{
  "id": "RL30029",
  "type": "CRS Report",
  "typeId": "REPORTS",
  "number": "RL30029",
  "active": false,
  "source": "EveryCRSReport.com",
  "versions": [
    {
      "source": "EveryCRSReport.com",
      "id": 105312,
      "date": "2001-01-05",
      "retrieved": "2016-05-24T20:30:52.956941",
      "title": "Africa Backgrounder: History, U.S. Policy, Principal Congressional Actions",
      "summary": "Congress has dealt repeatedly with issues related to sub-Saharan Africa since the late 1950s. \nThis\nreport provides basic background on Africa and its history, U.S. policy, and congressional\ninvolvement, for the general congressional reader.\n  The modern human species is believed to have emerged in Africa approximately 200,000 years\nago. Perhaps 2,500 years ago, the Bantu people began to expand from a West African base,\ngradually spreading a complex agricultural system over much of the continent. Africanists generally\nagree that loyalties to large ethnic groups, a key factor in African politics today, were largely absent\nin pre-colonial Africa.\n  The Atlantic slave trade, which began about 1450 and lasted 400 years, removed millions of\npeople in their most productive years from Africa and left the continent ill-prepared to cope with the\nEuropean \"scramble for Africa.\" From the 1870s through the early twentieth century, nearly the\nentire sub-Saharan region was divided among the European powers. The Europeans built a basic\neconomic infrastructure; but imposed a bureaucratic system of government and strengthened \ntraditional chiefs and other \"big men\" to help them rule. These patterns deepened divisions in\nAfrican societies and strengthened anti-democratic patterns of government. \n  After World War II, African nationalists organized political parties and began to demand\nindependence. By the early 1960s, independence had come to most of eastern and western Africa,\nbut white minority rule persisted in southern Africa, ending only in 1994, when universal-suffrage\nelections were held in South Africa.\n  In the first years of the 1960s, there were high hopes that the end of colonialism would bring\nrapid economic growth. Instead, Africa confronted a number of problems, including inefficient,\nstate-centered economic systems; frequent military coups; ethnic strife; and corruption. The Cold\nWar contributed to Africa's difficulties, flooding the continent with arms and strengthening a number\nof repressive regimes that had superpower backing. French policy also tended to bolster \nauthoritarian governments in former French colonies.\n  In the early 1990s, hopes for Africa's future revived following widespread political and\neconomic reforms and the end of the Cold War. Later in the decade, however, the pace of reforms\nslowed and central Africa fell into an era of violent conflict. \"Afro-pessimists\" believe that these\ndevelopments have gravely damaged Africa's prospects, but others argue that they are temporary\nproblems masking an underlying \"African Renaissance.\" The Clinton Administration sided with the\n\"Afro-optimists,\" despite frustrations over the war in Congo (formerly Zaire) and other problems. \n  The 106th Congress passed legislation to strengthen U.S.-African economic ties and to boost\nspending to fight the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa and worldwide. Previous Congresses acted on\na number of African issues, including African food security, apartheid in South Africa, and covert\nU.S. involvement in Angola.",
      "type": "CRS Report",
      "typeId": "REPORTS",
      "active": false,
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          "url": "http://www.crs.gov/Reports/RL30029",
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      ],
      "topics": []
    }
  ],
  "topics": [
    "African Affairs",
    "Economic Policy",
    "Foreign Affairs",
    "Intelligence and National Security"
  ]
}