read nor write. Poor nourishment and a shortage of medical care contribute to the reason why, on average, men only live until they’re 55 and women until they’re 57.
Senegal is located in the Sahel region, the place between the Sahara desert in the North and the Sudanian savannah of the South. A large part of this land is dry savannah – only 16 per cent of the area is fertile, and unfortunately this land is poorly used. Although two thirds of the population work on the land, Senegal cannot produce even half of the food its people need.
Why is this? For 300 years Senegal was a French colony and only gained its independence in 1960. Like most African countries during the colonial period, Senegal was forced to produce very specific products for export. In Senegal these were predominantly peanuts and cotton, which are still produced in large quantities today. The price of these products on the world market has fallen dramatically over the last decade because the USA provides huge financial support to its own cotton and peanut farms (and the EU does exactly the same thing within other areas of agriculture). Because of this, only 20 per cent of national wealth in Senegal comes from farming.
Many Senegalese have moved from the countryside to the cities to try and escape the growing poverty and desperation in the rural areas. As work is also hard to come by in the cities, most people have to get by selling whatever they can: food, lottery tickets, furniture, souvenirs for tourists, clothes and so on. Yet Senegal also has some of the best-developed road networks in Africa. Furthermore, the harbour in Dakar is the second largest and one of the most modern in West Africa. Surrounding the harbour are thriving sugar, vegetable oil, fish and textile industries.
21 November 2007
A crane lifts 40 to 50 containers onto the dockside at Dakar harbour. Everything is more chaotic here than the container harbours of Hamburg and Singapore. Here, the cranes grab containers and put them wherever there is a free space, with very little forward planning.
It’s often said that globalisation exploits developing countries – particularly those in Africa. Many people are still under the impression that Africans have the majority of what they produce taken away from them, just like in the 19th and early 20th centuries. At this time Africa was the world’s greatest exporter of raw materials, spices and exotic goods, and the large industrialised nations of the West fought to colonise it. These days, the opposite is true: dozens of full containers are unloaded from the ships that arrive there and very few full ones are returned. Sometimes, even empty containers are loaded back onto the ships, because there’s no container storage space left at the harbour.
Is this exploitation? This depends on which products are being transported. It’s not only old clothes from Europe that are flooding into Africa. On the dockside are also hundreds of old cars which have been shipped from Europe to Africa. Other containers are loaded with food, for example, onions from Holland, beef from Germany and so on. All of these products come from rich countries and have been on very long journeys. Nevertheless, they are sold in Senegal for way below their cost price. The Senegalese buy these products because they are cheap, which means the local farmers who produce food in Senegal barely earn anything. All of this food, which has been shipped in these containers has been heavily subsidised by the European Union. This means that the EU pays its farmers for every onion and pint of milk, which makes it possible for the food to be sold so cheaply in Africa.
The receiver of the old clothing container waits at the entrance to the harbour: Moustapha received the paperwork for the shipment by fax from Hamburg and has come immediately to pick it up. He’s brought all the paperwork with him, but the harbour manager informs him that unfortunately his container doesn’t seem
Senegal is located in the Sahel region, the place between the Sahara desert in the North and the Sudanian savannah of the South. A large part of this land is dry savannah – only 16 per cent of the area is fertile, and unfortunately this land is poorly used. Although two thirds of the population work on the land, Senegal cannot produce even half of the food its people need.
Why is this? For 300 years Senegal was a French colony and only gained its independence in 1960. Like most African countries during the colonial period, Senegal was forced to produce very specific products for export. In Senegal these were predominantly peanuts and cotton, which are still produced in large quantities today. The price of these products on the world market has fallen dramatically over the last decade because the USA provides huge financial support to its own cotton and peanut farms (and the EU does exactly the same thing within other areas of agriculture). Because of this, only 20 per cent of national wealth in Senegal comes from farming.
Many Senegalese have moved from the countryside to the cities to try and escape the growing poverty and desperation in the rural areas. As work is also hard to come by in the cities, most people have to get by selling whatever they can: food, lottery tickets, furniture, souvenirs for tourists, clothes and so on. Yet Senegal also has some of the best-developed road networks in Africa. Furthermore, the harbour in Dakar is the second largest and one of the most modern in West Africa. Surrounding the harbour are thriving sugar, vegetable oil, fish and textile industries.
21 November 2007
A crane lifts 40 to 50 containers onto the dockside at Dakar harbour. Everything is more chaotic here than the container harbours of Hamburg and Singapore. Here, the cranes grab containers and put them wherever there is a free space, with very little forward planning.
It’s often said that globalisation exploits developing countries – particularly those in Africa. Many people are still under the impression that Africans have the majority of what they produce taken away from them, just like in the 19th and early 20th centuries. At this time Africa was the world’s greatest exporter of raw materials, spices and exotic goods, and the large industrialised nations of the West fought to colonise it. These days, the opposite is true: dozens of full containers are unloaded from the ships that arrive there and very few full ones are returned. Sometimes, even empty containers are loaded back onto the ships, because there’s no container storage space left at the harbour.
Is this exploitation? This depends on which products are being transported. It’s not only old clothes from Europe that are flooding into Africa. On the dockside are also hundreds of old cars which have been shipped from Europe to Africa. Other containers are loaded with food, for example, onions from Holland, beef from Germany and so on. All of these products come from rich countries and have been on very long journeys. Nevertheless, they are sold in Senegal for way below their cost price. The Senegalese buy these products because they are cheap, which means the local farmers who produce food in Senegal barely earn anything. All of this food, which has been shipped in these containers has been heavily subsidised by the European Union. This means that the EU pays its farmers for every onion and pint of milk, which makes it possible for the food to be sold so cheaply in Africa.
The receiver of the old clothing container waits at the entrance to the harbour: Moustapha received the paperwork for the shipment by fax from Hamburg and has come immediately to pick it up. He’s brought all the paperwork with him, but the harbour manager informs him that unfortunately his container doesn’t seem
Similar Books
