If the the West wishes to help Africans address their problems, it must both identify what these difficulties are, and attempt explain why they have happened. This seems obvious enough, yet the failure to understand historical, economic and political causality has been a huge obstacle to assisting Africa in the last few decades. Indeed, this lack of analysis has also created problems, as well as exacerbating existing ones. If we want to improve the lives of Africans, both now in the future, we must re-examine fundamentally the way we consider Africa, and ultimately, the way we consider ourselves. 

	A definition of a 'difficulty' is required. The reduction of human suffering is the over-arching ambition of development ambitions, and it is in these terms that we need to consider the problems that exist in Africa. For this purpose, poverty is best expressed in absolute terms. The criticisms of a 'subsitence defintion', which are well summarised by Webster (1990, p.18-9), are significant, but it is still useful here, as it provides a basis for examining where the need is greatest, as well as a framework for monitoring whether or not interventions have improved the lives of the most vulnerable. 

	Disease, whether widespread and endemic like malaria, or epidemic like HIV/AIDS is a clear cause of human suffering.Violent conflict will also destroy people's lives, both directly and in the damage it does to essential infrastructure. Environmental disasters and agricultural underproduction can both cause famine on a mass scale.Yet, Africa seems to suffer these problems far more often than the West, or at least, it appears less able to cope with them. The task therefore becomes to locate the source of these weaknesses, or more specifically, to explain why the nation-state is weaker in Africa than in the West. This core issue is addressed by Herbst, as he contends that geograpahical context in Africa has been the key issue in shaping political development. He notes that large parts of Africa are unable to support the kind of dense population that exists in Europe, and therefore "the fundamental problem confronting leaders of almost all African states" has remained the same, that is "how to broadcast power over sparsely settled lands" (2000, p.3). Herbst, therefore, argues that the modes of governance in Africa are not irrational, but in fact a logical response to the geographical conditions. 

	Related to Herbst argument is the nature of the colonial period, and the way in which it has shaped the subsequent era of independence. The reason that the colonial period is important in causing contemporary difficulties is simple; African leader at the time of independence did not inherit a 'clean slate' on which they could create a society, but instead an influential set of institutions and structures. In discussing the options of post-Independence leaders, Davidson comments that "it seemed impossible to reject any significant part of the [colonial] legacy" (1993, p.163). This meant adopting 'gate-keeper states', as Cooper describes them, which were in largely created with the intent of economic extraction, rather than meaningful development for the colonial subjects. This form of government was by no means torn down at the birth of independence; instead "when the colonial empires fell apart, African leaders also faced the temptation to strengthen their control of narrow channels, rather than widen and deepen forms of connection across space" (2002: p.14). Perhaps the most striking example of the colonial legacy is the also the most obvious; the fact that the imperial map was retained with hardly any significant alterations. Therefore, the post-independence governments

[yet, Africa in the era of the nation-state, has also been misruled - both in the colonial period (extractive expolitative economies) and since, corrupt leaders post-independence - these two periods are not coincidental, colonial mismanagement in some ways 'inspired' the later misrule]