Unit 5 Africa Economic Vocabulary

Famine - A severe shortage of food, generally affecting a widespread area and large numbers of people and can be caused by natural disasters, desertification, and war.

Deforestation - The clearing and cutting down of trees to use as fuel for heating homes; as a resource to export for timber or furniture; and to free up land for farming.

Desertification - The transformation of an area that was suitable for agriculture and/or vegetation into desert, which is unsuitable to vegetation.

Water Pollution - The lack of safe drinking water (potable water) that negatively affects the development of a country because it is the source of many diseases causing sickness and death.

Arable Land - Land that is good for farming and grazing where the soil is rich with nutrients and supports vegetation.

Cash Crops - Commercial farming where a large quantity of a crop is grown with the intention of selling it for money.

Subsistence Farming - Farmers who grow crops to feed their animals and their families; very few crops, if any, are left over to be sold for income.

Market Economy - Individuals and businesses make economic decisions, people can start a business, sell their labor, and are free to spend their money as they wish; supply and demand typically determines prices.

Command Economy - An economic system where the government controls the production and decides what products are to be made, how the products are to be made, and the price the products will be sold.

Traditional Economy - Economies in which people depend on basic agricultural activities as well as hunting and gathering to earn a subsistence living. Social roles and culture determine how goods and services are produced, what prices and individual incomes are, and which consumers are allowed to buy certain goods.

Traditional Economy

Continuum - The range between pure market and pure command economic systems. Most economies are considered mixed because you will find different forms of a mixed economy containing aspects of both market and command economies.

Entrepreneur - a person willing to take a risk by investing his or her own capital (land, labor, building, money) in an attempt to make a good or provide a service; the goal is to make a profit. Entrepreneurship helps the economic growth of a country.

Bill Gates

Government Stability - When a government is strong enough to provide its citizens basic rights, adequate living facilities or education, an economy that is wealthy, and a government that does not have a lot of corruption. Government Instability would be the opposite.

AIDS - A disease that slowly attacks and destroys the human immune system that keeps the body healthy, and has become a very serious problem in Africa because it affects a higher percentage of people on the continent than any other place in the world.

AIDS

Foreign Investment - Companies or nations spending money to develop industries/businesses in foreign countries; the attraction is typically the availability of cheap labor; cheap labor allows for larger profits which is a form of exploitation.

Economic Growth - The process by which a country’s wealth increases over time and is generally measured by increases in a country’s gross domestic product.

Human Resources - The labor/work used to make a good or provide a service; healthcare, education, and training increase labor output (amount and quality of work done).

Capital Resources - The machines, buildings (factories), technology, and money used to make a good or provide a service.

Tariff - A tax on imported goods.

Quota - A limit on the quantity of a good that can be imported into a country in a given period of time.

Embargo - A refusal to trade with another country in order to punish the country economically without having to go to war. Arm embargo against Sudan