What is Development
The term development refers to an act of getting better by expanding, enlarging or refining.
This term can also be used to refer to the process in which something exceeds by degrees to a different stage.
Development is the act of improving quality of life and making sure everyone has the preference in what that life looks like.
Features of development
Steady Electricity
Good roads
Security of life and property
Disciplined citizens
Quality education
Existence of employment opportunities
Good governance
Reasons Why Ledc’s are Underdeveloped
Lack of Industrialization
Poverty /lack of capital
Illiteracy
Lack of research
Lack of technology
Debt burden
Types of development
Economic – Living standard of the masses which includes GDP
Social- Life of the people and the infrastructures in the country.
Political- The level and type of governance being practiced in the country.
Environmental- This has to do with the natural appearance of the environment.
Patterns of Development in the World
The world is divided into two groups
(i) The more economically developed countries (MEDC’s) which include the richer, more industrialised countries of the so called developed North.
(ii) The less economically developed countries (LEDCs) which include the poorer, less industrialised countries of the so called developing South
Measuring development
Studying development is about measuring how developed one country is compared to other countries, or to the same country in the past. Development measures how economically, socially, culturally or technologically advanced a country is.
The two most important ways of measuring development are economic development and human development.
Economic development is a measure of a country's wealth and how it is generated (for example agriculture is considered less economically advanced then banking).
Human development measures the access the population has to wealth, jobs, education, nutrition, health, leisure and safety - as well as political and cultural freedom. Material elements, such as wealth and nutrition, are described as the standard of living. Health and leisure are often referred to as quality of life.
These are used to examine whether a country is developed or not.
Geographers use a series of development indicators to compare the development of one country to another.
There is not a single way to calculate the level of development of a country
Health. Does the population have access to medical care?
Industry. What type of industry dominates? LEDCs focus on primary industries, such as farming, fishing and mining. MEDCs focus on secondary industries, such as manufacturing. The most advanced countries tend to focus more on tertiary or service industries, such as banking and information technology.
Education. Do the population have access to education? Is it free? What level of education is available (ie primary, secondary or further/higher education)?
Economic development indicators
To assess the economic development of a country, geographers use economic indicators including:
(i) Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is the total value of goods and services produced by a country in a year.
(ii) Gross National Product (GNP) measures the total economic output of a country, including earnings from foreign investments.
(iii) GNP per capita is a country's GNP divided by its population. (Per capita means per person.)
(iv) Economic growth measures the annual increase in GDP, GNP, GDP per capita, or GNP per capita.
(v) Inequality of wealth is the gap in income between a country's richest and poorest people. It can be measured in many ways, (eg the proportion of a country's wealth owned by the richest 10 per cent of the population, compared with the proportion owned by the remaining 90 per cent).
(vi) Inflation measures how much the prices of goods, services and wages increase each year. High inflation (above a few percent) can be a bad thing, and suggests a government lacks control over the economy.
(vii) Unemployment is the number of people who cannot find work.
(viii) Economic structure shows the division of a country's economy between primary, secondary and tertiary industries.
(ix) Demographics study population growth and structure. It compares birth rates to death rates, life expectancy and urban and rural ratios. Many LEDCs have a younger, faster-growing population than MEDCs, with more people living in the countryside than in towns. The birth rate in the UK is 11 per 1,000, whereas in Kenya it is 40
Human development indicators
(i) Life expectancy - the average age to which a person lives, eg this is 79 in the UK and 48 in Kenya.
(ii) Infant mortality rate - counts the number of babies, per 1000 live births, who die under the age of one. This is 5 in the UK and 61 in Kenya.
(iii) Poverty - indices count the percentage of people living below the poverty level, or on very small incomes (eg under £1 per day).
(iv) Access to basic services - the availability of services necessary for a healthy life, such as clean water and sanitation.
(v) Access to healthcare - takes into account statistics such as how many doctors there are for every patient.
(vi) Risk of disease - calculates the percentage of people with diseases such as AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis.
(vii) Access to education - measures how many people attend primary school, secondary school and higher education.
(viii) Literacy rate - is the percentage of adults who can read and write. This is 99 per cent in the UK, 85 per cent in Kenya and 60 per cent in India.
(ix) Access to technology - includes statistics such as the percentage of people with access to phones, mobile phones, television and the internet.
(x) Male/female equality - compares statistics such as the literacy rates and employment between the sexes.
(xi) Government spending priorities - compares health and education expenditure with military expenditure and paying off debts.
The measures can be misleading when used on their own because they're averages- they don’t show up elite groups in the population or variations within the country.
They shouldn’t be used on their own because as a country develops some aspects develop before others. So it might seem that a country is more developed than it actually is.
Using more than one measure or using the HDI avoids these problems.
To balance inaccuracies, indices tend to be an amalgamation of many different indicators.
The United Nations Human Development Index (HDI) is a weighted mix of indices that show life expectancy, knowledge (adult literacy and education) and standard of living (GDP per capita). As Vietnam has a higher literacy rate and life expectancy than Pakistan, it has much higher HDI value even though it has a similar per capita GDP.
HDI is measured between 0 and 1. The USA has an HDI of 0.994 whereas Kenya has an HDI of 0.474.
Human Development Index(HDI)
HDI – A socio-economic measure, it focus on three variables of human welfare-
(i) life expectancy (health),
(ii) adult literacy( education) and
(iii) real GDP per capital(standard of living)
Environmental factors affect how developed a country is:
A poor climate:
if a country has a poor climate (really hot or cold) they wont be able to grow much.
This reduces the amount of food produced.
This can lead to malnutrition in some countries leading to people having a low quality of life.
People also have fewer crops to sell so less money to spend on goods and services.
The government gets less money from taxes as less is sold and bought, meaning there is less to spend on developing the country.
Poor farming land
If the land in a country is steep or has poor soil then they wont produce a lot of food . This has the same affects as having a poor climate
Limited water supplies
Some countries don’t have a lot of water. This makes it hard for them to produce a lot of food.
Lots of natural hazards
A natural hazard is an event that has the potential to affect peoples lives or property e.g earthquakes , tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, tropical storms, droughts, floods.
Countries that have a lot of natural disasters have to spend a lot of money rebuilding after disasters occur
.
Natural disasters reduce the quality of life for the people affected and they reduce the amount of money the government has to spend on development projects.
Few raw materials
Countries without many raw materials like coal, oil or metal ores tend to make less money because they have fewer products to sell.
This means they have less money to spend on development.
Some countries do have a lot of raw materials but still aren't very developed because they don’t have the money to develop the infrastructure to exploit them.
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