AQA A Revision: Development
PART A: CONTRASTS IN DEVELOPMENT MEANS THAT THE WORLD CAN BE DIVIDED UP IN MANY WAYS
1. What does ‘Development’ mean?
The use of human and natural resources to achieve a higher standard of living.
2. How can development be measured?
There are number of indicators that can be used and can be normally classified into economic, social or
environmental factors.
3. What economic indicators are there?
Economic indicators relate to the income of a country. These are shown below:


GDP (Gross Domestic Product): the total value of the good and services produced by a country in a year
GNI (Gross National Income): like GDP, but also factors in income from overseas
But to enable comparisons between countries the GDP/ GNI countries, two things are/can be done:


GNI/GDP expressed ‘per capita’ (Latin for ‘head’) =
provides and average. Total income divided by the
number of people in the country.
GNI/GDP ‘PPP’ (Purchasing Power Parity) = the
GDP/GNI figure is adjusted to reflect the cost of living in
particular countries. For instance, a dollar will buy you
more things in some countries (normally LEDCs) than in
other (normally MEDCs). Essentially, the cost of living in
LEDCs tend to be less, so the GNI/GDP figure is adjusted
upwards to reflect this.
The UN attempted to divide up the World based on income
– see the map on the right.
4. What social indicators are there?
These include things like health, education, population. Things like life expectancy, adult literacy %, infant mortality
and access to health care. They tell you about the lives of the
people in the country.
5. What environmental indicators are there?
These can often be harder to quantify. They include indicators
such as access to clean water, air pollution and sanitation
systems.
6. Is there a link between GNI and social indicators?
It appears so. Look at the diagram on the right – why do you
think higher GNI/per capita leads to a lower birth rate?
7. Why is it useful to look for such correlation between two
indicators?
Using one indicator alone is not wise. GNI does not show the
distribution of wealth within a country – i.e. one person might own 99%
of the wealth and the rest of the population could be really poor. Such
inequality can’t be hidden in social indicators like life expectancy or
adult literacy. Therefore, it is best to examine a variety of indicators to
gain an accurate picture.
8. How can different parts of the World be classified?
Willi Brandt (ex-German Chancellor) devised this map in 1981.
The ‘Brandt Line’ shows the rich countries to the north and
the poor countries to the south.
However, this is now deemed to be a little out of date, as
many things have changed since 1981: collapse of the old
Soviet Union and the rapid industrialisation of places like
South Korea and Mexico (Newly Industrialised Countries or
‘NICs’) and the rise in wealth of places like the Oil exporting
countries in the Middle East – UAE etc. were not taken into
account.
If you look at the previous page, you
can see the map devised by the World
Bank and the UN showing how they
have classified the World based on four
levels of income. This is similar to the
Brandt Line map, but is more detailed
and reflects the more recent changes.
The UN also has introduced a measure
called HDI. I will discuss this in more
detail in the next section, but the map
created from this measure is shown on
the right.
9. What does the term ‘standard of living’ mean?
Standard of living refers to how much money people have – it is
measured as GDP per capita. MONEY!!!!
The map on the left shows the proportion of people living on less
than $1 dollar ppp a day. Larger than normal areas for a country
shows a high number of people living on $1 a day – i.e. they have a
very low ‘standard of living’.
10. What does the term ‘Quality of life’ mean?
Quality of life refers to the general well-being of individuals or societies.
Quality of life is a broader measure than ‘standard of living’. It encompasses standard of living (money-GNI), but it
also factors in social factors like life expectancy, education and perhaps environmental factors.
11. How can ‘Quality of life’ be measured?
The UN has used the Human Development Index (HDI) as an indicator of development. It includes:
 Life expectancy
 Educational attainment and average number of years spent in school
 GDP per capita ppp
Each of the categories is given a score and the HDI is the average of the scores – 0.000 is the worst score and 1.000 is
the best score. The countries are then ranked in order from 1(the best) to 169 (the worst). If you look back at the
map of HDI on the previous page, it perhaps might make more sense?
12. Will different places have a different perception about quality of life and standard of living?
In Bhutan, culture and the environment are rated more highly than perhaps in the UK. In Kenya, the basics are
perhaps more crucial than our priorities like mobile phones etc.
13. How can people in ‘poor’ countries improve their quality of
life?
Often, people can live in ‘slums’, ‘shanty towns’ or ‘informal
settlements’. These are unplanned and are invariably poor places to
live. In the lessons, you examined the picture on the right and
discussed what challenges people would face. A lack of sanitation
and disease were the main issues.
However, things can be done to improve the situation In Nairobi, Kenya. See the table below:
Kiambiu
Matopeni
 Christian Aid has a partner called Maji na  Catherine
Kithuku
has
Ufanisi (‘Water & Development’).
formed a group that
 With MNU’s help, the residents have built 5
organises
rubbish
toilet and shower blocks; local people have
collections and educates
been employed to clean and maintain them.
people about health in
 A small fee is charged and the money is used
Matopeni.
to improve life further in the community  She hopes that the MSU will
(healthcare etc.). They also have clean
find the money to work
drinking water, which has helped immensely.
with her community too.
Korogocho
 Don’t forget our school
and our links with CAFOD.
 We raised money for a
gym to improve the
quality of life.
 We also raised money to
send 175 children to
school at St. John’s
school.
PART B: GLOBAL INEQUALITIES ARE EXACERBATED BY PHYSICAL AND HUMAN FACTORS
14. Why are some areas more developed than
others?
There are a number of reasons for why some areas are
more developed than others.
The broad categories of factors are shown on the left
and discussed on the next page.
15. What environmental factors will reduce
development?
These include things like earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and hurricanes. Poor countries tend to suffer badly from
these as they lack the money to prepare and recover from
them.
Development Indicator Honduras UK
Case Study: Hurricane Mitch, Honduras 1998
The table on the right provides an indication of the status of
Honduras.
They were hit by Hurricane Mitch in 1998, which hit them
hard as they were reliant on agriculture.
Honduras relies heavily on selling coffee and bananas to
bring in foreign income, so when the hurricane wiped out
much of this crop, the effects were devastating.
GNI per capita ppp
$3750
(2008 est.) $36130
HDI
0.604
(2010)
0.875
HDI rank
106/169
26/169
Birth rate
26
11
Death rate
5
5
Infant mortality
22
5
Doctors per 1000
0.6
7.5
Life expectancy
70
80
Adult literacy (%)
80
99
Below poverty line (%) 59
20
Some facts: 5000 dies, 70% crops destroyed, 50% of all homes destroyed, 300km of roads wrecked, flooding and
landslides, repair of damage $2-3 billion. “Honduras has no money to pay for reconstruction. Its economy was wiped
out by the hurricane”, said the Honduran Ambassador to London.
10 years on…. Temporary bridges are still being used – one has fallen down three times as people gave stolen the
screws! There is still no National Emergency Plan and although $1 million was spent to deal with the impact of
flooding and landslides, 4 million (50%) still live in vulnerable places.
16. What social factors will inhibit development?
 768 million people in the World don’t have access to a
reliable water supply (roughly 1 in 10 of the
population)
 A child dies from a water-borne disease every 15
seconds
 12% of the World’s population use 85% of the water
Access to water has a direct link with standard of living – see graph top right.
But what can be done about it?:
Water Aid – a charity/ NGO – try to improve
lives by providing safe water and sanitation – an
example being Mehari Abraha in Ethiopia. They
can provide spring wells to ensure a clean water
supply. The link is that if you have a reliable
water supply, you don’t waste time fetching
water (perhaps as few hours a day). You can
then spend time focussing on economic activity,
which leads to development. The same is true
due to the clean water – people don’t get ill and
can focus on making money.
17. What political factors will limit development?
In Zimbabwe (HDI rank 169/169!), political decisions (Robert Mugabe, president –
pictured left) were made to redistribute land (often violently) from the white farmers to
the majority black population. However, many didn’t have the experience to run the
farms. Equally, the fragmentation of the farms meant that productivity fell too.
Consequently, the economy failed and people did not have food to eat.
In Kenya, However, political unrest (e.g. clashes during elections in Kenya in the 90s and the 2000s) can mean that
tourists do not come, as they don’t feel safe. Their potential money is then lost. Equally, businesses are unlikely to
invest in such countries, which could prevent further development.
18. What economic factors can limit development?
More on this will be written in the next section, where trade is discussed. The problem comes from the fact that
many manufactured goods that Kenya requires come from abroad (i.e. they are imports). These are often high in
value. Therefore, the money going out of the country to pay for these items is less than that coming in for the
agricultural exports. Kenya spends more than they earn from the products they sell. This widens the development
gap as the balance of trade is more in favour of the richer MEDCs. In fact, most trade exists between MEDCs.
PART C: THE REDUCTION OF GLOBAL INEQUALITIES WILL REQUIRE
INTERNATIONAL EFFORTS
19. What does the term ‘trade balance’ mean?
Trade balance = the difference between imports and exports.
20. Why does the development gap exist due to trade?
Look at
these two
countries –
you can see
how trade
favours
Japan!
21. Why else do poor countries remain poor?
Coffee and other agricultural products have World prices that fluctuate dramatically; producers (LEDCs) can really
struggle when prices are low. Manufactured commodities like TVs have relatively stable prices by comparison
(MEDCs) – another example of how trade is stacked in favour of MEDCs.
22. What are NICs?
They are examples of Newly Industrialised Countries (NICs) – examples include South Korea, Mexico, Singapore and
Taiwan. These have industrialised rapidly and now earn huge amounts from trade; 50 years ago, they were not
particularly developed. Famous brands such as Samsung and LG come from Korea. In fact, these companies are now
transnational companies (TNC)
23. Is trade fair and how can countries protect themselves from foreign imports?
Rich countries want to keep the balance of trade as it is and they employ protectionist policies to do this. Essentially,
they create barriers to protect their own jobs and industries through what are called as tariffs and quotas.
 Tariff: taxes paid on imports. These are added
to make them appear more expensive than the
domestic competition
 Quotas: precise limits on the quantity of goods
that can be imported. Beyond these quota
levels huge taxes will be added to these
imports, making them more expensive.
24. What are trading groups?
Trading Groups: These are where countries group
together to increase the amount of trade between them and the value of their trade.
These can promote more trade between member countries, but those outside of the
group face quotas and tariffs to get their produce in to these areas.
Ghana produces cocoa beans. However, the EU has high tariffs on processed cocoa
products from Ghana, yet has no penalty on the import of raw coca beans from
Ghana – why? They want to protect their own producers of chocolate products by
providing them with raw materials at low cost, but preventing Ghana from getting
any of their processed products in. Unfortunately for Ghana, raw materials are often
sold for less profit than processed goods, thus maintaining the development gap.
25. What efforts have been made to reduce the imbalance of World trade?
The WTO
Trading groups helped member countries, but often penalised other countries.
The World Trade Organisation (WTO) deals with the rules of global trade. It tries
to make trade easier and remove any barriers preventing it; it also settles trade
disputes.
In theory, they are against any barriers to trade such as subsidies (where governments give money to their farmers
to help them) as rich countries can afford to do so, whereas poor countries can’t – i.e. unfair trade. However, the
USA and the EU still spend massive amounts on subsidies which means that their producers can produce huge
amounts of food. This food is then flooded on to the LEDCs markets where the LEDC farmers cannot compete on
price.
Fair Trade
Producers group together in poor countries to produce food for the fair trade market. Such
products have the logo (on the right), which shows consumers that the product is ‘Fairtrade’. The
prices tend to be a little higher, but consumers know that they have produced a fair price for
their product. They are also paid a ‘fair trade’ premium which is spent on community projects etc. to improve their
quality of life.
Co-operative
This is where producers group together and take a share of the profits. By grouping together, they are able to share
resources, which enables them to compete on price. For example, the Gumutindo Coffee Co-operative in Uganda has
3000 farmers that have grouped together. They process the beans themselves and use a shared warehousing facility
where the beans are milled before being exported. By doing some of the processing by sharing the milling facility,
they are able to make more profits.
26. Why are poor countries in debt?
The table on the right explains how they got
into debt.
Don’t forget how the imbalance of trade
features in this too – they operate at a trade
deficit.
27. What has been done to reduce this
debt?
In July 2005, the Live 8 concerts (8 around
the World) were aimed to try to help the
‘Make Poverty History’ campaign and cancel World debt. A few days later, the G8 (the World’s 8 richest
countries) met and an agreement was made to cancel all debts (worth $40 billion) owed by 18 highly indebted
Poor Countries (HIPC).The HIPC are a group of the 38 poorest countries. Eventually, $85 billion was cancelled,
but $300 billion still remained in Africa.
In order to have their debts cancelled, the countries had to agree to:
 Show that they could manage their finances and were not corrupt
 Agree to spend the money they would have spent on debt repayments on education, healthcare and
reducing poverty
It made a large impact – look at the table below to see how the cancellation of debt had a positive impact on
Uganda.
28. Other than cancellation, how else can debt be reduced?
An interesting concept called ‘conservation swap’ or ‘debt-for-nature swaps’ tackles debt, but also benefits nature.
A country (creditor) which is owed money from another country (debtor), cancels part of the debt in exchange for
the debtors country’s agreement to pay for conservation activities. NGO (non-government organisations) like the
WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature) often help to arrange the swaps.
Case Study: Debt-for-nature swap in Peru
In 2002 and 2008, Peru and the USA agreed to swap debt worth $40 million. Peru agreed to conservation activities to
preserve more than 27.5 million acres of endangered rainforest. The forest provides rare habitats for jaguars, pink
river dolphins and other are species.
29. If debt isn’t cancelled, what impact can this have on the environment?
In Honduras (do you remember Hurricane Mitch?), 800km² or rainforest is cut down every year, to be replaced by
ranches, banana plantations and small farms. The connection is that the trees provide hardwood that is sold
overseas for foreign money to repay the debt. The new fruit plantations also earn money to repay their debt. In fact,
20% of the money Honduras earns is spent on debt repayments.
30. What is Aid?
Aid is when a country receives help from another
country, or an organisation such as an NGO, to help it
to develop and improve people’s lives.
Aid can be delivered in a number of ways – see the
picture on the right.
31. What ways can Aid be classified?
Remember, the donor is the country or organisation giving the aid. The recipient is the country receiving the aid.
32. Top-down or bottom-up?
Bottom-up is a localised approach – for example our work with St. John’s school, Korogocho with the help of CAFOD.
Top-down is when a large-scale project is completed – e.g. vaccinations of all children in the country against a
particular disease.
Have a think about the advantages and disadvantages for the recipients and donors in each of the case. Cost? Local
decisions? Targeted for individual communities?
33. How can aid lead to sustainable development?
Sustainable development = ‘meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations
to meet their own needs’
Case Study: FARM-Africa and the Moyale Pastoralist Project
This project is helping communities in Northern Kenya to survive, by reducing their dependence on their animals for
all of their income. The project is:
 Helping communities to form Local Development Committees (LDC) – which finds problems and solutions –
e.g. improving access to markets, so that farmers can sell their produce more easily.
 Helping families to adapt the way they manage crops, animals and forests to improve their sustainability –
e.g. avoiding deforestation, which destroys the soils.
 Provide small-scale loans to set up alternative business, such as small shops.
 Training people to identify clean, safe water sources and to dig wells.
Saku, a local woman, applied to the LDC for a small loan. The money was used to set up a small shop and she can
now afford the essentials such as healthcare, education and food. She has now repaid the loan, so the money can be
lent to someone else.
34. Trade or Aid?
We are very good at providing aid after a major disaster, but governments can be less generous. The UN set a target
that every year richer countries should give 0.7% of their GDP to poorer countries. Not many countries meet this
target!
However, in the long term, trade is much better than aid in helping poor countries to develop. Trade creates jobs,
which provides wages that people spend on improving their quality of life.
PART D: THE COUNTRIES OF THE ENLARGED EU SHOW CONTRASTING LEVELS
OF DEVELOPMENT WHICH HAVE LED TO A NUMBER OF POLITICAL
INITIATIVES AIMED AT REDUCING INEQUALITIES
35. What is the EU?
It was originally set up in 1957 to achieve economic and political cooperation
after the 2nd World War. The number of countries has grown dramatically in
the last decade and there are now 28 member states.
36. Do differences in development exist within the EU?
The EU is a very rich region, but there is still a big gap between its richest and
poorest regions.
The richest regions include areas like London, Brussels and Hamburg. Luxembourg – the richest country is more than
seven times richer then Bulgaria or Romania, the poorest members of the EU.
37. A comparison of two countries in the EU
UK
The UK is part of the EU’s ‘core’ or centre. Such regions
create the most wealth and have larger populations.
They produce and consume most goods and services and
have the best communications.
Poland
Poland is on the ‘periphery’ or edge of the EU. Such
countries have poorer populations and poorer
communications. Belonging to the EU has helped them
develop.
UK joined the EU in 1973 and is rich. However, 14% live
in poverty.
The global recession has meant that we have a trade
deficit – 351.3 billion exports and 473.6 billion imports in
2010.
Poland joined the EU in 2004; it used to be a communist
country. 17% live in poverty.
Hundreds of thousands of Polish migrants came to the
UK to find work after joining the EU (see Population case
study!) Trade deficit – $134.7 exports - $141.7 imports.
GNI/capita ppp: $36,130
GNI/capita ppp: $17,310
HDI rank: 21
HDI rank: 41
Employment structure: 1.4% Agriculture, 18.2% industry
and 70.4% services
Employment structure: 17.4% Agriculture, 29.2%
industry and 53.4% services
38. What is the EU’s regional policy?
The policy transfers resources from richer to poorer areas.
Between 2007-2013, regional spending will have used up 36% of the EU’s spending - $350 billion!! The focus is on
countries in Central & Eastern Europe – like Poland. The money comes from three sources:
 The European Regional Development Fund, which pays for general infrastructure
 The European Social Fund, which pays for things like training and job creation programmes
 The Cohesion Fund, which covers environmental and transport infrastructure projects, as well as the
development of renewable energy. You have to be a country with living standards less than 90% of the EU’s
average to qualify for this funding – Poland qualifies!