Fulltimestudent:
There are multiple factors involved in poverty.
For example: Consider the role that a disciplined elite may play in a given society. As another poster has observed elites can play a negative role, and it may take time for an elite class to change from a negative role to a positive role. In English history, if we consider the change started with the Magna Carta, how long did it take to extend the rights of the elite to the wider population?
Hold that thought for a moment, and consider the impact of European Imperialism on the development of the elite groups in any given African society. The first stage of the impact is likely to have been the destruction of a wide section of the existing elite as they resisted the European invasion. The European invasion was different to other historical invasions, where the conquerors went on to form a new elite class. In the nineteenth century examples the European power sent out administrators, who typically served their time and went home along with any wealth they managed to accumulate, often large enough to give them some additional privileges in their home nation.
Although, we can imagine there would be some formation of a local, native elite it could not develop to maturity, but would remain subservient to the European conquerors.
Further factors that could be considered include the role of wealth accumulation. The whole goal of the European conquerors would be to strip the conquered area of accumulated wealth and apply it to their own home territories. Considering the poverty of the home working classes in the 19th century, a poverty so deep that the concept of socialism/communism became attractive to the working classes, the stripped wealth was the means for European nations to edge up the economic ladder.
You could also, as a factor, include consideration of the role of superstition. Just a general note on this point. Religious superstition must, in either a negative or positive role have been a factor in the European ascent. Is there a difference in the superstitious beliefs of Eastern Europe (including Russia) and Western Europe that could explain the differences between the two areas.
Those brief thoughts require a lot expansion before you could reach conclusions, but its my attempt to demonstrate the complexity of the problem of African poverty.
But one unassailable fact should be taken into consideration - for most of human history, the bulk (80-90%) of people were peasant farmers. Government taxation and agrarian landlords were factors to be ccnsidered in the well-being (or not) of peasant farmers.
The climb to prosperity is not well understood, perhaps because a large population of middle class people is a fairly recent phenomenon.
Clearly, industrialisation played a part in the prosperity attributable to western modernity. However, poverty was still a feature of working class life until the age of social revolution in the early 20th century. (Think of the labour unrest in the USA, in the late 19th and the first half of the 20th C).
