PROBLEMS OF

DEVELOPING NATIONS
M AY 2 2 , 2 0 1 3

OVERVIEW OF CURRENT PROBLEMS

Most of the poorest people in the world live in
countries that are in the Global South:
developing (growing, but below developed
standards), less-developed (may or may not be
growing and below developed standards) or
underdeveloped (stagnated and below developed
standards)
Developed country:
High living standards generally distributed
Highly technical infrastructure
Complex and productive economy

OVERVIEW
Generally speaking, therefore, poverty is associated with less
complex economies and less technologically advanced
infrastructure.
Reasons:
War or civil war
Corruption
Resource curse (dependence on exporting natural resources,
often a single such resource copper, oil, agricultural products
which are valuable, but not as valuable as finished products, and
which tend to concentrate wealth in a few hands)
Isolated situation that makes domestic and international trade
difficult
Current or legacy of colonial and other exploitative economic
relationships between area and developed countries

OVERVIEW
Nature of poverty:
About 1 billion people live in abject poverty: people suffering
from severe deprivation of basic human necessities, or extreme
poverty: living on ore less than about $1.25 (37 NT) per day
Highest percentage of people living in abject poverty are located
in Africa, though largest absolute number are in South Asia.
Average per capita annual income Africa: $2,000 (approx. 60,000
NT
Average per capita annual income South Asia: $2,700 (approx.
81,000 NT)
Average per capita annual income Taiwan: $20,000 (approx.
600,000 NT)
Average per capita annual income US: $42,600 (approx. 1,280,00
NT)

OVERVIEW: GROWTH AND GOALS

UN Millennium Development Goals: cut in half the proportion
of worlds population living in extreme poverty by half by 2015
2007: Global South as a whole, proportion fell from 31% to
20%, but much of this improvement came from China (33% to
14%) and South Asia. But Africa stayed about the same (at
50%)
This is because China and South Asia experienced higher levels
of growth during that time.
While in general more people are out of the extreme poverty
category, there is still a large and, in absolute terms, growing
income gap between North and South (average annual per
capita income, South: $5,500;
average annual per capita income, North: $31,000)

POVERTY AND BASIC HUMAN NEEDS

Basic Human Needs:
Food
Clean water
Shelter
Clothing
Medical care
Education (particularly literacy)
Problems: Children in Global South:
1 in 4: malnutrition
1 in 5: no safe drinking water
1 in 7: no access to adequate health care
1 in 3: no access to education

POVERTY AND BASIC HUMAN NEEDS

More general global problems:
1 in 7 people dont have access to safe drinking water
40% have no access to sanitation
30% of worlds doctors for 75% of worlds population
5% of medical research conducted on problems that
affect less developed areas
Lack of immunization against deadly disease despite
availability of vaccines
General lack of resource expenditures on these
problems despite the fact that most (education, basic
immunization) are very cheap per capita

PROBLEMS OF HUNGER
In general, 15% of people globally (about 850
million) are undernourished (lack of needed food
that results in a lack of necessary calories)
The largest absolute number is in South Asia (330
million in total); the highest percentage in terms
of population is in Africa (23%).
China has done the best in terms of dealing with
malnutrition among children; South Asia lags
behind and no improvement in Africa since 1990.

PROBLEMS OF HUNGER
Reasons:
Low per capita income
Movement of people off the land into large cities in search of
employment, meaning they cannot subsist by growing food if necessary
Farming on marginal land
Lack of access to modern methods and technology among poorer and
smaller farmers
Introduction of commercial farming in colonial and modern times
Movement away from subsistence crops to commercial crops for the world market
Concentration of land in hands of fewer owners, leading to people leaving the land
to go to the cities

Natural disasters
Wars and civil wars
Regional overpopulation

POSITION OF WOMEN
Women also tend to be more vulnerable to problem
of poverty given their generally lower social status,
assignment of gender roles, and role in
reproduction.
Also the case that providing women with a chance
to succeed has large effects on problems of
poverty even though much of their labor is not
recorded and used in the calculation of GDP
Important for lowering birthrates in
overpopulated countries
Important for providing for the welfare of children
and the elderly

POSITION OF WOMEN
Efforts to reduce poverty by addressing problems
pertaining to women:
End discrimination in education
Information regarding health, nutrition and fertility
Raising status of adult women, entry into full
citizenship
Provide opportunities, information, financing and
infrastructure (childcare) for women to engage in
formal economic activities.
Handicraft cooperatives
Microloans
Training in business practices

IMMIGRANTS AND REFUGEES

People also attempt to move from less developed
to more developed areas, either voluntarily or due
to circumstances that force them to leave.
Immigrants: people who voluntarily leave their
native country in search of better opportunities,
generally economic.
Refugees are people who have been involuntarily
displaced from their homes by war, discrimination
or natural disasters.

IMMIGRANTS AND REFUGEES

Immigrants may live in poverty because
they are unable to enter the country in which
they wish to live,
enter a country illegally and therefore cannot
work, or cannot be paid well for work, or
enter a country legally, but do not have the
linguistic and other skills, or cultural knowledge,
to do well there

IMMIGRANTS AND REFUGEES

Refugees have problems in large part because they are unable to enter
a country and live a normal life.
They are often contained in camps form which they are unable to
leave,
The are often unable to work,
They often have no status
They are often sustained by charitable efforts
They are often subjected to problems that result from overcrowding,
including bad sanitation and infectious diseases
They often receive at best inferior educational and training
opportunities
They have no permanent status in any non-native country and are
expected to return to their country of origin even if that is impossible
for several years.
There are approximately 33 million refugees in the world

HUMAN TRAFFICKING
An associated problem is human trafficking. This is the
practice of conveying people across borders either
involuntarily or through a payment that is usually
discharged through labor.
Involuntary trafficking is associated with the sex trade,
with those trafficked usually kidnapped or tricked into a
compromising situation, then transported to another
country and kept involuntarily in degrading conditions.
Voluntary trafficking involves the use of people smugglers
to get illicit immigrants into a country. However, to pay the
debt owed the trafficker, these people often work as
virtual slaves for months or years and are also subjected
to degrading, impoverished conditions.