Module 3 Flashcards
The Spread of Development
Development often occurs to specific locations. These developments grow by attracting investment, people and new economic opportunities. Government may try to spread development, for some of the following reasons:
(i)Economic- reducing unemployment, raising productivity, more efficient use of resources
(ii)Social- increasing standards of living, slowing migration, reducing regional inequalities
(iii)Political- attempting to win votes before an election
(iv) Strategic- important in times of military conflict and threats to national security
(v) Environmental concerns- dereliction, blight and contamination
Attempts to spread development vary with the type of development. For example, economic development is frequently associated with industrialisation, while human development may be more affected by the provision of clean water or an education system.
Development is often associated with a change in a country’s employment structure, from largely rural and agricultural to urban and industrial. However, these stages of growth do not indicate how the growth occurs.
Causes of Disparities in the Caribbean
There is clear evidence that shows that the present patterns of development is strongly based on the region’s history. However, there are other factors that have also played a role:
1) Resource Endowment: resource availability (natural and human) is often critical in the development process of regions. Regional disparities occur because some areas have little or no resource base upon which to promote development activities.
Such regions are generally sparsely populated with little investment, poor infrastructure and few employment opportunities relative to other areas in the country or region.
Within the Caribbean region, locations with large populations and well-developed social and economic infrastructure include those that have mineral (petroleum in San Fernando, Trinidad, bauxite in Linden, Guyana and Mandeville, Jamaica).
The presence of sandy beaches and clear ‘blue’ waters, as a major resource, along the coasts of many Caribbean countries has also led to the citing of tourism facilities, which in turn, have also strongly influenced the coastal orientation of the populations of these countries.
2) Geographical Factors: spatial development is also strongly affected by factors such as soils, topography, vegetation and climate. In some countries of the Caribbean, vast areas are underdeveloped because of the presence of steep mountain slopes which
make transport networks development difficult and expensive, poor soil which are unsuitable for food production, swamps and dense forests, as in the case of Guyana and Belize, which prove unattractive for investment and population movement.
Thus, in Guyana, large portions of the hinterland remain poorly inhabited and undeveloped while the coast (low-lying and easily accessible) is relatively
developed.
3) Economic Factors: regions within countries differ in their levels of development, depending on the nature of their economies and the stage of development. For
example, countries or areas which have a diversified economy, have the potential to be much “better off” that those who are less diversified economy, as it prevents the major commodity (source of income generation and employment) to decline in
terms of trading of the commodity (leading to an economic decline).
Investment is also an important economic factor in spatial development, as it tends to generate
income and employment. Countries or regions that are able to attract investment tend to be “better off” than those that attract limited resources.
4) Governments policies: Due to differences in availability of resources and constraints. The extent to which these constraints affect development largely depends on the efforts made by the national government to convert these into opportunities.
Consequences of Disparities in the Caribbean
1) Disparities lead to over- concentration of population and resources in some areas at the expense of others. This is particularly so in most Caribbean countries where infrastructure development, population and socioeconomic opportunities concentrate in the major urban centres.
This tends to perpetuate rural-urban migration, which gives rise to a number of adverse effects such as urban pollution, crime, slum development and traffic congestion among others.
2) Disparities lead to underdevelopment and marginalisation of some areas in the Caribbean region. In many of the peripheral rural areas, migration has stagnated population growth rates and altered the age-sex distribution making it uneconomical to provide services to some communities.
3) Perpetuation of regional disparities undermines national/regional development as it allows that utilization of resources in some areas to be either unutilized or underutilized.
4) Disparities prevent equity in development, often leading to political discontent among people from underdeveloped regions.
What is poverty?
It can be defined as a condition in which a person or community is deprived of, or lacks the essentials for a minimum standard of well-being and life.
The international standard of extreme poverty is set to the possession of less than US$1 a day.
Absolute Poverty
Absolute poverty is a severe deprivation of basic human needs where a person is unable to satisfy the basic needs such as food, clothing, and shelter. This type of poverty is often results in malnutrition, illness, and premature death.
Absolute poverty is often measured by a poverty line, which is the minimum level of income or consumption necessary to meet basic needs.
An example of absolute poverty is a situation where a family cannot afford to provide enough food to meet their daily caloric needs, resulting in chronic hunger and malnutrition.
Relative (Normative) Poverty
Relative poverty is a measure of poverty that compares an individual’s income or standard of living to the average income or standard of living in a particular society or country
For example, in a society where the average income is $50,000 per year, a person who earns $20,000 per year may be considered relatively poor. Relative poverty is often associated with social exclusion and a lack of access to opportunities and resources that are available to others in society.
Relative poverty is the main driving force behind migration, since the poor feel compelled to migrate to regions where they perceive they might attain a better standard of living
The Human Poverty Index (HPI)
The Human Poverty Index (HPI) is a measure of poverty that takes into account dimensions beyond income, such as health, education, and standard of living. It was developed by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to provide a more holistic picture of poverty and to complement traditional income-based measures.
It looks at three key dimensions:
1) longevity (measured by life expectancy at birth),
2) knowledge (adult literacy and enrolment)
3) standard of living (measured by access to improved water sources and the percentage of underweight children under five years old).
The HPI combines these dimensions into a single index, which ranges from 0 (no poverty) to 100 (extreme poverty). The higher the index, the greater the level of poverty.
How development occurs
There are three broad ways in which development occurs:
i. Natural- under free market conditions, countries exploit their resources and base their growth on their advantages (e.g. MDCs)
ii. Forced- in socialist countries like North Korea, the government controls all the resources and dictates the type and place of growth that it wants
iii. Planned- Newly Industrialising Countries (NICs) like South Korea have progresses from using import substitution industries, which reduce debt, into
developing export oriented industries which gain valuable currency.
Where development occurs
1) Initially, development takes place in particular places, due to comparative advantages, such as natural resources, location or labour supply, which stimulates industrial growth. In turn, multiplier effects occur.
2) Acquired advantages, such as improvements in infrastructure and a skilled workforce, reinforce the area’s reputation and attract further investment. This
ensures that the region grows and stays ahead.
Spatial interaction increases, meaning that skilled workers, investment and new developments move to the growing area, the core.
3) By contrast, the peripheral areas are flooded by manufactured goods from the core (known as the backwash effect). This prevents the development of manufacturing in the periphery. The spread effect occurs when the core stimulates surrounding areas to develop to meet consumer demand.
These ideas have been used extensively in planning. Places or districts which are favoured by reason of location, resources, labour or market access are economically more attractive.
Consequently, they are developed by planners to form natural growth poles, from which development can spread and these expand faster than other districts.
Generally, these are urban-industrial complexes which have good transport and accessibility.
Development and Underdevelopment
Some theories suggest that the way in which Europe and North America developed is the ‘ right’ way and that developing countries should copy them.
More recent theories, including the dependency theory, show that MDCs may, in fact, be the cause of underdevelopment in many LDCs.
Clark’s sector model is the most basic of the development models. It describes how MDCs have changed from agricultural societies to industrial and post-industrial societies.
Change occurs because success in one sector produces a surplus revenue. This revenue is then invested in new industries and technologies, thereby increasing the range of industries in any area.
The main weakness of this model is that it is descriptive and only a crude level of analysis. It does not say how or why the country developed nor does it show regional variations within it.
The Dependence Theory
Created by A.G. Frank in the 1960’s based on writings from Latin America and the Caribbean
In the dependency theory, the relative underdevelopment of the developing world is blamed on its exploitation by the developed world, through colonialism and later neo-colonialism
Some argue that the rise in Newly Industrialized Countries (NICs) seems to discredit the theory.
The Dependence Theory in the Caribbean
This theory dominated the thinking respect to Third World development in the 1960s and 1970s. It had its origins in the writings of several Latin Americans and scholars from the Caribbean, specifically the so-called New World Group at the UWI Mona Campus.
The theory was present as a conditioning situation in which the economies of one group of countries are conditioned by the development and expansion of others.
The situation of developing countries was not the result of climatic conditions or inefficiently but that of the role these countries played in the global capitalist
system.
The role of colonial territories was to produce raw materials at low costs for the metropole and to this end; a chain of exploitative relationships was set in motion.
It began with the farmer in rural areas and extended to rural market towns, primate cities and finally the metropole. The terms of trade were always more favourable for the next higher level so that the highest beneficiary was the metropole.
In this way, the surplus of developing countries was siphoned off by the dominant capitalist countries. Therefore, development and underdevelopment was seen as opposite sides of the same coin.
The theory argues that it is the basic situation that has allowed the Caribbean to emerge as a group of backward and exploited countries.
The only way that poor countries could free themselves from this type of exploitation was to erect trade barriers and control the activities of trans-national corporations within their borders.
This theory is seen as being irrelevant to the modern age in that it advises poor countries to divorce themselves from the global economy at a time when the world system is promoting and embracing globalisation.
Moreover, it sees the economic system as the root cause of all ills of developing countries.
In response to the various criticisms of the theory, economist Clive Thomas advanced an alternative hypothesis. He argued that Europeans destroyed those indigenous social forces, which otherwise might have transformed the mode of production and in return offered colonies like those in the Commonwealth Caribbean the opportunity to participate in the global division of labour as suppliers or raw materials and consumers of manufactures.
As a result, Caribbean countries display a pattern of consumption that does not represent the needs of the community and a pattern of production oriented to
neither domestic consumption nor domestic needs.
Clive suggested that the continued participation of Third World countries in the world capitalist system would be futile for national development and that a strategy for the transition to socialism should be advocated.
Thomas’ analysis had a distinctly political element; he not only describes and explains the historical origins and contemporary economic consequences of the
worldwide spread of capitalism, but also seeks to understand the political underpinning of the present structure of production relations and productive forces in the Third World.
One of the major criticisms of Thomas’s hypothesis was that inadequate regard was taken of such constraints as size and technological dependence.
Also, it is felt that Thomas was too easily dismissive of export specialisation as a development strategy of Third World countries.
Small Island Developing States
SIDS were recognized as a special case both for their environment and development at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), also known as the Earth Summit, held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1992.
SIDS are spread over three geographical regions namely, the Caribbean, the Pacific and the Atlantic, Indian Ocean, Mediterranean and South China Sea (AIMS).
Eg: Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Fiji, Tonga, Maldives, Guam, Cape Verde, Mauritius
Challenges faced by SIDS
SIDS are highly disadvantaged in their development process and require special support from the international community. The common challenges faced by SIDS are:
1) narrow resource base depriving them of the benefits of economies of scale
2) domestic markets and heavy dependence on a few external and remote markets
3) little resilience to natural disasters
4) fragile natural environments
5) high volatility of economic growth limited opportunities for the private sector and a proportionately large reliance of their economies on their public sector;
Overview of Rostow’s Model of Development (International Trade Model of Development)
W.W Rostow was an American economist and government official who proposed his five stage model of development in the 1950’s.
The theory is essentially optimistic. It suggests that, once the development process starts, it builds up momentum and becomes self-sustaining.
His theory was heavily influenced by the historical and political context in which it was written as he was fiercely anti-communist and right-wing; he modeled his theory after western capitalist countries.
