textbook part 3 Flashcards
(38 cards)
Economic support
Two types of intervention are particularly significant drivers of economic development: trade and investment.
Trade
- 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.
Main types of trade intervention
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
Some particularly successful trade interventions include:
- 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.
Investment
As with trade, investment is largely undertaken for ulterior economic motives, such as:
securing primary resources
facilitating private investment
providing technical know-how.
However, there may well be beneficial spin-offs from the resulting economic development.
These would include
improved living standards and the provision of better education and healthcare rather than improved recognition of human rights.
Military intervention
- 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.
International intervention players In addition to those of individual governments, geopolitical interventions are also made by:
IGOs, such as the UN, EU, World Bank and WTO
NGOs, such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.
IGOS- One more might be added to the list:
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.
Amnesty International
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.
Human Rights Watch
- 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.
Oxfam
- 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.
Médicins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders,
MSF)
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.
dates of NGOs
Human Rights Watch - 1978
Oxfam - 1942
Médicins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders,
MSF) - 1971
NGOS
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).
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:
- 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.
Positive impacts of development aid
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.
Haiti as a country
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.
During the last 200 years, Haiti has suffered from:
- 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.
Haiti part 1
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).
haiti part 2
- 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
Global appeals for help were soon being answered:
- 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.
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?
- 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.
Progress in the fight against disease:
- 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.
