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New York Times poll shows Africans are
happy with their lot .. for now
Washington, D.C July 25,
Ghanadot - A poll conducted by The New York Times and
the Pew Global Attitudes Project shows that Africans are
happy with their lot despite a plethora of problems on the
continent.
The poll was conducted in 10
countries in Africa - Ethiopia, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Kenya,
Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda.
New York Times called the poll
"a snapshot of 10 modern African states as they struggle to
build accountable governments, manage violent conflict and
turn their natural resources into wealth for the
population."
It said the polls offered "an
unusual and complex portrait of a continent in flux."
The report found Africans in the
countries the poll was conducted very optimistic about the
future. Seven out 10 in the population surveyed were
happy with their national governments and described their
economic circumstances as bearable.
Some said they faced some
difficult problems,"from illegal drug trafficking to
political corruption, from the lack of clean water to
inadequate schools for their children, from ethnic and
political violence to deadly disease," they report
continued.
The face to face interviews for
The New Times were conducted in April through May of 2007.
The sampling was conducted among 8,471 adults in in mostly
urban and suburban areas, except in the case of South
African where the survey was heavily urban.
The report also showed that "the
struggle for democracy and good governing in Africa is more
like a patchwork of gains and setbacks than a steady tide of
progress across a continent that has suffered some of the
worst instances of misrule. While all of the countries
polled are nominally democracies, half of them have suffered
serious rollbacks of multiparty representational government
in recent years. A majority in each country said corrupt
political leaders were a big problem."
Ghanadot, Washington, D.C
.
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