Secondary resources > Geography KS3 > Africa
Overview - Climate - Water - Cities - Resources - Sustainability - Fashion
Exploring the wealth of Africa's natural resources, but also the troubled history of foreign intervention in Africa's development - from the transatlantic slave trade to the role of multinationals.
These containers could be on their way to factories in China – or Europe, or America. They’re full of valuable resources – vital ingredients for the global economy. Those raw materials have been extracted from African countries - like here, in South Africa - but the people who live here won’t receive much of their benefit.
Africa’s lands are rich - particularly when it comes to underground deposits of minerals –like diamonds, or uranium, or metals such as cobalt. And as the world population increases, demand for resources keeps rising. Cobalt, for example, is needed all around the world, to make batteries for electronic devices and electric cars - and over fifty percent of the planet’s cobalt reserves are located in just one country - the Democratic Republic of the Congo!
Of course, African nations have been a part of the global economy for a long time – in the 12th century, powerful African kingdoms traded gold with Europe, via Arabian merchants. But from the 1500s, everything changed, in a catastrophic way, as European countries began to colonise Africa. The transatlantic slave trade was a brutal, inhuman system, which devastated many African kingdoms, and led to the forced trafficking of at least 12 million people to the Americas. In the later phases of colonisation - beginning in the 1800s - those same European rulers claimed power over the African continent, and prospectors began mapping its hidden treasures. Gold… diamonds… platinum… rubber… ivory… The colonial rulers realised that extracting resource wealth could make them just as rich as the slave trade had done. So, mining and logging became big business, changing the way people lived. Johannesburg was founded when gold was discovered in these hills. Even today, there are disused gold mines beneath some of the buildings of the city. But the companies who operated those mines weren’t African companies. They were founded, and run, by European settlers. The African workers who toiled and often died to extract the precious resources were generally given little or no payment at all.
Here in South Africa, racism became established by law, with the ‘apartheid’ system which forced people from different racial groups to live separately – and made it very difficult for most Black people to access education, or have any share of the nation’s great wealth. It took a lot of resistance, and a long time, for African nations to begin gaining independence. But our economies are still deeply affected by the past…Many leading multinational companies were founded in colonial times. As African countries gained independence, those companies used their power to negotiate long-term, binding agreements - which kept mines working, but made sure that workers would carry on receiving very low pay. And many of the new African leaders used their power for private gain - making it difficult for African economies to move forward and improve the standard of living for ordinary people.
But things are changing! It used to be that Western nations saw Africa as a place either for economic exploitation - or in need of aid, and humanitarian assistance… But African countries are now predicted to dominate the world’s top ten fastest growing economies. And as our economies grow, our universities are turning out a generation of engineers, doctors, lawyers, managers and entrepreneurs. We have the youngest workforces in the world! We’re building new infrastructure, and starting new businesses. And that’s good news - it means that in future, we’ll see the benefits of this continent’s abundant resources being shared more equally!
The video
Resources: opportunities and challenges
Download/print a transcript of this episode (pdf).
Africa is a continent of vast mineral wealth with diamonds, uranium and cobalt all mined there alongside many other precious metals and mineral deposits. While the mining of cobalt has more recently been in demand for mobile phones and batteries, mining of other metals - such as gold - goes back much further, to the 12th Century.
From the 1500s, Africa was exploited not only for its mineral wealth, but people were also traded as a resource and the inhumane and brutal Transatlantic Slave Trade began. It devastated many African kingdoms and eventually led to the colonisation of Africa by European nations.
The economies of many African countries are still deeply affected by events in the past. But things are changing: the economies of African countries such as South Africa, Egypt and Algeria are thriving. Countries such as South Sudan, Libya and Niger are also in the top ten fastest growing economies in the world.
Teacher Notes
Download/print the Teacher Notes for this episode (pdf).
Teacher Notes prepared in partnership with the Geographical Association.
Before watching the video
- Ask students to put their hands up if they own a mobile phone. Take suggestions as to why you are asking about this.
- Ask students what natural resources they can think of and where they originate from. Write down the suggestions that students give.
- Discuss with students what issues there might be with extracting natural resources from the ground. Categorise these into social, economic and environmental impacts. Link this to the exploitation of natural resources.
- Introduce key terms such as:
Colonisation: the action of settling among and establishing control over the indigenous people of an area or country.
Apartheid: a system of racial segregation in South Africa that separated people by race and ethnicity.
Multinational company: a company that operates in a number of countries around the world.
Exploitation: making use and benefiting from resources, often unfairly for your own advantage.
Infrastructure: the facilities, systems and services needed to serve a country or city such as roads, power supplies and sewage systems.
While watching
You may wish to stop at relevant points during this short film to pose questions and check understanding, or wait until the end. Useful questions might include:
- What types of resources have been mined from African countries?
- What is cobalt needed for?
- Why has cobalt become increasingly important?
- What began to happen in the 1500s?
- What is colonisation?
- What impact did colonisation have on Africa?
- How was Johannesburg founded?
- What was Apartheid?
- Why are African economies growing rapidly?
After watching
- Discuss with students the impacts of colonisation on the natural resource industry - for example, why are multinational companies often the owners of mines instead of African companies?
- Why has cobalt become so important? Look at a map of cobalt mines. The world’s largest cobalt mines are located in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and these include the Tenke Fungurume Mine and the Mashamba East Mine. What impact does cobalt mining have on society and the environment? Poor working conditions have been reported, with many workers risking their lives daily as they descend into deep mining tunnels. Tunnel collapses have occurred, trapping people inside. Many of the mine workers feel that they have no other way to make an income. Discuss with students why more cobalt mines have been established and how this is linked to mobile technology and batteries. Is it fair that our appetite for new technology means that many people work in dangerous conditions for little pay?
- Research the top 10 fastest growing economies in 2024, many of which are in Africa. The BRICS organisation includes Egypt, South Africa and Ethiopia. What does this growth suggest about the economies of African countries?
Where next?
- Undertake further research on the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the mineral wealth found there. It includes major deposits of diamonds, gold, copper, cobalt, tin, tantalum and lithium.
- Look back further in time. During the ‘Scramble for Africa’ King Leopold II of Belgium established the Congo Free State as his own personal possession. During this time natural resources - such as ivory and rubber - were exploited and King Leopold II used brutal forced labour to extract those resources.
- Around half of the Congolese population died from punishment and malnutrition, with many more suffering from disease. Amputation of hands and feet were used as a punishment if workers were suspected of stealing, or if they did not meet quotas for extraction.
- The country gained independence from Belgium in 1960, and it became the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1965. In 1971 it was renamed as the Republic of Zaire and returned to being named the DRC in 1997.
Links
The land as a resource:
http://unitedkingdom.bahce.site/bitesize/topics/zjsc87h/articles/zq7jqfr
Types of industry:
http://unitedkingdom.bahce.site/bitesize/topics/zvwtsbk/articles/zx6mxbk
Globalisation:
http://unitedkingdom.bahce.site/bitesize/topics/zvwtsbk/articles/z2frg7h
‘The Scramble for Africa’ (History page):
http://unitedkingdom.bahce.site/bitesize/articles/zrfjqfr#zqssf82
Curriculum notes
This clip will be relevant for teaching Geography at KS3 in England and Northern Ireland, 3rd/4th Level in Scotland and Progression Step 4 in Wales.
In the English National Curriculum this video can be used to help teach the following:
- Using maps of the world to focus on Africa, focusing on the environmental regions, hot deserts, key physical features, countries and major cities.
- Understand geographical similarities, differences and links between places through the study of human and physical geography of a region within Africa.
- Human geography related to population and urbanisation.
- Human geography related to economic activity and the use of natural resources.
Resources
Teacher Notes
Download/print the Teacher Notes for this episode (pdf).
Transcript
Download/print the transcript for this episode (pdf).
Secondary resources > Geography KS3 > Africa
Overview - Climate - Water - Cities - Resources - Sustainability - Fashion