fossils, glaciers, and complementary coastlines
One responsibility that is not a responsibility of a county government is to "C regulate local national guard," since this is in fact a responsibility of the larger state itself.
Drought and desertification are closely related phenomena. Persisting over months or years, drought can affect large areas and may have serious environmental, social and economic impacts. While drought is a natural phenomenon, whose impacts can be exacerbated by human activities that are not adapted to the local climate, land degradation is the process of turning fertile land into less or non-productive land. In extreme cases in drylands this is called desertification. Land degradation and desertification are complex phenomena driven by un-adapted human activity in combination with land and climatic constraints. Inappropriate land use, such as monocultures, and unsustainable land management practices, such as deforestation, unsuitable agricultural practices and overexploitation of water resources), can cause land degradation that can be further aggravated by drought.
The second assumption is that there is something exceptional about Africa, that while other continents and peoples have got or are getting richer, Africans, for reasons we can think but no longer speak in polite company, choose to remain in poverty. Our capacity to see Africa as divergent lets us off the hook so we don’t have to understand our own complicity in the challenges various African countries face today. It also means we rarely rage as we should against the actions of the corporations and governments that profit from instability, corruption or even inexperience (African negotiators at the climate talks have historically been disadvantaged by their lack of experience and the expectation among western negotiators that they should be grateful with whatever they get).
If there is, then, no innate propensity for corruption, violence or poverty in Africa, then the narratives that fuel the stereotypes need questioning. One possible explanation comes from the Nigerian author Chinua Achebe, who said: “The west seems to suffer deep anxieties about the precariousness of its civilisation and to have a need for constant reassurance by comparison with Africa.” Perhaps it’s not Africa that needs saving, but us.
