Post-colonial Africa Today, Africa contains 54 sovereign countries, most of which have borders that were drawn during

the era of European colonialism. ince colonialism, African states have fre!uently been hampered by instability, corruption, violence, and authoritarianism. The vast ma"ority of African states are republics that operate under some form of the presidential system of rule. #owever, few of them have been able to sustain democratic governments on a permanent basis, and many have instead cycled through a series of coups, producing military dictatorships. $obutu ese e%o, &aire's longtime dictator, embe((led over )5 billion from his country. *reat instability was mainly the result of marginali(ation of ethnic groups, and graft under these leaders. +or political gain, many leaders fanned ethnic conflicts, some of which had been e,acerbated, or even created, by colonial rule. -n many countries, the military was perceived as being the only group that could effectively maintain order, and it ruled many nations in Africa during the ./01s and early ./21s. 3uring the period from the early ./41s to the late ./21s, Africa had more than 01 coups and .5 presidential assassinations. 6order and territorial disputes were also common, with the European-imposed borders of many nations being widely contested through armed conflicts. 7old 8ar conflicts between the 9nited tates and the oviet 9nion, as well as the policies of the -nternational $onetary +und,:citation needed; also played a role in instability. 8hen a country became independent for the first time, it was often e,pected to align with one of the two superpowers. $any countries in <orthern Africa received oviet military aid, while many in 7entral and outhern Africa were supported by the 9nited tates, +rance or both. The ./01s saw an escalation, as newly independent Angola and $o(ambi!ue aligned themselves with the oviet 9nion, and the 8est and outh Africa sought to contain oviet influence by funding insurgency movements. There was a ma"or famine in Ethiopia, when hundreds of thousands of people starved. ome claimed that $ar,ist= oviet policies made the situation worse.:45;:44;:45; The most devastating military conflict in modern independent Africa has been the econd 7ongo 8ar> this conflict and its aftermath has %illed an estimated 5.5 million people.:44; ince ?115 there has been an ongoing conflict in 3arfur which has become a humanitarian disaster. Another notable tragic event is the .//4 @wandan *enocide in which an estimated 211 111 people were murdered. A-3 in post-colonial Africa has also been a prevalent issue. -n the ?.st century, however, the number of armed conflicts in Africa has steadily declined. +or instance, the civil war in Angola came to an end in ?11? after nearly 51 years. This has coincided with many countries abandoning communist style command economies and opening up for mar%et reforms. The improved stability and economic reforms have led to a great increase in foreign investment into many African nations, mainly from 7hina,:40; which has spurred !uic% economic growth in many countries, seemingly ending decades of stagnation and decline. everal African economies are among the world's fasted growing as of ?1... A significant part of this growth can also be attributed to the facilitated diffusion of information technologies and specifically the mobile telephone.:42;