Background
INTRODUCTION
Southern Africa is struggling to emerge from a history of apartheid, minority white rule, and post-colonial wars. An extremely diverse region, it has the largest economy on the continent (South Africa) and some of the poorest countries in the world.
Despite rich natural resources—diamonds and precious metals in South Africa, and fertile agricultural areas in Zimbabwe and Mozambique—the southern Africa region faces widespread poverty and inequality.
Mozambique is one of the 10 poorest countries in the world, with a per capita income of $210. Its 18.9 million people are predominantly rural and poor, with an extremely low level of literacy, short life expectancy, and limited access to health services and safe water. Each year roughly 190,000 children below the age of five die of preventable diseases.
Although it is the continent's economic powerhouse, South Africa is going through a difficult transition: from apartheid to a future of shared opportunity. The government is now working to increase housing and jobs and combat HIV/AIDS, which infects about 20 percent of the 44.2 million people who live there.
Zimbabwe, which used to be southern Africa's bread basket, has suffered its own dramatic downturn. An estimated five million people will require food aid this year, inflation is sky-rocketing, and life expectancy is falling, now down to 43 years of age.