Dependency is the situation where by a person or a country or a nation depends on other

country for growth and development. Dependency theory which was proposed by theorists
like Raul Prebisch, Theotonio Dos Santos, Samir Amir, Walter Rodney and Gunder Frank
propose that the situation of underdevelopment of undeveloped countries is due to in
cooperation between third world countries and capitalist countries. Most of third world
countries are found in Africa, Asia and South America but in light with Africa dependency
theory have depict why African countries despite having their independence for more than 20
years but still they are still underdeveloped, such causes or ways for African countries to be
underdeveloped are explained as follows.

Loans with high interest; capitalists through their banks and financial associations like IMF
and World bank where African countries tend to seek for help when they are In need, give
Africans loans or grants which they come with a huge interest to repay or comes with harsh
conditions that tend to pin down African countries for example Tanzania wanted to expand
his harbor in Mtwara but a capitalist nation came with a harsh terms of using such harbor for
up to a hundred years without Tanzania benefit anything from its own harbor, such
conditions and terms are made only to continue making Africa being dependent to them and
not being able to re-establish itself and being developed through its resources.

Intervention of African matters from capitalist countries; African matters that cover
social, economic and political affairs are muchly intervened by capitalist countries sometimes
by countries themselves like USA or through international organizations in which capitalist
countries have high power and word than African countries like UN. Intervention from
capitalist countries to African countries is through stop giving loans and grants or trade
barriers such that to continue criticize Africa. For example, in Libya when the country was
under MUAMMAR GADDAFFI, USA under its organization called NATO intervened on
internal sovereignty of Libya and over thrown the leader with the claims that Ghaddafi was
not a good leader that he was corrupt and selfish leader whom he did not care for the Libyans
by overthrown him they had led Libya toward civil wars and destruction of the country from
its flourish days toward torment.

Creation of puppet or corrupt leaders; Despite Africa have a long year of independence
many leaders in African countries have turned out to be puppets of capitalists as they work
for the interests of capitalist’s countries muchly these kinds of leaders are characterized by
being too greedy and corrupt hence forth working for their own interest. Example Nigeria
have faced a lot of such kind of leaders since it is blessed with oil which make it vulnerable
to the capitalist where by many leaders in Nigeria where corrupt example Sani Abacha who
was corrupt leader in Nigeria and had his money in foreign country where later on his money
was seized in Luxembourg which summed up to 600 million dollars. According to the
dependency theory that established as the reaction of the modernization theory, the term
corruption that leads to the underdevelopment of the African continent. This corruption was
brought by the colonialist and being imparted to the African leaders that cause
underdevelopment. It’s apart from making a lot of money and interest that obtained /extracted
through the African resources. Example, African countries such as Tanzania, Rwanda,
Zimbabwe and Uganda have access to loans from European countries that aid or promote
different developmental activities of the country. Thus, the acquired money we spend paying
the interests include loans and debts from foreign countries.

Colonialization; This has been explained by the dependency theory in terms of exploitation
of resources found in the Africa continent. It is through commodity production, trade and
foreign direct investment. Colonialism will never be seen good in the eyes of the colonized
(African societies). The colonialism of Africa can be referred to as the intense exploitation of
Africa for the benefits of the rest of the capitalist world. Since its colonialization the Africans
lost their powers for almost more than 2 centuries that leads to the loss of the ability to defend
our culture, identity and our ideas. Example, the loss in the ability to defend our culture has
led to the greater underdevelopment of the continent (Africa continent) because through our
culture that enable us to obtain the foreign currency that cause the rise of our national income
hence development of the society. And it is through colonization that have made Africa to
under develop with respect to the development of Capitalist countries in many aspects of
human life. Another obvious example of colonialism’s destructive impact on Africa was the
phenomenon of “monoculture.” “The term ‘monoculture’ is used to describe those colonial
economies which were centered around a single crop. Liberia (in the agricultural sector) was
a monoculture dependent on rubber, Gold Coast on cocoa, Dahomey and southeast Nigeria
on palm produce, Sudan on cotton, Tanganyika on sisal, and Uganda on cotton (Rodney,
1972). In Senegal and Gambia, groundnuts accounted for 85 to 90 percent of money earnings.
In effect, two African colonies were told to grow nothing but peanuts!” The disadvantages of
monoculture, which at times became lethal to millions of people, are self-evident. Utter
dependence on metropoles, the risk of disease spreading across a country’s one crop, price
fluctuations that left farmers helpless, a lack of agricultural diversification resulting in
malnutrition and disease, etc. (Rodney, 1972).

Civil wars; The focuses of the theory surround the prolonged the crisis as seen in the Biafra
war in Nigeria and other internal wars. Another example can be taken is the Rwanda
genocide and in Uganda. These colonial capitalisms led to the underdevelopment of the
African countries due to the extremely dependency from the external including the European
countries not only depending but also some of the crisis in the African countries are
sometimes influenced by capitalist countries whom they are intending in distracting the
system of administration and people being focused with other matters while they exploit our
resources. One of good example is Libya which till date is destructed cause of oil reserves
that the country it is blessed with and other examples are Iraq and other middle east countries
which capitalist countries have made them there training ground.

Much of development plans being intervened by capitalist countries; Developed

countries face a problem for not even being free to make their own plans since they are poor
to do stand on their plans by having such situation leads to many African countries been
directed by capitalist countries since they are the donor countries. By Africans being muchly
rely on donor countries this makes them not being able to do beneficiary plans since they are
not able to do such huge plans cause of not having money thus continue to be underdeveloped
every day.

Racism; Rodney have depicted that capitalist had too much racism and consider us we black
as inferior thus we should be controlled by force .by regarding us as inferior they have been
establishing and using different ways to establish their political, economic and social
domination over Africa. A good example of racism is in America where black people are
exaggerated in day to day as they are considered as inferior and control themselves despite
helping building America which is cherished today. The same process that’s happening in
America it is happening in America its even happen in other areas but in different ways
where a certain nation is been in favor of other nation due to their race.

Slave trade; Before the coming of capitalist’s African states were a bit civilized and
developing in all aspects of human life. But after the coming of capitalists they distracted
Africa and took away African manpower for their benefit make Africa less populated but also
with fewer people with skills by doing so even after when Africa had begun getting their
independence they had few people who had skills to run different materials and development
plans that lead to African countries struggle to first achieve man power not only man power
but one which is skilled thus a lot of time was invested there but also due to up and downs in
any activity which entail to bring about development had largely pull back African countries
to attain development. Which perhaps has been a linkage for Africans to depend on capitalist
countries in construction and accomplishing big projects thus such projects being done in
high cost and in terms which are favorable to them and not to us. As for the negative impact
of the slave trade on Africa, it isn’t necessary to observe that the theft of tens of millions of
healthy young people from the continent wasn’t particularly good for economic development
(Rodney, 1972).

Stagnation of industries; Europeans after coming to Africa had to destruct African

industries through different ways not only that even after they had left Africa by granting us
our independence, they still manipulate our industries and discouraging them through
unfavorable terms of trade where they are muchly benefited since they produce while we
whom we produce raw materials benefited less hence making our production to deteriorate.
Taking an example, by considering Egypt under Mohammed Ali, who ruled the country from
1805 to 1849 and afterwards, thus during his time he tried to develop industries by instituting
protective tariff walls around Egypt’s and also tried to import experts from Europe, but still
the development of Egypt, however, was oppositely restricted to the requirements of
European capitalism. Thus, the British and French industrialists needed to see Egypt not as a
material producer but as a maker of crude cotton for export, and a merchant of European
manufactures. European lenders needed Egypt to be a source of venture, and within the
moment half of the eighteenth century they turned the sultan of Egypt into a universal beggar,
who sold the complete of Egypt to universal monopoly infrastructure financiers. At last,
European statesmen needed Egyptian soil to serve as a base for exploiting India and Arabia,
thus in this manner, the Suez Canal was burrowed out of Egyptian soil by Egyptians, but it
was claimed by Britain and France, who at that point expanded political mastery over Egypt
and Sudan.

Globalization; as a method by which businesses or other organizations create worldwide

impact/influence or begin working on a universal scale. This had a lot of effects in our day-
to-day actives mostly in terms of development according to Samir amin “he argued that it is
also this characteristic that explains the social disasters that can be observed globally, such as
stagnation, unemployment, and the destruction of the welfare state”. These can be watched
universally, but most significantly within the South, and especially within the weak nations of
the South. This centralizing propensity moreover leads to a quickened development of wage
and riches inequalities in both the North and the South. (Amin,1970) argues that this pattern
cannot continue on forever – not only for political, social and ecological reasons, but also
because of the system’s internal contradictions. A lot of people would contend that the world
is presently multipolar which the rise of the BRICS challenges this centralizing, polarizing
propensity of globalization. However, from the analysis it is through globalization that the
capitalist countries tend to exploit African countries in all aspects of development.

Dependency theory is influential in clarifying the universal disparity in terms of economy. It

also declares that the dissimilarity may be a resultant of the imperialism by the strongest or
powerful and wealthiest countries within the world. Hence, they take advantage of the
destitute(poor) nations, thus broadening the gap between them. In any case, there are a parcel
of reactions on the theory that show more weaknesses than the strengths, example it does not
show other factors that clearly shows how wealthy nations underdeveloped the third world
countries but it shows roles played by them, also Subsequently, this hypothesis may not be
appropriate within the clarifying worldwide inequality.
REFERRENCE.

Rodney, W. (1972). How Europe underdeveloped Africa. London: Bogle-L'Ouverture

Publications.

Styve, M.D., Kifakurinani, U., Santana, F. (2017, May 23). Dialogues on Development.
Volume 1: On dependency. Retrieved December 28, 2020, from
https://www.academia.edu/33457450/Dependency_theory_e_book_online_pdf