I would like to revisit the redrawing of boundaries idea for a moment just to emphasize the difficutilies some have already pointed out. (this is according to memory from a few college courses, so don't nail me to the exact numbers). As I recall, there are at least 366 identifiable languages in Africa (from what I understand, English is actually used as their "universal language"), which are associated with a different tribal group. This does not account for variances in dialect from splinter groups or offshoots of tribes. One professor showed us a tribal map of Africa, and it looked as if the very large continent was made up of pixels (for lack of a better visual reference). To divide based on old tribal lines would be almost as bad for Africa as what we have now, since the areas would not be large enough to create stability in the region as a whole, which is what they desperately need.
In addition, I have a few friends from Nigeria which is one of the more industrialized nations in Africa. Those people should receive a badge of honor just to attend university. They would have the power to the entire university shut down because of the whims of a dictator. Students were fired upon by his enterage for taking some of his vehicles hostage in exchange for turning the electricity on and paying their professors. I could go on, but I think you may get the point. These are the lucky ones. They get to go to colege.
There are many other issues with traditions that can hold these nations back as well as the external forces that have mucked them up to begin with. One of my friends' fathers is the head of a large pharmaceutical company's Nigerian operations. He has worked very hard to reach this position and speaks 7 languages. Every morning when he wakes up, there is already a line of people waiting in his front room to ask for his assistance. These people range from neighbors, to cousins, to associates of friends. His wife has to cook brekfast for all of them, including their own large family, because not to do this would be considered insulting (I'm not sure I'm using the correct word here, as it would be far worse than an insult in their culture). He has to spend time and meet with each of them ,and grant as many requests as he can. These requests can be anything from asking for a small amount of money to paying for their child's college education. This particular man has the means to meet these demands, but this occurrs with poeple who are only moderately successful. It is good in many ways, but for those who might just make it to a point that they can make a difference on a large scale, it is a major obstacle. It would make it very difficult for a small business owner to be in a position to reinvest into his company for growth. This is just one example of many old traditions that are not condusive for growth within the community, and as I understand it, it is why many never return to Nigeria once they have worked abroad. The expectations are very high, to say the least.
This is just to shed a little light on some of the situations in Africa that are not as severe as those in Rwanda and other war torn areas that can be seen as problems for dvelopment in the region.
My friend also says that there is a large difference between the south and north of Nigeria. The north is seen as more tribal and consists of many armed dictator "wannabes." The south is more industrialized and has a higher rate of education but less of a military angle. The current leaders are from the north, and are often enacting tribal dictates that truly hinder the further growth of the nation.

On Africa's resources; much of the continent is very resource-rich, including oil and stuff like coltan that we can't really get from anywhere else. This is not a good thing for Africa, however. as it just leads foreign governments to fund wars and repression for whichever gobernment can secure their supply. Occasionally this can lead to us fighting 'humanitarian' wars - like the British defeat of the RUF - but following our various wars we care not in the slightest how the country is run provided we still get our diamonds. Less conspiratorially, dictators and armed rebel groups both use the sale of resources to fund their wars. Diamonds and coltan are the principal reason most of the DRC has been effectively under military occupation for so long.

On ethnic conflicts - a major contributing factor to that is the divide and rule tactics used by European powersin the colonial period. In Rwanda we sought to exacerbate tensions between Hutus and Tutsis to prevent the arrival of a unified resistance against colonial rule.

Who would redistrict Africa? Would it be a new White Man's Burden? The great European-American powers stepping in to swap around sovereignty for their own good?

Maybe we should just stop looting their economies through proxies like the World Bank and actually help them out in ways that respect both cultures.

Wasn't suggesting that anybody other than the African countries themselves should redraw the borders, but since for the reasons you guys stated above, that would be opening a Whole New Can of Worms (tm), they're just going to have to fight it out within the existing borders until each country can come to some sort of peace agreement. In Europe that took centuries. They took a hundred years in the Middle Ages just to sort out France. And what is there in France to fight over?

Some other points:
1. I can see how the presence of highly lucrative mineral resources in an otherwise poor economy can give rise to basketcase dictatorships, just like the oil in the Middle East. There's only so many people a diamond mine can employ, and it's not like the proceeds naturally get shared broadly.

2. I'm wary of cultural explanations in general. It used to be said that Asian Values (chief among them, the Confucian expectation that you should help your relatives) was why the Chinese could never become economically successful in the Modern World. So now explain how Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan got rich so quickly? Even mainland China is doing quite well these days even though it is corrupt as anything. Now our politicians are going around saying that Asian Values is why we're so prosperous. Yee-aaah.

3. I did a paper on the World Bank once. It was one of my more half-assed ones, and most of my 'research' came from a book by an environmentalist. Probably accurate, but not exactly 'unbiased'. As I understood it, the problem with the World Bank is that in order to stay financially solvent, it has to lend ever more money to the same group of 100 or so countries. This sinks the countries deeper and deeper into debt, while the World Bank casually approves completely stupid, economically useless and environmentally disastrous infrastructure projects out of a lack of anything better to throw large sums of money at. Now that's a bureaucracy that goes around creating more work for itself.

I'd like to hear your perspectives on it though. Because Sluggites are Educational.

Kea - it's not so much that the World Bank casually approves ridiculous ideas; it's more that imposing ridiculous ideas as a condition for aid has been a matter of World Bank orthodoxy for years, as they've been proven to work on computer models, even though in the real world the failure rate is something like 90 percent. The former director of World Bank operations in French Guiana had a breakdown when he realised the mess they were making of the place, following which he went back to university to study for a politics degree prior to becoming a major critic of the World Bank. These ideas are starting to change; with quite a few former supporters recommending reform, but how much this will work is yet to be seen; given that current methods do succeed in enriching a powerful few.

Caffeine, what kinds of ridiculous conditions? Can you point me towards any articles?

Liberalisation of sectors in which they can't compete, unreasonable austerity measures which destroy social provision, unsustainable mono-cropping which guts the market price and leaves producers with nothing to fall back on, etc. I'll get back to you with an article in a bit.

Edit - here we go, the SAPRI-CSA report on SAPs and poverty. Note that despite the myriad reports like these and despite the posturing of James Wolfensohn, the World Bank has learnt very little; and its new PRSPs, which are supposed to deal with these problems, still come attached with the same conditionalities.