textbook part 3

Question 1

Economic support

Answer 1

Two types of intervention are particularly significant drivers of economic development: trade and investment.

Question 2

Trade

Answer 2

• increased trade can give less-developed countries a leg up.
• That is, provided the terms of trade are favourable and that the strategy is to encourage exports rather than imports.
• There are many different forms of trade intervention, some of which have the potential to help the least-development countries
• However, some - notably embargoes and sanctions - can be used to force “bad’ regimes to change.
• This was the case with South Africa during the Apartheid years (1948-94) and more recently with Iran because of its violation of the Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

Question 3

Main types of trade intervention

Answer 3

Tariffs - Taxes levied on imports
Quotas - Exchange rates
Restrictions on imports - Deliberate lowering to increase the competitiveness of either imports or exports
Trade blocs - Free trade between member countries
Embargoes - Bans on trade in specified commodities
Sanctions - Restrictions on trade imposed by countries against others for political reasons

Question 4

Some particularly successful trade interventions include:

Answer 4

• the setting up and workings of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), a regional agreement relating to free trade and economic co-operation
• the Fairtrade Foundation, which seeks to obtain a fair price for a wide range of goods exported by developing countries
• the Doha Development Agenda, aimed at lowering trade barriers, for example by allowing agricultural products from developing countries to enter the EU and the USA in return for opening their doors to manufactured goods and services.

Despite these forward steps, Figure 12.2 shows just how far both Africa and South America remain outside the loop so far as trade is concerned.

Question 5

Investment
As with trade, investment is largely undertaken for ulterior economic motives, such as:

Answer 5

securing primary resources
facilitating private investment
providing technical know-how.

Question 6

However, there may well be beneficial spin-offs from the resulting economic development.
These would include

Answer 6

improved living standards and the provision of better education and healthcare rather than improved recognition of human rights.

Question 7

Military intervention

Answer 7

• range from training and equipping a developing country’s armed forces, through sending troops to help deal with insurgents and terrorists, to all-out military occupation.
• All three of these mechanisms - development aid, economic support and military action - can be, and are, used to make interventions on behalf of human rights and human development.
• However, matters are not always transparent when it comes to looking at the motives and reasons.

Question 8

International intervention players In addition to those of individual governments, geopolitical interventions are also made by:

Answer 8

IGOs, such as the UN, EU, World Bank and WTO
NGOs, such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

Question 9

IGOS- One more might be added to the list:

Answer 9

Five IGOs with an interest in human development were introduced in Table 10.7 (page 187): the World Bank, WTO, IMF, UNESCO and OECD.
One more might be added to the list: the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).
Given that there are so many IGOs operating in the development arena, there is occasionally a sense of competition between some of them, which is no surprise when consensus may be lacking.

Question 10

Amnesty International

Answer 10

1961

• Founded in the UK and focused on the investigation and exposure of human rights abuses around the world.
• Takes on both governments and powerful bodies, such as major companies.
• Today it combines its considerable international reputation with the voices of grassroots activists on the spot to ensure that the UDHR is fully implemented.
• It also provides education and training so that people are made aware of their rights.

Question 11

Human Rights Watch

Answer 11

• 1978
• Founded under the name of Helsinki Watch to monitor the former Soviet Union’s compliance with the Helsinki Accord (aimed at reducing Cold War tensions).
• Like Amnesty International it is constantly on the lookout for violations of the UDHR.
• It is not frightened to name and shame non-compliant governments through media coverage and direct exchanges with policymakers.

Question 12

Oxfam

Answer 12

• 1942
• Founded in the UK to help deal with the hunger and starvation that prevailed during the Second World War.
• Today it has three main targets:
  1. development work aimed at lifting people out of poverty and improving health (safe water and sanitation):
  2. assisting those affected by conflicts and natural disasters;
  3. campaigning on a range of issues, from women’s rights to the resolution of conflicts.

Question 13

Médicins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders,
MSF)

Answer 13

1971
- Founded in France with the belief that all people have the right to medical care regardless of race, religion or political persuasion.
- Today it provides healthcare and medical training in about 70 countries and has a reputation for providing emergency aid in conflict zones.
- It remains independent of any economic, political or religious infiuences.

Question 14

dates of NGOs

Answer 14

Human Rights Watch - 1978

Oxfam - 1942

Médicins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders,
MSF) - 1971

Question 15

NGOS

Answer 15

For the most part, these are charities. They are free to act and are not subject to government intervention.
They fall broadly into two groups:
Those concerned primarily with human rights (for example Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch).
Those more focused on human development and aid, including emergency aid in response to natural disasters (for example Oxfam, Médicins Sans Frontières).

Question 16

The range of development aid
The nature of development aid was examined in Section 12.1. All that is necessary here is to stress that it is a broad term covering a range of interventions.

They vary:

Answer 16

• in scale, from installing a village well to constructing a vast irrigation project
  financially, from a small charitable gift to a global appeal raising millions of pounds
• in timescale, from short term (for example, emergency aid) to long term (for example, disease-eradication programmes)
• in the mix of aid providers, from local charities to major IGO and NGO players.
• most development aid is aimed at human development.
• Safeguarding human rights and improving human welfare are more specific but recurrent targets.
• In many instances, development aid has an economic dimension, in that the creation of regular employment is thought to be an important portal to a better standard of living.
• A look at Haiti provides an opportunity to see the major aid players (IGOs and NGOs) in action.

Question 17

Positive impacts of development aid

Answer 17

The case of Haiti is certainly a disappointing one but, happily, development aid has had its successes, both on a global scale as well as in specific parts of the world.

Question 18

Haiti as a country

Answer 18

Haiti in the Caribbean is one of the poorest countries in the world. Indeed, it is the poorest country in the western hemisphere.
Around four in every five Haitians live on less than US$2 a day; nearly one-third of adults are illiterate.

Question 19

During the last 200 years, Haiti has suffered from:

Answer 19

• exploitation of its resources and people by foreign companies and business interests
• massive violations of civil rights by a succession of dictatorships
• widespread corruption
• a highly polarised society, with one per cent of the population controlling nearly half of the country’s wealth
• large-scale emigration
• poor healthcare and lethal outbreaks of contagious diseases
• a high level of aid dependency.

Question 20

Haiti part 1

Answer 20

Between 1990 and 2009, Haiti received aid amounting to well over US$5 billion, most of it coming from the USA, Canada and the EU.
Little seems to have resulted from this.
The parlous state of Haiti continues to make it particularly vulnerable to any economic downturn or hazard.
The most recent hazard to hit Haiti was a 7.0-magnitude earthquake on 12 January 2010. Its epicentre was located near the capital Port-au-Prince (Figure 12.3).

Question 21

haiti part 2

Answer 21

• At least 230,000 people were killed (more than by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami).
• The death toll may have exceeded 300,000: poor record keeping and the need to bury bodies immediately may be partly to blame for the imprecision.
• More than 300,000 people were injured.
• Nearly 200,000 dwellings were badly damaged and 100,000 were completely destroyed (Figure 12.4).
• Around 1.5 million people were displaced from their homes, many taking refuge in emergency camps that were at risk from storms, flooding and contagious diseases, most notably cholera

Question 22

Global appeals for help were soon being answered:

Answer 22

• Within months Haiti’s plight had generated aid pledges valued at over £12 billion.
• As of 2015, five years after the earthquake, only half the promised aid had been received.
• Over 500,000 victims were still living in temporary shelters without electricity, plumbing or sewerage.
• A prolonged outbreak of cholera was caused by the failure to provide proper sanitation.
• By then Haiti’s aid programme should have moved on from emergency relief and reconstruction to longer-term objectives, such as dealing with serious human rights abuses, corruption, poor governance and poverty.

Question 23

It is sobering to realise how little the needy people of Haiti have benefited from the huge outpouring of goodwill, donations and offers of help that immediately followed the earthquake. So, what lies behind this?
What lessons are to be learnt?

Answer 23

• Too many unqualified and small-scale NGO relief organisations and charities were involved in the relief effort.
• Many had no language skills or interpreters, or any previous experience of working in a developing country.
• Many aid pledges were never fulfilled.
• It may be that a longstanding track record of corruption discouraged some donors from delivering what they had promised in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake.
• The Haitian military had little experiencing of dealing with such an emergency or of co-ordinating a relief effort.
• Too much was left for outsiders to organise and implement.
• Aid was unequally distributed, being too focused on the emergency camps and on the ‘safe’ parts of Port-au-Prince.
• Rural areas were largely ignored.
• The weak Haitian government was rather left outside the loop by the major aid players, such as the UN agencies, MSF, Oxfam, Christian Aid and the Red Cross.
• Politics also got in the way. For example, much of the US aid funding was hindered by US regulations limiting the spending to US products, materials and employees.
• All had to be transported to Haiti, inevitably raising the costs.
• Had the US money been spent locally it might have helped to stimulate the Haitian economy.

Question 24

Progress in the fight against disease:

Answer 24

• development aid has been targeted at healthcare.
• One highly contagious disease - small pox - has been eliminated as a result of global vaccination campaigns, and another - polio - nearly so.
• Success in the human battle against infectious diseases has not been universal, however.
• A number of diseases that once prevailed throughout the world have largely been eradicated in developed countries but still persist in developing countries.
• Examples of such diseases are cholera and typhoid.

Question 25

Malaria

Answer 25

• Despite advances in the fight against the disease, malaria remains the world’s number one killer
  -Up to 2 million people still die each year from malaria and its complications.

Question 26

The battle against malaria has been fought on three fronts:

Answer 26

1. Draining the swampy areas where the Anopheles mosquito (the carrier of the disease) breeds, or spraying those areas with DDT or similar chemicals.
2. Encouraging those at risk to take preventive medicine; these drugs do not cure the disease - they simply reduce the risks of contracting it.
3. Distributing mosquito nets for people to sleep under; people are most likely to be bitten when they are asleep.

Question 27

Development aid has done much over the years to make both ..

Answer 27

anti-malarial drugs and mosquito nets freely available.
Certainly, the mortality rate due to malaria has come down.
In 2015 there was the exciting news that a malaria vaccine was undergoing trials and was soon expected to be licensed.
An important player in improving health and healthcare is education.
Teaching basics such as personal hygiene and the critical need for safe water and proper sanitation can do so much to contain killer contagious diseases such as cholera and typhoid.

Question 28

Success with poverty and human rights?

Answer 28

• Thanks to the stimulus provided by the MDGs, the number of people living in extreme poverty has declined from 1.9 billion in 1990 to 836 million in 2015.
• Fifteen per cent of the population still live on less than US$1.25 a day.
• Human development aid can only do so much; the pathway out of poverty and hunger comes from economic development.
• It would be fair to say that progress on human rights has been slow.
• Certainly, development aid has had some success - for example, in terms of improving respect for gender equality and access to primary education - but the slow rate of progress is not the fault of development.
• Rather, it is the difficulty of changing mindsets that have become deeply engrained over the centuries.
• It should also be pointed out that conflict is a particular scourge of human rights.
• It is at times of conflict that abuses of human rights thrive.
• Unfortunately, today’s world is witness to increasing levels of conflict, based mainly on religious and tribal affiliations.
• As an example, the rise and spread of IS now threatens to reverse 50 years of development in Asia

Question 29

Growing concerns about development aid

Answer 29

• Aid in the form of capital grants and loans is seen to be inappropriate by some.
• They argue that it is better to donate technical assistance and skills training.
• In some countries there is concern about the size of the aid budget.
• The UK is no exception here. The current aid budget is now over £12 billion.
• This figure is criticised from two sides, as being either too much or too little.

Question 30

criticism about the actual distribution of aid.

Answer 30

• For example, up until 2015 a large amount of the UK’s aid went to India, but India is a much-lauded emerging economy.
• Are there not other countries more in need of aid?
• Another concern is that too much aid money is being spent on the military and syphoned off to fill the pockets of corrupt officials in receiver countries
• As a consequence, even less is being directed towards the poor, minority groups and human rights.
• Development aid is thought to encourage aid dependency rather than economic progress.
• Inflows of aid make governments economically lazy and encourage corruption.

Question 31

Negative impacts of economic intervention:

Answer 31

• The record of interventions of a more economic nature certainly shows some positives in the form of jobs and taxes.
• However, foreign direct investment from the developed world and the presence of TNCs are guilty of generating some serious negatives, not least of which is that profits leak back to company headquarters in the developed world.
• More specific negatives relate to the environment, minority groups and human rights.

All three are illustrated by events in the Niger Delta of Nigeria (West Africa).

Question 32

Oil in the Niger Delta

Answer 32

• Oil was discovered in the Niger Delta some 40 years ago
• Royal Dutch Shell is the largest oil company working the oilfields and obtains about 10% of its crude oil supply from them.
• The Nigerian government earns some £10 billion a year from oil revenues.
• All this sounds very positive.
• However, for those people who live on the delta, the situation is definitely not so good.

Question 33

Damage to the environment and human health:

Answer 33

• The production of oil is having a devastating effect on Nigeria’s largest wetland region, its wildlife and its inhabitants.
• Human health is threatened by the pollution of air, water and farmland by many unattended oil spills, as well as by gas flares and frequent fires.

Question 34

Minorities:

Answer 34

• Local people have benefited little if at all from the oil industry.
• Rather, they have had to suffer its negative impact on their traditional means of livelihood, fishing and farming.
• Roads remain poor; schools and medical services are grossly underfunded.
• The root of the problem is that the population of the delta is made up of several minority ethnic groups, while the oil revenues derived from the delta are largely in the hands of the major ethnic group, the Yoruba.
• The Yoruba attitude is to keep these minorities poor and powerless.

Question 35

Human rights

Answer 35

• It is small wonder that a number of militant groups have formed to pressure both the government and the oil companies to compensate them for the loss of farmland and the health risks, and to share the delta’s wealth.
• Putting a stop to the appalling environmental pollution is no less a need.
• Tensions are rising and outbreaks of violent protest are increasing, so too are the kidnappings of foreign oil company workers and incidents of ‘oil bunkering (illegally taking oil from pipelines and selling it abroad).
• Reference has already been made to corruption in the context of humanitarian aid.
• It also flourishes in economic development.
• Bribes are offered for a variety of different reasons and are also given in different forms: usually cash but sometimes land.
• Land grabbing is a symptom of bribery and corruption.

Question 36

Land grabbing:

Answer 36

A contentious issue involving the acquisition of large areas of land in developing countries by domestic and transnational companies, governments and individuals. In some instances, land is simply taken over and not paid for.

Question 37

Land grabs in Kenya:

Answer 37

Since the 1980s, land has become a currency of political patronage among Kenya’s elite.
Large tracts of public land have been illegally or irregularly acquired.
Land grabbing is the name given to this irregular privatisation of public land.
President Moi started the land grabbing during his long term of office (1978-2002) as a resource to use as bribes.
Despite subsequent moves to contain it, the practice continues.
Today’s land grabbers are high-profile officials in the government.
These land grabs have serious impacts on public finances, development opportunities and land pricing (Figure 12.10).
The pressure on land is considerable in a country where 85 per cent of the population relies on agriculture for its livelihood.
Tensions are increased by the fact that 88 per cent of the population have access to less than three hectares of land.
Tensions over land also simmer among minority ethnic groups, who are excluded from land ownership.
The late president Jomo Kenyatta, a founding father of post-colonial Kenya, once said: ‘Our greatest asset in Kenya is our land.
This is the heritage we received from our forefathers. In land lies our salvation and survival.*
It is a pity that more heed is not being taken of these wise words.
Land grabs are putting Kenya’s survival as a fairly stable state in jeopardy.
Finally, it should be noted that Kenya is not the only country experiencing land grabbing; there are plenty of examples from nearby Uganda and Zimbabwe.