Development and Africa

Question 1

What is development?

Answer 1

In its simplest terms , development means how rich or poor country is. Rich countries can also be named HICs (High Income Countries) and Poor countries can also be named LICs (Low Income Countriee).

Question 2

How can we judge how developed a country is?

Answer 2

We can judge how developed a country is by using data such as: the life expectancy of a country, the amount of people that can read and write (literacy rate), the percentage of the population that have access to clean water and the infant mortality rate (how many children die before their 5th birthday). These are called development indicators.

Question 3

What are biomes of Africa?

Answer 3

Biomes are regions of the world with similar climate (weather, temperature) animals and plants. The four different biomes of Africa are the savannah, dessert, semi-dessert and tropical rainforest.

Question 4

Causes of poverty.

Answer 4

1. Geographical location (landlocked) - if a country is surrounded by other countries it makes trading difficult.
2. Desertification - when the land becomes too dry it cannot be found on. This causes financial problems for farmers.
3. Debt - if countries take a loan out, they will need to meet repayments whilst also funding schools and hospitals. This can put countries in debt.
4. Conflict- - would destroy schools. Conflict also means a country memes more spending on weapons.
5. Disease - diseases such as HIV/AIDS cause sufferers to become weak and unable to work and provide for their families.

Question 5

Impacts of poverty.

Answer 5

• lack of spending on schools
• people who get I’ll cannot afford hospital treatment which can lead to death
• many children can die due to lack of medical care or maternity wards to deliver babies safely
• some children are illiterate because parents cannot afford to send their children to school
• farmers who cannot work due to illness or fighting in Conflict cannot provide food for their families or market to sell so people become malnourished
• landmines destroy land which makes it unusable for farming

Question 6

Name strategies to close the development gap.

Answer 6

Aid- Aid is when a country or NGO (non-governmental organisation e.g. Oxfam) donate resources or money to another country to help improve people’s lives

Debt relief - a group of richer countries of the world join together, named the G8, and agreed to cancel the debt of many poor countries with huge amounts of debt, many in Central Africa, but they have to agree to certain rules.

Fair trade - fairtrade sets the standards for trade with poorer countries. It’s aims to protect poor farmers that do not get a fair price for the product that is then sold on by big companies at a huge profit. e.g Coffee, cotton, bananas, chocolate, etc.

Appropriate technology - appropriate technology is sustainable technology. It is technology that is suitable for the country using it. For example they have the skills and ability to use it. It is important that this technology does not replace jobs that people do.