Africa is in crisis, yet it was not always so. Following the decade of independence in the 1960s there was widespread optimism, but this almost totally disappeared in the 1980s and 1990s. Africa is faced with seemingly insurmountable problems: economic marginalisation from the global market, a major health crisis stemming from the destructive effects of malaria and HIV/AIDS and chronic political instability after a string of devastating civil wars. Keep following as I drop pinpoints/key issues in African development, the pitfalls of democratisation, political economy and international relation