Can even the efforts of great men and women or substantial sums of international aid solve the problems of sub-Saharan Africa while it retains the geographical borders imposed during European colonialism?

We constantly hear in the news about droughts, famines and civil wars in the countries of sub-Saharan Africa; as one ends, if it does, another becomes “newsworthy”, although rarely prominent unless some Western celebrity with a conscience visits it. Financial aid comes from our governments and many charity organizations work to relieve the disaster situations and to establish infrastructure and education in the hope of long-term solutions.

It doesn’t seem to be working, and perhaps there is an underlying problem to explain that. The countries of sub-Saharan Africa retain the geographical borders imposed upon them by the European powers that colonized them in the past. These borders bear no relationship to the tribal nations of Africa that pre-existed the establishment of these colonies. Retaining these borders in the post-colonial period leads to contention between the tribal groups extant within these “countries”. Even when this doesn’t result in outright genocidal warfare between tribal groups, as seen in Rwanda, the tribal group or allied groups that achieve dominance favor their own to the detriment of others, as we have seen in Uganda under Idi Amin and see now in Zimbabwe under Robert Mugabe.

In our Western news services this is portrayed as corruption or nepotism but without any real recognition of the tribal component underlying it. The result is wasted resources and efforts. Positive results ending up squandered and destroyed by these negative tribal interactions.

What is needed is to redraw the borders of sub-Saharan Africa to fit the geographical extents of Africa’s tribal nations instead of the imposed ones of Europe’s colonies. With countries based on the various tribal nations, the chances of effectively using international aid, to develop a lasting infrastructure and educational facilities that can raise the living conditions of the people significantly, is greatly enhanced. Internal wars, at least, becoming far less likely.

The International community, and the United Nations organization in particularly as the globe-encompassing representative of that community, needs to work to encourage the political leaders of the current African countries, most prominent tribal leaders in their own right, and the chiefs, headmen and elders of the multitude of tribal nations to meet and discuss this possibility. Diplomatic assistance and mediation services should be offered, but the end result must be in the hands of these African leaders, so that a peaceful and prosperous future may have some chance of coming about.

Africa has so much potential for wealth and abundance, by restructuring its borders to minimize or hopefully eradicate inter-tribal conflict, perhaps the droughts, famines and civil wars can become solely a horror of the past, rather than of the present as well and a virtual certainty of the future.