Measuring and Defining Development Flashcards
1
Q
Development
A
- Positive change
- Industrial and post-industrial societies with large economies are more developed
- Agricultural or subsistence societies with low economic output are less developed
Features of more developed countries
- High income per capita
- Low unemployment rates
- Better living standards
- High literacy rates
- High level of economic growth and security
- High levels of technology and infrastructure
- Stable/good government
- Examples: USA, UK, Canada, Germany, Italy
Features of less developed countries
- High levels of poverty
- Low capita per income
- Lack of capital
- High population levels
- Massive unemployment rate
- Low literacy and school enrolment rates
- Poorly developed institutions
- Examples: Afghanistan, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Ethiopia
2
Q
The Terminology Problem
A
- Never been a consensus over what ‘development’ actually means
1) First world, second world and third world
- First world = industrialised capitalist world
↳ USA, Western Europe, Japan, Aus/NZ - Second world = industrialised communist world
↳ The Soviet Union and Eastern Europe - Third World = rest of the world
2) Brandt’s North-South Divide
- Brandt line = imaginary division which has provided a rough way of dividing all of the countries in the world
- Rich north & poor south
3) World Bank’s Economic Classifications
- Divides countries according to GNI per capita
- LLEDCs/LEDCs = low income, less economically developed countries
↳ mostly in Sub-Saharan Africa - NICs = newly industrialised countries
↳ lower middle income - mostly in Africa but includes India
↳ Upper middle income - Russia/Brazil - MEDCs = more economically developed countries
↳ high income - UK/USA
3
Q
The BRIC Nations
A
- Brazil
- Russia
- India
- China
- Have a demographic and economic potential to rank among them worlds largest and most influential economies in the 21st century
4
Q
Asian Tiger Countries
A
- Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan
- Fuelled by exports and rapid industrialisation
- Have achieved high levels of economic growth since the 1960s
- Have a sharp focus on exports
- Education population
- High saving & growth rates (became rich very fast)
- Fast industrialisation between the early 1960s and 1990s
- Productive work force
5
Q
Paul Collier - Bottom Billion
A
- East Timor, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Many African Countries
- Caught in 4, sometimes interlocking traps
- Conflict trap
- Natural resource trap
- Being landlocked
- Poor governance
- Countries can help through aid, trade, security and government
6
Q
Eduardo Galeano - A 3rd World Perspective on Development
A
- Promise of politicians that the third world will become like the first world
- If poor countries reached the levels of production. and waste of the rich countries, our planet would die
- Imposter culture: we want all the branded expensive things
- Western notion of development is that it assumed countries that are more economically developed are better
↳ using terms such as ‘undeveloped’ implies that these countries are inferior and need help, justifying intervention when this may not be wanted
Criticisms Galeano makes of ‘Western’ nations of development
- Ethnocentric: assumes LEDCs should develop in the same way as Western countries develop
- Too focused on industrialisation/economic growth but these don’t necessarily lead to social development
- Economic development can bring problems for developing countries eg population, urbanisation (slums)
- Economically developed countries have several problems too: inequality, individualisation, anomie, obesity, depression etc
7
Q
Economic Indicators of Development - GDP
A
- Gross National Product (GNP) and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) are two economic indicators
- GDP = total economic value of goods and services produced within the borders of a country in the course of a year and available for consumption in the market place
- GNP = same as above but includes the value of all services produced at home and abroad
Advantages:
- These figured provide a snapshot of which countries need to be traveled with financial aid
- GDP figures make it easy to measure the impact of social policies and certain events on economic growth
Disadvantages
- Inconsistencies in collecting data
- Neglects ‘illegal’ economies
8
Q
Social Indicators of Development
A
- Human Development Index (HDI)
- Millennium Development Goals
- Sustainable development goals
- Gini Coefficient
- Gross National Happiness (GNI)
- Gender Inequality Index (GI)
- Global Peace Index
9
Q
Human Development Index
A
- The UN use the HDI as a summary measure for assessing long-term progress
↳ three basic dimensions: a long and healthy life, access to knowledge and a decent standard of living - Measures health (life expectancy at birth), education (average number years of adult education they have received & number of expected years of education children attending school can expect), to measure standard of living (Gross National Income per capita)
Advantages
- A more human centred approach
↳ concerned more with actual human welfare than just economics - Enables aid to be targeted more effectively
Disadvantages
- Reflects long changes ie life expectancy and may not respond to recent short-term changes
10
Q
The Millennium Development Goals
A
- Eight goals to be achieved by 2015. that respond to the worlds main development challenges
- Drawn from the actions and targets contained in the Millennium Declaration that was adopted by 189 nations during the UN Millennium Summit in September 2000
- The 8 MDGs break down into 21 quantifiable targets measured by 60 indicators
- The 8 Goals: eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, achieve universal primary education, promote gender equality and empower women, reduce child mortality, improve maternal health, combat HIV/AIDs, Malaria and Other Diseases, ensure environmental stability, global partnership for development
Advantages
- World poverty has reduced by half
- Billions of people will benefit from the global economy in a more sustainable environment
Problems
- Is it measurable? How do you measure it?
- Impossible to eradicate extreme poverty/hunger
11
Q
Sustainable Development Goals
A
- 17 of them: 1) no poverty 2) zero hunger 3) good health and well-being 4) quality education 5) gender equality
- Published by the United Nations in 1987
- Developed guiding principles for sustainable development as it is generally understood today
- Critical global environmental problems were primarily the result of enormous poverty of the South and the non-sustainable patterns of consumption and production in the North
12
Q
The ‘Gini Coefficient’
A
- Intended to represent income inequalities within a nation or social group
- Compares income/wealth distribution of a population to a perfectly equal distribution
- Strengths: Representative of a population
- Limitations: Unreliable as it’s prone to random errors, low validity as it’s dependent on sample size
13
Q
Gross National Happiness
A
- Measures the well-being of a society considering healthy development of material and spiritual aspects as a whole
4 Pillars of Gross National Happiness
- Ecological sustainability
- Preservation and promotion of a free and resilient culture
- Good governance and equality before the law
- Sustainable and equitable socio-economic development
Strengths:
- All indicators have the same weight and it gives a complementary measure of wellbeing to economic growth
- The surveys are understandable for the majority of the population
Limitations:
- An excessively long survey can cause inaccurate results and the questionnaires may not collect all possible answers
- The conception of happiness is very subjective
14
Q
Gender Inequality Index
A
- Provides insights into gender disparities
- Considers statistics for a country
15
Q
Global Peace Index
A
- Reveals how much peace there is in the world on average
- Measures negative peace
Uses 3 Thematic Domains:
- Level of societal safety and security
- The extent of ongoing domestic and international conflict
- The degree of militarisation
Strengths:
- Data isn’t biased
- Shows a clear correlation between sustained peacefulness in a country and that countries level of development
- Covers a lot of indicators: you get a certain level of insight into the levels of peacefulness and violence
Limitations:
- Data may not be 100% valid: the difference in the way countries are recorded especially in war zones may mean conflicts and deaths are missing from the data
