Why do Africans not benefit from the vast amounts of natural resources that dot the continent? Is “modern colonialism” a significant factor in this or are there other factors at play?

Africa is not that rich in many critical natural resources. US or Saudi Arabia alone produce more oil than the entire continent of Africa. List of countries by oil production. There is not as much water in a large chunk of the continent compared to United States or even China. And it has far less fertile lands. Thus, the 3 critical resources for humanity - energy, water and food are not in plenty.

Here are the world's top countries by natural resources - Top Ten Countries with Most Natural Resources - and no African country comes up there.

Africa seem to export a lot of natural resources only because there are not enough domestic companies that can process those resources into high value components, unlike other places with abundance of natural resources. This is why countries that export the fewest of natural resources are in general richer, because they always find a way to build a value layer on top of that. This value layer is where employment is.

The way to benefit from the resource is to create valued added services on top of that. Thus, instead of exporting iron ore, you refine it to steel and then machinery & automobiles with it. With this, you will have jobs for miners, factory workers, engineers and mechanics. The deeper you are in the value chain better the benefit will be to the people.

To get deeper into the value chain, you need visionary leaders, spending on infrastructure & worker training and setting up the environment for businesses to operate freely.” - Balaji Viswanathan,Quora

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