Trying to say that you've had 50 years of indepenence and that it is all about "responsibility" displays a wealth of ignorance on the topic so no you can't just remove all imperialist bashing from the thread to frame the question how you want it framed.
Assuming it is all just Africas problems...OK it takes two to tango but:
(channeling Ziauddin Sardar here, far better than I am)
1. Debt traps and the ensuing capital flight, the role of corps like Monsanto and these development loans
2. IMF and WTO and the influence of the US and the west on these NGOs, foreign ownership and other ties that come with IMF crisis loans.
3. Trade liberalisation, one way open access for american multinationals and businesses. The removal or reduction of barriers to international trade in goods and services like the WTO Agreement on Agriculture and other structural adjustments Programmes (SAPs) that change countries policies which force the allowance of cheap food imports while reducing and limiting support for their own agriculture. The AoA requires WTO members to reduce tarriffs on food imports by24% over a ten year period most SAPs require more liberalisation as well as demand related measures such as privatisation of state run enterprises, elimination of subsidies and price controls, and abolition of marketing boards. Ostensibly the WTO and its agreement were arrived at by consensus and with the participation of developing countries. In fact, the whole agreement was made by the US an EU. AoA has been described as an act of fraud by Oxfam which intensifies rural poverty and destroys smallholder livelihoods. It enables the US, and the EU, to export its goods cheaply to devloping countries in which farmers unable to compete are out of business. The cheap imports come from commercial channels and through dumping of food sold below the cost of production to dispose of surpluses. In Ghana, for example, local farmers are unable to get an economic price for their produce such as corn, rice, soybeans, rabbit, sheep and goats, eve in village markets. The farmers are forced to pay heavily for inputs - expensive imported fertilisers and pesticides and often seeds. Usually they recieve less for their produce. Food prices for the consumers do not fall though, rural people suffer despite increases in production and there is significant deterioration in living standards, primarily amongst the rural poor. As a result countless farmers are forced to move to already overburdened cities to eke out some form of living. Thus local agriculture is destroyed, domestic food production is shattered and the food security of the country is seriously comprimised. This can be seen all over Africa.
Ironically I heard a report today that stated that the demographic shift has now happened in Africa with as many in cities as out.
4. The 'development' of countries where technology driven business enter and caputre the market but the ability of countries to export products is inhibited and barred from US markets. People think that this is all free market but in actual fact the state is deeply involved in shutting off some trade while promoting its own corporations and interests. This is why the WTO and IMF exist and also why someone like Clinton (thats right Clinton the god of the left in the USA) shut down a good candidate from Thailand from heading the WTO.
*Andrew Simms head of the GEP at NEF
5. Tarriffs in the USA and the EU on Rice, Sugar, Coffee, groundnuts with a tarriff of 100% and of course all of this is not just Africa.
Just take a look at the history of haiti.
6. AGOA, Africa Growth and opportunity Act signed into law by GWB in 2001. Supposedly allows duty and quota free access for their products to the American market in exchange for certain concessions to the US and its firms. So what do the African countries get? The US grants access only to certain products that won't negatively affect the US, that means coffee and sugar and other things Africa would really want to export. Or lets look at AGOA duty free access to African textiles and clothing but only products using fabric and yarns produced in the US will have easy access. Products from materals in Africa will be subject to sever contraints. They can withdraw these benefits at any time and raise limits at any time. Being forced to use American raw materials means that they can't compete and so other industries are destroyed.
For doing this and getting all those benefits what does Africa have to do? Eliminate all tarriffs to US products. Open up all markets and regulation to US firms and support all trade and IP laws. Guarantee a minimum wage for child workers and not encourage anything against US foreign policy.
And hell this is scratching the surface of how we in the west are messing with Africa. I'm not saying there isn't a way out, African Countries that are getting rid of their despots are getting smart and playing fast with their trade and developing but they are fighting an uphill battle against the way the act. As long as the AU is dominated by despots like Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo and Zuma as well as all the other assorted idiots I don't have that much faith with the majority of Africa getting out from under the conditions that the West imposes upon them.