Why is there a development gap?

Why is there a development gap?

Is it because of deficiencies in some parts of the world and what they may have to survive without? Any thoughts?

..\Year Folders\New courses\A2\Bridging the development gap\8 millennium goals V2.ppt

2009 UN Report on the progress made since 2000 – check this out; it will help understand causes, effects and responses

http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/pdf/MDG_Report_2009_ENG.pdf

But are these causes or mere symptoms of poverty and the development gap

Perhaps we need to examine why these deficiencies are so inadequate in many parts of the world

Is it due to debt, brought about by huge capital loans that poor countries have failed to service effectively?

“Debt is an efficient tool. It ensures access to other peoples’ raw materials and infrastructure on the cheapest possible terms. The IMF cannot seem to understand that investing in healthy, well-fed, literate population … is the most intelligent economic choice a country can make”.

— Susan George, A Fate Worse Than Debt, (New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1990), pp. 143, 187, 235

“Debt is an efficient tool. It ensures access to other peoples’ raw materials and infrastructure on the cheapest possible terms. The IMF cannot seem to understand that investing in healthy, well-fed, literate population … is the most intelligent economic choice a country can make”.

— Susan George, A Fate Worse Than Debt, (New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1990), pp. 143, 187, 235

Structural Adjustment Policies (SAPs) have been imposed to ensure debt repayment and economic restructuring.

But the way it has happened has required poor countries to reduce spending on things like health, education and development, while debt repayment and other economic policies have been made the priority.

See text book pages 186 and 203

Structural Adjustment Policies (SAPs) have been imposed to ensure debt repayment and economic restructuring.

But the way it has happened has required poor countries to reduce spending on things like health, education and development, while debt repayment and other economic policies have been made the priority.

See text book pages 186 and 203

Maybe it’s the neo-colonialists in Africa that are resource asset stripping!

But is debt a cause of the development gap?

Some argue debt has merely made it more difficult for countries to escape poverty – it has effectively maintained a global development gap not caused it per se

What role do corrupt governments play? Think about Kenya a few years ago (What did Johan Norberg argue?) or Nigeria now? Shell has now apologised for turning a blind eye!

And what about Rwanda - the genocide of the early 1990s? Or perhaps the Darfur conflict currently?

Have TNCs partly caused the gap? But how? Think back to John Pilger’s documentary and what was going on in Indonesia in 1960s.

Our study of colonialism and ‘development theory’ suggests colonialists exploited their colonies - keeping them poor by preventing them from investing in home-based manufacturing and by using tariffs to prevent cheap imports.

And isn’t this going on today? How do tariffs in the US or EU keep poor countries from developing economically?

And what about the role of subsidies in rich countries? What affect do these have on local production in poor countries?

There are two important theories that help understand the history behind the development gap

The core and periphery theory and the theory of economic man - See pages 192 and 193

You will need to get to grips with these from a study of the text