The Development Gap

The world can be divided into richer countries and poorer countries. 

This splits the world into two following the Brandt Line which is based on people's income, life expectancy and standard of living

The world can also be divided into the 1st World (rich, western countries including Japan), the 2nd World (Communist and former communist countries like Russia and China) and the 3rd World. These are the poor countries in South America, Africa and Asia.

Some countries like Brazil and Mexico can be classed as Newly Industrialising Countries as their secondary sectors are growing

There are also the Tiger Economies such as Taiwan which are SE Asia and have developed rapidly

The richer parts of the world dominate world trade. These include countries in Europe.

These countries export and import in the most in terms of value.

The USA has a population of 300 million, but it exports $1 trillion per year

Bangladesh has half the number of people but only exports $12 billion

Bangladesh mainly exports clothing and food, these are cheap so Bangladesh does not earn much income from these products

The USA's main exports are manufactured goods such as aircrafts and cars. These are expensive

Poorer parts of the world also export more primary goods

The poorest countries depend on just one main product

More than 80% of Burindi's exports is Coffee

Richer countries export a wider range of goods

How people in poorer parts of the world improve their quality of life

• On the island of Luzin in the Philippines, the parents work hard in the paddy fields so that their children can go to school
• The parents invest thie energy in the next generation
• Some famers borrow money that will plough their fields
• Then they rent this out to their neighbours to gain extra income. With the extra income they are able to send their children to university
• Later they hope that the children will send the money back to them when they get jobs abroad
• The farmers are trying to diversify, they may run a motored taxi service or they may sell boiled food beside the road
• Kiberia is a squatter settlement in Nairobi
• The Kenya Water for Health Programme has arranged for piped water to go to the homes of some women, thes people then are able to sell the water which give them an income
• They are also taught how to use the ultra violet light to sterilise water meaning that their babies do not get illnesses such as diarrhoea which can kill a child

In 2007, the rivers Brahmaputra and Ganges flooded Bangladesh, nearly a third of the country was flooded

Over 400 people were killed and 7.5million lost their homes

This meant that they lost all their personal possessions and they could only survive by relying on aid from organisastions like the Red Cross

The floods cost over US$0.5billion which meant the government had less money to spend on education

The crops in the fields were destroyed and the farm animals were killed

This meant that the people's income levels fell

THe crops were ruined so people went hungry and suffered from malnutrition

This meant they could not work and then earned even less money

The people's seeds were destroyed so they could not plant their crops the next yeat this meant income levels would be lower in the next year

Here are the effects of an imbalance of trade

• There is an imbalance of trade between the richer and poorer parts of the world.
• People can make money out of trade by selling their surplus crops.
• The EU has tarrifs and quotas which limits the types of goods that people can sell in the EU 
• This means that in countries such as Ghana cannot make as much monsy out of trade and therefore thir GNP per capita is lower. Ghana's is $1,500 whilst the UK's is $36,000
• The EU puts the highest tarrifs on manifactured gooods, this protects people's jobs in the EU so their standard of living remains high
• Countries like Italy have been able to protect their jobs in textiles because of this policy. 
• in 2005, the EU and China had trade problems over bras
• China has exceeded its quota and was not allowed to export anymore to the EU meaning that China lost income
• It also meant that people in the UK had to pay more for bras which meant they had less to spend on other goods
• In the long term, protectionism means that everyone will be less well off
• According to the World Trade Organisation, countries should specialise and companies should always buy from the cheapest source

Kiberia is a squatter settlement in Nairobi, Kenya.

• People do not have access to clean water  which means they suffer from water borne diseases such as Cholera
• The life expectancy is 35 years
• Children become sick with diarrheoa if the water is infected with faeces
• The infant mortality rate is 60 per 1,000 
• People then get caught in the poverty trap. As their children die, they will have more of them. However, because they are poor they cannot afford to feed them
• The children will then suffer from malnutrition
• Many people have to walk more than 10km per day to get to work
• If they are sick because they drank dirt water, they cannot get to their work meaning they have less income
• Kenya Water for Health Organisation pipes water to the houses of some women in Kiberia, they can then sell the money to get an income which raises their standard of living
• Their children are also well enough to go to school this means that they will be richer in the future

The World Trade Organisation (WTO) want free trade. They try to remove tarrifs amd quotas which protect the rich

If these were removed, the poorer countries would be able to export more

This would improve the pattern in world trade

The EU has set up special trade agreements with some poor countries to increase exports

In 2008, the EU spent 4 milion euros on the "Aid for Trade" programme

The Eu is also thinking about cutting its subsidies on some of its crops

This means that food from poorer countries can compete at better price

The Fair Trade Foundation has publicised the problems of trade and encourages people to pay properly for goods they buy from poorer countries and now all Sainsbury's bananas are now fair trade

Many countries now question where they buy their food from, they know the public will question them  - companies like CafeDirect specialises in selling fair trade coffee

• In Burkina Faso, UNESCO has trained people how to build contour stone lines
• Water goes into the ground to feed the plants rather than washed off into the rivers
• This has increases yields for the farmers
• The advantage is that it is sustainable and lasts into the future
• It also uses materials that are found and made locally
• It is appropriate aid
• Short-term international ais helps in a disaster. After the Asian tsunami, Oxfam helpedsupply water purificaition tablets so that people did not get sick from drinking dirty water
• Help from UNESCO has set up an early warning system for predicting disasters in the Indian Ocean ehich will warn people in the future
• Multilateral aid from the World Bank helped build the Akosombo dam in Ghana
• It provided jobs for local people when it was built
• People also learn skills and it provided income for the US comapny Valco who operated the aluminium works

• UNICEF and other aid organisations dug 3 million wells in Bangladesh
• In the short-term, people's lives improved
• However, 30 million are now suffering from arsenic poisoning because people did not check the water
• When the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami happened the Nicobar islands were sent boxes of teddy bears when what they needed was building materials for their schools
• The aid was innappropriate
• Multilateral aid from the world bank helped build the Akosombo dam in Ghana
• The problem is it led to an increase in malaria
• Earthquakes have become more common due to the weight of the dam
• However the biggest problem is that it did not gernerate many jobs locally
• The dam was meant to power a hydroelectric turbine but many local people still suffer blackouts
• The technology was not appropriate to the needs of the people
• One of the main organisations who benefit is the US company Valco who smelt the aluminium using the electricity