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Summary article

What is development?

How can we create better lives for people in poor countries? It’s obvious that something has to change, but what do we need in order to achieve that? Not only economic progress is necessary, people also need human development, better health care, an education, sufficient nutrition, a healthy and clean environment… The need for this change situates especially in Africa. It is in this context that the article describes “development”! An example to emphasize as well the problem as the progress:

Problem

According to the World Bank, more than half of the inhabitants on this planet has to manage with less than $ 2 a day. One fourth has to live with less than $1,25 a day! At the same time, the contrast between the 20 richest countries and the poorest 20 is huge. People who belong to the first group earn, on average, 39 times more than the people in the second.

Progress

According to the world bank, the number of people that have to get by with $ 1 a day has halved in the period from 1981 until 2005. This is a decrease from 52 percent to 26 percent.

The difference between developed and developing countries

Each year, countries’ development is measured by an instrument called HDI (Human Development Index) which consists of several factors to measure the access to health, education and a decent way of living.

An inquiry in 2009 pointed out that the top five countries were Australia, Canada, Iceland, Ireland and Norway. Afghanistan, Central African Republic, Mali, Niger and Sierra Leone scored the worst. A number of reasons are described below.

Geography

Throughout time, geography has played a very important role in development. For instance, all the countries of the Eurasian landmass that are oriented east-west, lie in more or less the same climatic zone. This gave its inhabitants a head start because they were able to efficiently do cereal cultivation for many years. This was not possible in South Africa because they weren’t so lucky with the tropical climate.

When comparing it with Eurasian people, it is clear that Eurasian people could grow their crops during longer periods because of the good climate. Therefore they could easily exchange ideas in order to improve their agricultural methods. Because of this advantage, people in the Eurasian regions could create food surpluses and they could develop more advanced tools. This eventually led to the establishment of soldiers and weapons.

Another advantage of working in the fields and with animals was the fact that Eurasians became more immune to disease such as the plague, cholera, the flu, measles… (diseases originally coming from animals). Taking all this in consideration, it is obvious why the Spanish could easily defeat an army of 80,000 people in South America.

The absence of resources however can also be turned into an advantage. Great Britain didn’t have wood and timber but this led to other developments like steel and steam.

(Jared Diamond, psychologist at the University of California.)

Culture

David S. Landes, economic historian at Harvard University, says that the differ