Poverty means more crime  Despite many problems that Africa has to face, one of the biggest is its extreme poverty. Currently more than 48.5% of the population of Sub-Saharan Africa lives on less than 1.25 dollars a day (1). As a result of this poverty people’s security is being threatened on two main levels.  On the first level of analysis, poverty can lead to crime. Poverty can create desperation to provide for family or yourself. As poverty is widespread in Africa, there are many people who are willing to steal, threaten, abduct or kill someone, in order to have something to eat. At 17.4 per 100,000 citizens, more than double the world average, Africa has the highest homicide rate among all regions of the world.(2) The other side of this is that a poor state can’t provide the level of policing that richer states can, a people in poverty usually results in a poor government. This in turn means that the police force is small, badly trained and underfunded so not fit for preventing crime.  On the second level of analysis, desperate people are much easier to manipulate. This makes them easy targets for military groups in Africa who are searching for members to fight for their causes. It is not coincidental that we have so many militias and juntas in Africa, such as Somali Pirates, AQAP, AQIM, Al-Shabab, Touareg( Mali), Boko Haram(Nigeria), M23 and dozens of others. The militias offer those in poverty what they need most, food, shelter, and protection in return for their “services”. Poverty provides an additional benefit for these groups due to the stark difference between potential reward, such as from piracy or winning control of mines, and a normal income. As with the drugs trade the lure of the fast buck can be used to encourage risk-taking.  In conclusion, poverty both enables crime and encourages militia groups.  (1) The World Bank, ‘Poverty’, data.worldbank.org, 2013,   (2) Me, Angela, et al., ‘2011 Global Study on Homicide trends, contexts, data’, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes, 2011,