Differences in focuses of development Flashcards
Development aid in Haiti?
Following the 2010 Earthquake, roughly 222,500 Haitians were confirmed to have been killed with over 300,000 injured, 200,00 buildings damaged or destroyed and 1.5 million people displaced.
Haiti was already reliant on aid - receiving $5bn per year from the US, EU and Canada.
One of the main issues with the response to the earthquake was that there were so many small, unqualified NGOs which meant a lot of the aid money was spent on their salaries, accommodation, translators and transport rather than on reconstruction efforts
Only 40% of the $5.6bn pledged by foreign governments to be used within the first 18 months had been dispersed by September 2011.
Only 2.3% of reconstruction aid went to Haitian firms
Only $106 million of £225 million in private donations made it to Haitian relief projects
Unequal distribution of aid - typically supplied to safer areas in Port-au-Prince rather than the rural areas where more aid was needed.
The help of Christian Aid and local youth workers who rescued people from under the rubble and provided food to help keep the economy afloat.
The response was seen as a general failure as 2 years later 500,000 Haitians still lived in emergency camps where 7000 had been killed and many more infected by cholera.
Development aid and the ebola outbreak in West Africa
The Ebola Outbreak of December 2014 had killed nearly 12,000 people after 18 months. In response, the UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response, NGOs (such as MSF) and the UK - Who donated £230 million helped to:
- Inform people about the disease
- Locating and monitoring those who have been in contact with patients
- Establishing 3 Ebola laboratories as well as 6 facilities which trained 800 health workers per week
- Organising transport of medical supplies and personnel
This contributed to the Region of West Africa becoming Ebola-free by 2016.
Development aid and Malaria Vaccines
After successful trials between 2019 and 2021, over 6 million does of the RTSAS malaria vaccine have been administered by October 2023. The vaccine is most effective in combination with nets treated with insecticides. It ahs helped people economically as the cost of dealing with malaria is estimated to be £39 per 3 months - unaffordable in some of the least developed countries.
The US is the number 1 bilateral funder of anti-malarial efforts in Africa. it is believed that cuts to their aid budget could lead to 15 million additional cases and 107,000 more deaths worldwide.
Development aid in Botswana
Botswana has the second-highest prevalence of HIV/AIDS in the world. UN estimates that 1.3 of adults in Botswana have HIV or have developed AIDS. Development aid has stimulated economic growth allowing for the development of anti-retroviral drugs.
Botswana is the World’s fastest growing economy with a per capita income of $7500 largely due to its diamond reserves ( possibly the reason for it being a destination for development aid) which account for 1/3 of its GDP and 3/4 of its exports.
Despite this:
- Homosexuality is criminalised
- The country has had one political party in power for 40 years which controls the media, preventing the opposition from getting an equal footing
- The government is accused of dispossessing the land of Indigenous groups to mine for diamonds.
Oil extraction in the Niger Delta
Oil in the Niger Delta earns Nigeria roughly $10 bn per year (in 2003 the Shell Petroleum Development Company extracted 1 million barrels per day). However, the extraction of oil has had major impacts including:
- Drinking water in the Niger Delta contains 900x higher levels of carcinogens than what the WHO deems safe. This water is then absorbed by crops
- 10% loss of native mangroves
- Spills from pipelines reduce soil quality and destroy aquatic environments which 75% of the Nigerian population relies on for agriculture and fishing.
- Gas flaring produces lots of heat, noise and light - causing sleep deprivation in local communities as well as the CO₂ ( a greenhouse gas) and SO₂ (causing respiratory problems, skin and eye irritation and acid rain which damages agriculture and corrodes roofs made of corrugated iron)
It is believed that there are 240,000 barrels of oil spilt per year along the Niger Delta. Shell claims that 98% of these are due to saboteurs who look to reduce Shell’s profits and sell oil themselves.
in 1990, Kensaro Wiwa led the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) by conducting non-violent protests against oil extraction. He and 8 associates were killed by the Nigerian government in 1995.
In September 2008, a significant pipeline broke which wasn’t fixed until November. It is believed that every day it wasn’t fixed, 200 barrels of oil spilt on the Delta.
