Global Development Flashcards
(126 cards)
Define development
Development is the process by which societies change
What are some measures of development?
- Social
- Economic
-Composite (a combination of social and economic e.g. sustainable development)
Define economic development
Economic development involves a change from an economy based on the primary sector to an economy based on the secondary sector. It is a rise in living standards
what are some social measures of development?
- Education
- Health
- Democracy
- Gender equality
Define sustainable development
Sustainable development is development that sustains the natural environment, thereby ensuring that future generations can have the same level of development
Describe the Brundtland report
- The Brundtland report was published in 1987
- It introduced the concept of sustainable development and described how it could be achieved
- The WCED (or the Brundtland commission) was charged with proposing long term solutions for bringing about sustainable development and continuing it into the 21st century
What is the full meaning of WCED?
World commission on environment and development
What is the most common economic measure of development?
GDP
Define GDP
GDP (Gross domestic product) is the total value of all goods and services in a specific time period
Evaluate GDP
- It does not consider sustainability
- High GDP does not mean equality
- Some valuable work/labour is not measured
- High GDP does not mean the people of the country are healthy
What are some alternative measures of development?
- GDP per capita
- Human development index (HDI)
- Happy planet index
Define and evaluate GPD per capita
- GDP per capita is the GDP per person in the population
- It allows for differences in size populations between countries to be taken into account
- It is, however, an economic measure so the evaluation for GDP applies
Describe the HDI
- It is a composite measure of social and economic indicators, giving a statistical value to the level of development
- It is produced by the UNDP
- Each country is scored between 0 and 1 based on material standards of living, education and health
Evaluate the HDI
- There are doubts about the accuracy of some of the statistics used because of the difficulties in collecting data
- Figures are not always available for all countries
- Not all important aspects of development can be measured quantitatively
- However, it is useful in giving a broad impression of development
- It links economic and social wellbeing
Describe the happy planet index
- Created by the new economics foundation
- It gives a higher score to countries with smaller geological footprints
- It also includes experienced well being and life expectancy
What does Sen say about development?
He argues that development is about overcoming poverty because this allows people to develop their potential, it increases human freedom
Define Poverty
The united nations defines poverty as living on income of less than $2
Define absolute poverty
The UN defines absolute poverty as living on income of less than $1.25 a day
It can be defined as not having enough money to buy things needed for survival
State some measures of poverty
- Millennium development goals (MDGs)
- Sustainable development goals (SDGs)
Describe and evaluate the MDGs
- They were written by the UN
- 2000 to 2015
- One of the criteria was to halve the proportion of people living in extreme poverty
- Some targets were unrealistically ambitious for some countries
- Not very ambitious as it want to halve absolute poverty instead of eradicating it
- However, MDGs include developed countries as well as developing countries
- They have been useful in focusing the world’s states, IGOs and NGOs
- They were probably responsible for increases in aid, which doubled between 2000 and 2005
Describe the SDGs
- Created in 2015
- Some of the goals reflect how ideas have changed since 2000
- For example, it focuses on quality of education now that most children receive primary education
- There was a greater emphasis on environmental issues and sustainability
- Some of its goals were a response to criticisms of the MDGs
- For example, halving the number of people in absolute poverty still left about 1 billion in poverty so the new SDG was to eliminate poverty completely
Describe and evaluate the 3 world divisions
- First world: the industrialised capitalist world
- Second world: the industrialised communist world
- Third world: the rest of the world
- the second world no longer exists after the collapse of the soviet union(1980s)
- the term first world is used much less than third world
- Differences within third world countries became more distinct, they can’t be treated as a single group
What are the other world divisions?
- Global north and Global south
- Minority and Majority worlds
- Developed and underdeveloped countries
- More economically developed countries (MEDCs), Less economically developed countries (LEDCs), Least economically developed countries (LLEDCs)
Evaluate MEDCs, LEDCs and LLEDCs
- They demonstrate the hierarchical nature of the world
- They put countries that are different into the same category