Economics Case Studies

Location: Sam Mbollet, South bank of Gambia River, western Africa. Has 600-700 people.
Aims: Help one individual village achieve sustainable development. Make village self sufficient by providing means to farm all year & teach them new skills. Provide children with a basic education. Provide clinic & medical care. Provide irrigation; compost plant; livestock for food & breeding to help with agriculture in dry season. Provide plants that are hardy & can produce fruit. Provide basic services: wash & lavatory facilities; sanitised water; some form of power. Problems for Village: No school, clinic, piped water supply, contaminated well. Nearest clinic 15km away. No vehicles. Food only grows in rainy season (July-Sept). Have to exchange some of their food to get other basic goods. Famine for several months each year. Donkey & cart (ambulance). Most people illiterate. The very few who can afford it walk 2km to school every day. Sustainable Improvements: Geared rope pump fitted to village's existing well. Water tower built at the central well allowing stand pipes to be gravity fed. Ensures clean safe drinking water. New concrete lined well on the farm area with water tank. Safe drinking water, irrigate crops in dry season. GLOVE farm. Fenced off area, 2 wells, gravity fed irrigation. Grow sufficient food all year.Surplus high value crops such as corn and water melon, make extra income. 4 Donkeys. Pull ploughs, take goods to market. Produce more donkeys. Owners earn money transporting goods. Purchase of milling machine. No longer mill by hand. Women free to do other money making tasks like craft making.

Location: Zilina, Bratislava and Trnava in Slovakia
Advantages for Industry: Labour Costs. Relatively low labour costs compared to Western Europe. Location. On the edge of both western and eastern Europe- central to markets for cheap transport. Transport. Dense network of 2,227 miles of rail lines that connect Slovakia to neighbouring countries and beyond. Great for import of raw materials and parts and export of cars. Transport (physical factor). Connections by ship transport to North Sea and Black Sea via rivers (Danube) and canals. More access to markets and low costs. Government. Very stable- so low risk to industry. Low taxation rates for companies making their businesses more profitable. Subsidies. 460 euros per year provided by governement to train factory workers. Markets. Getting richer, market for cars is growing. Markets. Access to markets in Eatern and Western Europe. Markets. Joining the EU in 2004 gave it unrestricted access to a market of over 300 million people. Capital. Many firms (mainly TNCs) have decided to invest in Slovakia making money available for setting up factories. Labour. Well educated and easily trained workforce. Benefits to Slovakia: Creation of employment. Lots of foreign earnings from the export of cars gives Slovakia a good balance of payments. New factories providing more jobs arrive to support the car factories (eg factories making the parts for cars). Growing wealth means workers become better off and can afford more consumer goods.

Advantages of area for Palm Oil Production: Climate. Average temperatures of 25-28C- perfect for palm oil. Climate. Rainfall of 2000-4000mm per year- perfect for palm oil. Available land: Huge areas of untouches rainforest land occupies by tribal groups where the trees can be cut down and palm oil planted in plantations. The island of Borneo has lost land and low population densities. Site. Lots of wide flat valleys in the mountains- good sites for palm oil plantations. Cheap Labour. Low paid Indonesian migrant workers available for hard work of picking fruit by hand. Foreign Direct Investment. Major Western companies prepares invest in expensive refining & processing machinery. Governement help. Malaysian government invested in research into new varieties- bigger yields. Governement help. Malaysian government built roads from plantation areas to cities for easy export. Geographical position. Malaysia and Indonesia on major shipping routes to Europ and USA markets. Benefits to Malaysia/Indonesia: Creation of employment. Lots of foreign earnings from the export of palm oil gives both Indonesia and Malaysia a good balance of payments. Palm oil plantations provide jobs in the plantations picking the fruit and jobs in the processing plants helping extracting the oil. Growing wealth means workers become better off and can afford more consumer goods. Workers learn new skills that will help development and maybe attract new industries. Palm Oil Problems: Wages are very low and workers can be exploited. Native peoples thrown off land to cut down forest & plant palm oil trees. Huge areas of biologically diverse rainforest is cut down for monoculture of palm oil. Tree diseases can spread easily.

Benefits for Vietnam: Creates employment in factories making products. Factories making Nike prducts offer higher wages than others. Average earnings ar $62 (£40) per month- 20% higher than the national average wage. A large factory at Dong Nai, near Ho Chi Minh City employs 14,000 people. Workers are trained and become more skilled- now attractive to other MNCs. Success of global brand has attracted other MNCs to Vietnam- building up more industry and jobs. Provides an example of how to run factories to native Vietnamese countries. Money paid in taxes to local areas improving  infrastrucuture in Vietnam. Exporting Nike products earns foreign money for Vietnam and helps balance payments. Nike workers in Vietnam also receive benefits include free annual physicals, uniforms and clothing, a clinic and health service, a canteen stocked with food, recreation and entertainment and transportation. Problems for Vietnam: Wages for workers are still low and most have to work long overtime hours to earn enough to survive. Many have accused Nike of exploitation by having its goods produces in sweatshops. The presence of Nike and its advertising may undermine local/national Vietnamese culture with American culture. MNCs like Nike have too much political influece with the Vietnamese government meaning they can manipulate some of what that government does. Pressure from Nike to keep costs down means that many factory owners don't provide good working conditions for their employees- with some being exposed to dangerous chemicals & poor air quality.

Problems from Industry: Air pollution. Two thirds of cities in this area affected by acid rain- weakens trees, vulnerable to disease, kills animal life in lakes and dissolves away stone work on buildings. 8 out of 10 rainfalls classes as acid rain. Air pollution. Factories and cars have increases the levels of ground level ozone. Water pollution. Half of all water from the main cities is intreated before being dumped into rivers. Water pollution. 2009. Five factories found discharging hazardous minerals- such as copper and manganese, and organic chemical waste- into rivers. These chemicals helped cause cancer and kidney failure and damaged the nervous system. Deforestation. In uplands near to all the cities much vegetation cover removes, severe soil erosion.
Causes of pollution: Rapid growth of cities and industries has meant that sewage and industrial waste treatment plants can't keep up and cope. Five factories discharging toxic waste illegally into the rivers. Car emissions from vastly increased car ownership, especially in the cities. 25 out of 28 industrial sites have inadequate waste treatment facilities. Lax controls by some local officials- putting growth of industry over environmental concerns. Management Plans: Guangdong's government has pledged to act to reduce sulohur dioxide air pollution by 25%. Tougher national regulations on emissions from cars. Chinese government is promoting low sulohur fuels such as LPG. Hong Kong is controlling power station emissions- making them use air0scrubbing equipment to remove toxic gases. The five factories found discharging hazardous waste blacklisted by government and made to clean up their act.