Contrasts in development within individual countries in the developing world

I just came across this article about development and health from the BBC, which I found very interesting and fitting into our topic. On page one the question of 'what is development' is raised, the next page shows the models of development, mentioning Rostow's model as well as comparing South Korea and Burkina Faso. Page three and four are about using development indicators and development differences between countries, providing questions for the reader to think about.

Focus on page five, there you will find a video showing a case study of Brazil, which is a good example of a country which has wide regional variations in development.The video shows the dimensions of development; how different development can be, to which extent it can vary in one country and, that it certainly does vary in most of the countries. Besides, it shows that the gap between rich and poor still exists and probably is going to stay.

For them who would like to test what the learned and already knew about development and health care, try your best making this quiz.

Definition of Development:
Development could be explained as “fierce” process, with “Blood, sweat, and tears”. It is the world in which wisdom demands toughness. (Amartya Sen, Development as freedom, chap2.)

According to Anna Dickson, Development is “an ongoing process of qualitatively ameliorated social, political, and economic change” (Robert O’Brien, Marc William, Global Economic Change).

Characteristics:

• Political freedom (free and fair elected Institutions, Humans rights)
• Economic Facilities (Production, consumption, Exchange)
• Social Opportunities (Good jobs, Higher Education, Health Care)
• Transparency guaranty (No corruption or Fiscal Paradise)

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

There are many different definitions of sustainable development.

“Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generation to meets their own needs.”

There are three interdependent pillars of sustainable development: 

1. Environmental
2. Economical
3. Social

Source: World Commission on environment and development, Oxford University Press

more about Sustainable Development: 
http://povdev-salford2012.blogspot.com/2012/02/sustainable-development.html

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN POLITICS AND DEVELOPMENT

The United Nation has promoted Political and Economical Institutions and

Values. Democracy, the market, protecting human rights. Egalitarianism as the

Route of the prosperity to the rest of the World. (Culture, Democracy and

Development by Deepak LAL, IMF, september20, 1999).

The relationship between Politics Is the Policies of the IMF and the World Bank in Africa.

In Sub-Sahara Africa the IMF politics of Development achieved growth rates during 1995-1997:

• Reducing and containing inflationary pressures.
• Increasing ratio of domestic saving to GDP.
• Strengthening Fiscal Performance
• Increasing private sector Investment
• Improving Export performance
• Restructuring public expenditures

(International Monetary Funds, August 2000) 


Example of the World Bank – Mauritania: Women Microfinance
Mauritania is helping its tens of thousands of urban poor by creating job opportunities where there once were none. A microfinance program is giving small loans to inner city residents to start small businesses, most of them run by women.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xffDu_EWLWc


by Djibril 

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/02/28/corporate-rights-and-human-rights/?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=thab1

Corporate Rights and Human Rights

DEBATERS

• 

  A Permissible and Effective Way

  OONA A. HATHAWAY, YALE LAW SCHOOL
  There is no need to fear that a ruling in favor of the plaintiffs in Kiobel will flood the courts with lawsuits.
• 

  It’s Up to Congress to Decide

  ILYA SHAPIRO, CATO INSTITUTE
  If we want to punish corporations for human rights abuses, then we must ask Congress to amend the Alien Tort Statute.
• 

  The Right Thing To Do

  VINCENT WARREN, CENTER FOR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS
  Through Citizens United we gave corporations extensive rights, now we must enforce their responsibilities.
• 

  Liability for Harms

  SUSAN FARBSTEIN AND TYLER GIANNINI, HARVARD LAW SCHOOL
  Corporations should not receive greater legal protections than people.

INTRODUCTION

Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg News

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court heard arguments in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum over whethercorporations can be sued for human rights violations overseas. The plaintiffs filed suit in the United States under the Alien Tort Statute, a law enacted by Congress in 1789, that empowers the federal courts to hear cases by foreigners bringing a civil suit for wrongs committed “in violation of the law of nations.”

Should the Alien Tort Statute hold corporations liable for heinous crimes? Is there a more effective way to do this?

SSL Week 5 - Development

Hello Everybody!

Since the other group of thursday’s presentation on development already gave you an insight about what will be discussed in this lecture,

I wanted to give some background information about the main focus on what Djibril and I are going to talk about Development in our SSL. We’d like to give you some of the reasons why development is an important issue of international relations and the international political economy.

Let me start with an outline of our presentation. Basically, we’ve divided our presentation into three parts. Djbril will start by giving you an overview about development and its characteristics and afterwards I will briefly theorise development looking at Rostow’s influential theory of the ‘Five Stages of Growth’. After taking a critical approach, Djbril will identify and examine the relation between developme

nt and the political in a sufficient overview. Finally, after the conclusion and an outlook, there will be enough time for questions and a discussion, of course.

To get in touch with the topic and make up your minds, I posted some quotations and information about what constitutes development and sustainable development as well as some videos.

Moreover, I found it important to give you a brief overview about the Human Development Report as well as the Human Development Index; as it is vital to know about these.

Bearing the relation between development and the political in mind, I found it important to shortly refer to the Legal framework of the Development Policy of the UN. Therefore, I posted a short summary to provide you with the foundational treaty of the UN outlining ‘development’. As the charter is a constituent treaty; its articles bind all 193 members.

THEORIES OF DEVELOPMENT

I will be concentrating on explaining theories on development.

Is the path to development a direct line?

Two ideal types of development analysis can be split into two schools of thought:

1. Development through modernizing an economic growth – Rostow and Modernization theory
2. Self development to abolish the dependence – Guder Frank and Dependency theory

Basically, my part of our SSL is split into two parts. Firstly, I will explain W.W. Rostows model of ’The Five Stages of Growth’. The so-called ‘Rostovian take-off model of economic growth’ is one of the major historical models of economic growth. According to Rostow, it is possible to identify all societies, in their economic dimensions, as lying within one of five categories (shown below in the figure). As a matter of course, I will explain this and provide you with more information about what this model constitutes on Thursday. I will discuss Rostow’s understanding of development, take a critical approach and be asking if anyone has suggestions why his theory is out-dated today!

Rostow's five-stage model of development

(Source: Potter, Binns, Eliott & Smiith 1999: 51)

The following figure shows the different stages of different countries.

What do you think why Britain was the 1^st to develop fully the preconditions for take-off?

What do you think might be critical about this model?

If you want to know more about the person W.W.Rostow, since we will not have time to go into detail, here you find more background information:

http://www.utexas.edu/faculty/council/2003-2004/memorials/rostow/rostow.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2003/feb/17/guardianobituaries.usa

Further reading:

W. W. Rostow ‘The Five Stages of Growth’ in Mitchell A. Seligson and John T Passe-Smith (eds.) Development and Under-development: The Political Economy of Global Inequality (Lynne Reinner Publishers 2003): 173-180.

Development theory Rostow's five-stage model of development and its relevance in Globalization (2005)

http://jpkc.swu.edu.cn/data/gjzrzygl/web%20prepare20110608/paper/Rostow%20Development%20Model%201960.pdf

NORTH-SOUTH DIVIDE BETWEEN INDUSTRIALIZED AND DEVELOPING WORLD

Then, in the second part, I look at the the North-South divide between industrialized and developing world focusing on two main theories:

1. Liberalist/traditional:

• believes rich and poor countries alike benefit from free trade.

1. Structuralist/underdevelopment/dependency school:

• instead of emphasizing mutual interests, this group emphasizes the conflicts between rich and poor countries

Questions to think about

Has decolonization improved economic conditions of the Third World, or have the rich simply become richer and the poor become poorer?

Is the Third World still economically dependent on the Developed World?

Is the path to development a direct line?

This quotation is going to be discussed:

"We cannot forget that while the iron curtain has been brought down, the poverty curtain still separates two parts of the world community."

Javier Perez de Cuellar, UN Secretary General 1982-1991

I hope I could give you an overview about what is going to be talked and discussed about tomorrow. If anything might be unclear, I am sure during our SSL you will understand because we will be referring and explaining all the given information. We are looking forward to an interesting SSL!

Micro-loans - not as good as they seem?

Micro-loans have become a huge business - specialising in small amounts to individuals they allow people in developing countries to support themselves in a sustainable way, whilst encouraging business skills and financial responsibility.

I came across this article showing that although micro-loans have made a huge difference to many people's lives, when things go wrong lenders are less than sympathetic, leading to several suicides.  It's interesting to see that even 'ethical' finance companies are susceptible to corruption and tactics normally seen from loan sharks.

The article is here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/02/24/v-print/2658213/ap-impact-lenders-own-probe-links.html



Posted by Rachael Adamson.

Sustainable Development

“Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own need”

classical definition given by the UN World Commissions on Environment and Development in 1987

· is a term widely used by politicians all over the world

· is still rather new and lacks a uniform interpretation

· concept is still being developed

· main components: economic, social and environment factors

Sustainable development: the bigger picture

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keZmg56ahdM (10– 47 sec.)

Sustainability explained through animation

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5NiTN0chj0&feature=related

Human Development Report

The 2011 Human Development Report 2011 focuses on 'Sustainability and Equity: A Better Future for All’. It argues that the urgent global challenges of sustainability and equity must be addressed together – and identifies policies on the national and global level that could spur mutually reinforcing progress towards these interlinked goals.

http://hdr.undp.org/en/reports/global/hdr2011/summary/

Download the Human Development Report here:

http://hdr.undp.org/en/reports/global/hdr2011/download/

Human Development Index (HDI)

· HDI first appeared in 1990 with three components:

1. Long and healthy life – Life expectancy

2. Knowledge – Adult literacy rate

3. Standard of living – GDP per capita: Purchasing Power Parity (PPP)

· a composite statistic HDI is a socio-economic measure

· attempt by the UNDP to capture some important indicators of human development

· used to rank countries by level of:

• human development
• developed (high development)
• developing (middle development)
• Less developed (low development) countries
• Least developed (very low development)
• Life expectancy, education and per-capita GDP
• HDI as a measure of development which changes the world
• ranking quite fundamentally

Unlike the comparison of countries of the World Bank, it takes into account not only the gross domestic product (GDP) per capita of a country in purchasing power parity, but also the life expectancy and education levels with the help of the literacy rate and enrollment rate of the population.

Click here to see a map of the world with the HDI

http://hdr.undp.org/en/data/map/

And here for more figures and statistics

http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/

Here you find a video how to use the Interactive Map and Graph for Visualization of the Human Development Index

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vy82OaiALwI&feature=related

When switching of the sounds, this video clip is a useful for comparison of different countries with different HDI.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuczJTVGk6c

The United Nations Human Development Index (HDI) rankings for 2010*

> 0,850 (Very High) 0,700–0,850 (High) 0,550–0,700 (Medium)

0,400–0,550 (Low) < 0,400 (Very Low) Data unavailable