To complete this step, your essay and research should, at the very least, include answers, rationales, and insights into the following questions regarding your country:
VI. Major Economic Features
Current demographic and economic features:
What is the population of your country?
What are the major natural resources and the major features of the economy? Is the economy driven by the export of minerals and raw materials, agriculture, significant industries, or a mixture of these? What are the main exports and imports?
Which countries are its largest trading partners? Is the country a member of regional or continental African trading blocs?
What are major livelihood strategies, formal and informal, in both rural and urban settings? In other words, how do people in your country make a living?
Economic policies:
How did colonial policies impact your country’s current economic conditions?
How has domestic economic policy since independence shaped the country?
How have international economic forces shaped your country’s economy? For example, has your country been impacted by World Bank or International Monetary Fund programs? Do international trade agreements impact your country?
Basic economic indicators:
What is the current Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and Gross National Product (GNP)? What is the significance of these numbers.
What is the unemployment rate?
What is the poverty rate?
What is the foreign debt?
What do all these different economic indicators show about the state of the economy in your country?
