The government planned projects to cultivate unused land and to modernize farming methods. These projects were also aimed at providing jobs for war veterans. The government also planned to develop the nation's mineral resources with the mining of bauxite, copper, phosphates, zinc, and other minerals. Because of political instability and a shortage of trained workers, the government has had little initial success in carrying out these plans. Guinea-Bissau has few paved roads.
Rivers serve as a chief means of transportation.
The nation has several small airfields. Many groups of black Africans lived in what is now Guinea-Bissau before Portuguese explorers arrived in 1446. From the 1600's to the 1800's, the Portuguese used the region as a base for the slave trade. The region became a Portuguese colony called Portuguese Guinea in 1879. It became an overseas province of Portugal in 1951.