanks for helping with this! I like the idea of having a section for it. I initially thought that "one entity" was too strong of wording, but then I read that Bush once said "Africa is a nation that suffers from incredible disease", so perhaps that wording is more appropriate than I initially thought. I do think "independent economies" is more accurate than "mostly uncorrelated", but I could be wrong, if you have evidence of it. Overall, I'm satisfied. Benjamin (talk) 04:50, 12 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I was going to suggest we move the newly created section to the List of common misconceptions, but in this case, the "common misconception" part does not appear to be supported by the easily accessible source. Could someone please check it again just to make sure I haven't missed it? M.Bitton (talk) 00:02, 13 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It's required to be in this article, before it can be included in the list of common misconceptions. I read that issue of The Economist in print, so I can verify that it identified a common misconception, but I'm not sure if I still have the issue handy. Benjamin (talk) 00:10, 13 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

In that case, you need to provide a new source and the current cited source needs to be removed. M.Bitton (talk) 00:13, 13 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Huh? The source is fine. Benjamin (talk) 00:17, 13 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Have you read it again just to make sure it supports the statement? M.Bitton (talk) 00:19, 13 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Kevin McE: Your opinions about what people "should" know don't determine inclusion. The source is explicitly about Africa, so I don't see how it's irrelevant. Benjamin (talk) 09:06, 15 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

In so far as it is a fact, it is a fact about the ignorance of some people: it does not teach the reader anything about Africa. There seems to be no benefit to the reader to be given the very imprecise "more than 50 countries" when the clear fact of 54 countries and 8 territories has already been established. If the intention is to construct a sensible encyclopaedic article, we do not need content more suitable to a DK fact file for 8 year olds. Kevin McE (talk) 10:44, 15 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

You could say that about any common misconception, but Wikipedia still mentions plenty of them. It matters that the source finds it worthwhile to mention, not your opinion about it. Benjamin (talk) 06:24, 16 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hey all: I think you are talking about the same thing: this is a real phenomena, that is documented. The question is what kind of weight we put on these topics. I think rather than treating this as a "misconceptions" article, it would be better to think about a broader set of broader "International representation" questions. For example, there was research recently from the USC that talks about the misrepresentation of Africa in global media, well documented misrepesentation in the news, there are systematic gaps on Wikipedia, and there is a complicated historiogrpahy. Maybe we rename the section and give it a broader focus on different ways that Africa is represented poorly in international conversations. I can take a pass at doing this over the weekend if we want, Sadads (talk) 12:25, 16 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I think those sources would be good to add as well. Benjamin (talk) 07:36, 17 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I like the solution suggested by Sadads. Stardust canopy (talk) 12:54, 19 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

There might be grounds for some text on the tendency of 'first world' media to treat the huge and diverse population of Africa as though it were one homogenous group, but essentially stating, "some people don't know what a continent is," which is neither encyclopaedic nor informative about the subject of this page. Kevin McE (talk) 17:00, 22 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Kevin McE: I wrote "more than 50" since additionally to the 54 you mentioned, there are at least two countries that are not fully recognized internationally (Western Sahara and Somaliland) and the precise number was not of interest in that particular section. Stardust canopy (talk) 12:54, 19 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The "True size of Africa" image does not show the True size of Europe as it lacks a substantial part of that continent (namely the whole Scandinavian peninsula, large parts of the East as well as all major islands except for GB and Ireland... while the only major African island is explicitly used in the comparison). Alaska is missing in the US polygon. The statement which the image want to convey may still hold, nevertheless I suggest removing it until until quality has been improved such that the methodology of the image does not contract its own message any more. 2A00:EE2:906:700:6808:8C37:4B3A:99B5 (talk) 19:08, 6 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I removed the map as its quality has not been improved. Stardust canopy (talk) 11:56, 30 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

If Black lives matter, why is this page locked from editing? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 36.11.224.226 (talk) 03:29, 9 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This page was locked following various bouts of vandalism and edit warring. To request an unlocking, please post at Wikipedia:Requests for page protection. CMD (talk) 04:08, 9 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

the continent is the least wealthy per capita "in large part due to the legacies of European colonization in Africa"

This latter part is not a neutral verifiable statement backed by citations of reliable sources. Please delete or actually provide some neutral sources. If actual sources can be provided, it should surely be mentioned which countries/regions were involved on the colonial side and in Africa if it wasn't a near universal trend between all the colonial powers in all of Africa - else that's not neutral either.

What I can see is that even during colonial times it was a mixed bag and just overall likely negative: Decolonisation_of_Africa#Economic_legacy "The economic legacy of colonialism is difficult to quantify but is likely to have been negative" with cited "Bertocchia, G. & Canova, F., (2002)" detailing that effect on GDP was probably positive but effect on GNP was probably negative, making the overall outcome negative in the studied models. And that there were differences based on the occupying colonial power, the status of the colony and so on. The same paper also says "The economic consequences of decolonialization are difficult to measure" and that for the only six countries they tried to model for this aspect specifically they observed growth after political independence exceeding the pre-independence forecast and is "large in economic terms". Basically the opposite of a suggestion of "ongoing legacies" in terms of economic impact. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.75.181.42 (talk) 00:16, 28 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, the statement you are pointing at above (from 2002 by the way), and the whole section describing the instability of decolonized Africa because of the colonization and Cold War reinforce that simple summary of the statement in the lead.... so I am not sure what you are arguing for. Sadads (talk) 00:50, 10 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. That conclusion is highly subjective and not objective at all. The statement is very vague and tries to lead the reader to think that the reasons for African poverty and underdevelopment is largely due to European colonialism. The best thing would propably be to remove that statement from the introduction and rather discuss differing viewpoints on the cause of sub-Saharan poverty. Pastore Barracuda (talk) 23:31, 12 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This is a well documented effect of the history on the region -- every analysis I have ever seen of the region, connects modern issues with the long colonial and neocolonial pattern of behavior by world powers in the region -- to try to blame that on geography (which is a human construct) and contemporary leaders is really not approaching these issues from a world systems approach to history, Sadads (talk) 20:45, 23 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Well firstly, how is geography a human construct? Geography simply describe the physical world and we humans have (had) no impact on the placement of rivers and mountains. Geography is a key component to explain differences in wealth and innovation. For example, why is Western Europe so much more prosperous and innovative than Eastern Europe, and why has it been that way for centuries? Well Geography is part of the reason. The Western European geography of peninsulas and sublime maritime access facilitate trade and is therefore a significant contribution to why this region has been the most innovative and economically prosperous region for centuries. Likewise, most of Africa has a lack of navigable rivers and a huge part of the population lives inland. This is not advantageous to trade and human innovation, which explains part of sub-Saharan lack of prosperity, progress and innovation. This is really what the source I provided points out, but you ended up ignoring and misquoting it when you altered my statement. And by the way, the source I used was the most cited article I could find on this issue. I don't discredit the sources you use, but one of them had only one citation if I remember correctly, so the scientific respectability seems to differ a bit. I also want you to know that the way you integrated the source I provided ended up misusing it to back your statement. I hope we both can agree that the seeking the truth is the highest virtue. Thus, I will reformulate the statement again so that the source is not misquoted, and so that the authors' arguments become visible. Thank you. Pastore Barracuda (talk) 17:05, 24 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Sadads: and @Pastore Barracuda: I suggest to settle the dispute by just writing "Despite a wide range of natural resources, Africa is the least wealthy continent per capita, the reasons of which are complex and disputed." in the opening lines of the article and then dedicate a separate section to elaborate on the different points of view you both have raised. This way, the opening part would retain the highest possible objectivity and the article would still present the reader an overview over the various explanations that are currently discussed. Stardust canopy (talk) 13:00, 26 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Sadads: and @Stardust canopy:. Yeah, I think that is a good idea. There is a section in the article discussing this problem and the the summary is not summarizing it. I suggest we go with your proposal. Pastore Barracuda (talk) 13:27, 26 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Great! Sadads doesn't seem to disagree. @Pastore Barracuda: could you implement this? Stardust canopy (talk) 10:50, 30 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I fervently disagree --- I was not active for the weekend -- the attribution of the economic and political problems to a history of colonialization is not disputed in history or most social sciences. Sadads (talk) 11:09, 30 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, then how about "Despite a wide range of natural resources, Africa is the least wealthy continent per capita, the reasons of which are complex and multi-faceted."? Stardust canopy (talk) 14:47, 30 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Some areas of Africa, such as parts of the Sahel, are controlled by jihadists, and wars are expected to continue for the foreseeable future, despite international effort.^[1] Benjamin (talk) 21:09, 12 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Removed ..zero serviceable information ...no links to information or a source that has value. --Moxy 🍁 11:22, 14 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Could you be more specific please? The source is The Economist. What do you mean that it lacks value? Benjamin (talk) 19:25, 14 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Moxy: Please stop reverting me without providing any substantive criticism. Benjamin (talk) 08:17, 18 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Incoperated into 2 other sections (one already mention this fact) with ref moved for transclution. Sections should not be madeup of one sentence....nor is one sentence preferred anywhere MOS:PARA.--Moxy 🍁 08:22, 18 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

What do the colors represent? I don't see a key.

The line about "showing North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa" is silly; should be deleted.

Both good points. I'm not sure what is has to do with African politics. I removed the map. Brycehughes (talk) 00:18, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

• Insigne Sudaniae.svg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 16:23, 7 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

As at 14 June 2021, I read quote:

0 billion people2,015,496 as of 2,015,496,

and there are related problems about the right-column summary (which seems to say population is 2M not 2B).