Economic development

• Economic development means the country is getting richer
• Measuring it:

  GNI: gross national income

  • higher the GNI the more developed a country is

  HDI: human development index

  • tells us the standard of living in a country
  • lists each country according to how wells it measures on the indicators . Shows a number between 0 and 1 , closer it is to 1 the higher the countries level of development
• GNI per capita: gross national income divided by size of population
• indicators

  1. GNI per capita: bigger the GNI the greater the potential to provide for needs
  2. education: longer people spend in school the wealthier the country
  3. life expectancy: higher The life expectancy usually means there’s access to good healthcare
• • gender equality: countries that treat people equal tend to be wealthy
  • has a separate measurement called : gender development index
• Patterns of economic development: a term used to describe where wealth is distributed on earth
• Industrialised countries

  • Ireland
  • Australia
  • USA
• newly industrialised countries

  • china
  • brazil
  • argentina
• Industrially emergent countries

  • Ethiopia
  • Peru
  • Zambia
• Industrialised regions

  • wealthy developed countries
  • have highly skilled workforce and a long tradition of industry
• Newly industrialised regions

  • developing countries that have experienced rapid industrial growth
  • sometimes referred to as “tiger economies “
• Industrial emergent regions

  • have little or no large scale manufacturing
  • mainly used as a source of cheap raw materials for their colonial masters
• Colonialism : practice of taking over an ruling a country
• Unfair trade: colonial powers allowed only cash crops such as tea, coffee and sugar to be produced in their colonies
• Debt: many countries in the south are in debt

  • banks charge high interest on loans
  • poor countries find it hard to pay back the debt
  • they become trapped in a debt cycle
• Conflict: many former colonies struggled to develop after independence due to civil war

  • deaths, economic disruption and cost of military equipment drained the economy
• Environment: many developing countries have extreme climates

  • climate change is making agriculture more difficult in developing countries
  • less money people earn from farming the more difficult it is to pay for education and healthcare
• why are some countries still extremely poor?

  1. environment
  2. colonialism
  3. unfair trade
  4. debt
  5. conflict
• Case study: Sudan

  civil war has slowed down the development in Sudan

  • cultural divide between northern and southern Sudan
  • nearly 2 million dead from civil war
  • Rapid population growth has put pressure on limited resources
  • climate change , population growth and war contribute to underdevelopment