Pathways For Prevention: Disentangling Causal Relationships Of Preventable Mortality and Forced Migration In Post-Colonial Africa

If humanity consensually agrees that innocent children should be spared the ravages of violence, political murder is not a reasonable means of debate, and that no person should be led to starvation at gunpoint, then we must also agree that humanity has failed modern Africa.  This research summary points to a volume of historical evidence linking a host of independent factors that consistently predict higher rates of preventable mortality from violence, starvation, and disease across sub-Saharan nations.  A wide-angle view of dictatorship and resource exploitation in the independence era (1957-1980) set in motion the foundation for modern conflicts that continue to brutalize millions of Africans.  Sadly, violence, starvation, disease and other preventable mortality causes are easily predictable, yet continuously occur across many parts of Africa.  A second function of this research summary is to highlight causal pathways between extant social, geographical, economic, and agricultural indicators and the increased likelihood of forced migrations and preventable fatalities.  If scholars can disentangle the cause and effect relationships that have resulted in millions of lost African lives decade after decade, local and global society will be best prepared to prevent similar catastrophes in the future.