To understand why Africa remains poor or is not growing as fast as it could economically, we need to study the impact of politics and culture on economic activity in the continent. This will tell us more about underdevelopment than straight economic analysis focusing on such matters as macroeconomic management and international trade relations. Macroeconomics can tell us what Africans are doing wrong with regards to boosting economic growth but it does not tell us why they behave in ways that undermine their ability to achieve their material potentials.

One of the ironies of Africa's situation is that some of the cultural characteristics for which African societies are lauded by nationalists are major factors in the economic paralysis affecting the continent. One example of this is communalism, which is often praised in Africa and counter-posed to the individualism of western civilisation, but is one of the biggest cultural obstacles in economic evolution in the continent. I realise this is a controversial statement, especially given that most contemporary African political thinkers have identified communalism as the main foundation of traditional society, while admonishing individualism in the Western cultures as the main driving force of western imperialism.

By communalism I mean the strong identity with and devotion to the interests of one's own minority or ethnic group rather those of society as a whole. It is a form of nationalism at the sub-national level. Communalism is based on the assumption of common identity - belief that people belong to specific groups, sharing history, language, culture and historic space. Membership of the group is strictly determined by the criteria that define the community and afford members rights and loyalty. Like nationalism, communalism often extends from mere affirmation of the dignity of one's own 'people' to the proclamation of their superiority and the denial of the claims and needs of others.

These outsiders invariably become viewed as or view themselves as enemies. There is an understanding that belonging to the community/ethnic group comes with birthrights and entitlements unavailable to others. As a member I have a special right to those things that belong to the community, for instance, precious resources found within the space of the community, even though these sources of wealth are not products of my labour.

Although communalists may welcome strangers into their community, they will not integrate or assimilate outsiders, no matter how long they stay. No matter how many years or generations a non-Yoruba family resides in a Yoruba community they will always be considered to be non-indigene, to use a term familiar in Nigeria. Much of the recent bloody ethnic conflicts between 'indigenes' and 'settlers' in central Nigeria have pitted peoples who have lived alongside each other for generations.

There is a belief that others ought to be elsewhere - they should not share our space, the land that belong to 'our people' and the civic arena in which we achieve our destiny, especially in times of material scarcity and political uncertainty. And if we allow them to share of physical space, it is under our terms or those prescribed by tradition.

Communalism obstructs modern economic development in a number of ways. Firstly, it constrains the free movement of factors of production, especially labour and capital. Understandably, people are not inclined to move to or stay in places where the locals have a strong sense of communalism. They do not want to be treated as second-class citizens or denied the possibility of integration. It is often difficult for outsiders to acquire property, especially land, within insular communities and where property is obtainable, ownership or rental rights are often circumvented by the community's claims of traditional precedence.

Under such circumstances outsiders will be disinclined to make long-term investments in the community. Just as little foreign direct investment flow into countries where investors are not confident of the safety of their capital or their ability to carry out business without unnecessary restrictions, internal investment does not flow to areas of a country where outsiders face social and cultural restraints that limit their potential to succeed and to reap the benefits of their success. For instance, an entrepreneur is unlikely to set up his first factory in a place where his property rights are not protected under both the law and traditional custom and where his future as a citizen is not secure. In many parts of Africa ethnic minority businesspeople tend to limit themselves to trading and rarely venture to invest their profits in establishing immobile assets. It is not difficult to understand why, given their vulnerability to physical attacks by host communities.

Much as been written about the lack of integration of African economies into the global economy, and little said of the lack of internal integration within African nations. The latter is more important in many respects as it is a precursor to the former. Lack of internal integration is a major obstacle to economic development. The evolutionary nature of economic development anywhere in the world involves integration and mobility of resources. The division of labour necessary for wealth creation on a grand scale is not achievable without them.

The tendency is for factors of production, including physical and human capital, to flow to the same places, and as a consequence economic activity tends to be highly concentrated. This is the case whether the arena is the world, a country, region, state or a community. Development is never evenly spread - some areas attract more capital and labour than others, so there is invariably some concentration of wealth and poverty. For instance, counties covering two percent of US land area account for half of the countries GDP. Most of the new industrial wealth created in China over the past two decades has occurred mainly in a few coastal areas of this vast country. The people who spearhead wealth creation in relatively prosperous regions, such as entrepreneurs and skilled labour, are usually not mainly natives but often outsiders attracted to the areas because of the material advantages they holds.

Wealth tends also to be concentrated in certain ethnic groups. For instance in the US, African-Americans earn 41 percent less than whites; Hispanic earn 31 percent less; while Asians earn 16 percent more. The percentage of Jews in the Forbes 400 richest Americans is greatly larger than the two percent of the US population that is Jewish. In the Gambia a tiny ethnic group, Serahule, dominate business out of all proportion to their numbers. Overseas Chinese are strong in business activities in Southeast Asia.

It is also the tendency for investors and firms from small regions to invest relatively more abroad than those from large ones. Competent entrepreneurs and firms in small regions set up business in larger regions to take advantage of the larger markets. The relatively small size of markets in their home economies drives them to expand into other communities. People also move out of their home regions and set up in 'foreign' communities because they want to break away from the cultural and social restraints which limit their potential for individual self-actualisation. On an international level, the new Outward FDI Performance Index of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development shows that the top outward investors are relatively small countries such as Hong Kong, Switzerland, Singapore and Belgium. Large economies, like the United States, though major outward investors in absolute terms, invest little abroad in relation to the size of their economies.

Just as it is within the world economy, factors of production tend to flow within nations to areas that are already relatively well endowed with the resources. Wealthy regions become wealthier and poor regions become relatively poorer. The flow of economic resources across borders, national, regional, state or community, creates a concentration of investment that reach a critical mass that lead to economic take-off. Once an area becomes the focus of attraction for investment it develops a location advantage over other areas, in terms of conditions conducive to production, such as infrastructure, output costs, supply chains, market size and infrastructure and technological support.

As with globalisation, domestic integration, i.e., the removal of cultural and social barriers to the movement of resources, including capital, labour and ideas, within a nation may result in some regions becoming wealthier faster than other regions but all parts of the country are likely to gain from the process.

Knocking down barriers separating communities within African countries is a daunting task facing governments which need to enforce laws that protect individual property rights. As poverty becomes more endemic in a community people become more susceptible to ethnic nationalism, spurred by the belief that as a group they stand a better chance to lay claim to the available scarce resources - they favour the interests of 'us' over those of 'them'.

Facing a growth in ethnic nationalism, many African governments have tended to pander to ethnic nationalism, and try to accommodate the demands of the contending groups. It is a policy doomed to failure since no matter how you divide the cake there is simply not enough to go round. What needs to be done is to enlarge the cake and this require opening up society to enable resources to freely move to places and into hands where they will be used most productively.

Communities that are hostile to outsiders are unlikely to prosper. It is often outsiders, not locals, who identify economic opportunities and invest in their development. Without internal integration in Africa there is little prospect of industrialisation and rapid poverty reduction. Resources must free to move to where they will be most efficiently utilised - this requiring protection of private property rights without regard to race, ethnicity or communal origin. People should be free to live where they believe they will be able to best pursue their self-interest, whether as consumer or producer. Individual freedom is not only good for economic development, more importantly, it is ethically good. Barriers that separate human beings - religion, race, community, nation, etc., are invariably harmful.