Development geography is a branch of geography which refers to the standard of living and its quality of life of its human inhabitants. In this context, development is a process of change that affects peoples' lives. It may involve an improvement in the quality of life as perceived by the people undergoing change.[1] However, development is not always a positive process. Gunder Frank commented on the global economic forces that lead to the development of underdevelopment. This is covered in his dependency theory.
In development geography, geographers study spatial patterns in development. They try to find by what characteristics they can measure development by looking at economic, political and social factors. They seek to understand both the geographical causes and consequences of varying development. Studies compare More Economically Developed Countries (MEDCs) with Less Economically Developed Countries (LEDCs). Additionally variations within countries are looked at such as the differences between northern and southern Italy, the Mezzogiorno.
Quantitative indicators
Quantitative indicators are numerical indications of development. Economic indicators include GNP (Gross National Product) per capita, unemployment rates, energy consumption and percentage of GNP in primary industries. Of these, GNP per capita is the most used as it measures the value of all the goods and services produced in a country, excluding those produced by foreign companies, hence measuring the economic and industrial development of the country. However, using GNP per capita also has many problems.
For example, GNP per capita does not take into account the distribution of the money which can often be extremely unequal as in the UAE where oil money has been collected by a rich elite and has not flowed to the bulk of the country.
Secondly, GNP does not measure whether the money produced is actually improving people's lives and this is important because in many MEDCs, there are large increases in wealth over time but only small increases in happiness.
Thirdly, the GNP figure rarely takes into account the unofficial economy, which includes subsistence agriculture and cash-in-hand or unpaid work, which is often substantial in LEDCs. In LEDCs it is often too expensive to accurately collect this data and some governments intentionally or unintentionally release inaccurate figures[citation needed].
In addition, the GNP figure is usually given in US dollars which due to changing currency exchange rates can distort the money's true street value so it is often converted using purchasing power parity (PPP) in which the actual comparative purchasing power of the money in the country is calculated.
Other indicators
Social indications in general include access to clean water and sanitation (which indicate the level of infrastructure developed in the country) and adult literacy rate, measuring the resources the government has to meet the needs of the people. Demographic indicators include the birth rate, death rate and fertility rate, which indicate the level of industrialization.[2]
Health indicators (a sub-factor of demographic indicators) include nutrition (calories per day, calories from protein, percentage of population with malnutrition), infant mortality and population per doctor, which indicate the availability of healthcare and sanitation facilities in a country.
Environmental indications include how much a country does for the environment.
The table above compares the GDP per capita and HDI in three select countries. In this instance, Gross domestic product (GDP) is used instead of Gross national product (GNP). Ostensibly, the difference between the two terms is that GDP refers to all finished services and goods physically within a country while GNP refers to all finished services and goods owned by a country's citizens, wheter or not those goods are produced in that country.[5]
PQLI
Other composite measures include the PQLI (Physical Quality of Life Index) which was a precursor to the HDI which used infant mortality rate instead of GNP per capita and rated countries from 0 to 100. It was calculated by assigning each country a score of 0 to 100 for each indicator compared with other countries in the world. The average of these three numbers makes the PQLI of a country.
HPI
The HPI (Human Poverty Index) is used to calculate the percentage of people in a country who live in relative poverty. In order to better differentiate the number of people in abnormally poor living conditions the HPI-1 is used in developing countries, and the HPI-2 is used in developed countries. The HPI-1 is calculated based on the percentage of people not expected to survive to 40, the adult illiteracy rate, the percentage of people without access to safe water, health services and the percentage of children under 5 who are underweight. The HPI-2 is calculated based on the percentage of people who do not survive to 60, the adult functional illiteracy rate and the percentage of people living below 50% of median personal disposable income.
GDI
The GDI (Gender-related Development Index) measures gender equality in a country in terms of life expectancy, literacy rates, school attendance and income.
Qualitative indicators
Qualitative indicators include descriptions of living conditions and people's quality of life. They are useful in analyzing features that are not easily calculated or measured in numbers such as freedom, corruption, or security, which are largely non-material benefits.
Geographic variations in development
There is a considerable spatial variation in development rates.
Global wealth also increased in material terms, and during the period 1947 to 2000, average per capita incomes tripled as global GDP increased almost tenfold (from $US3 trillion to $US30 trillion)... Over 25% of the 4.5 billion people in LEDCs still have life expectancies below 40 years. More than 80 countries have a lower annual per capita income in 2000 than they did in 1990. The average income in the world's five richest countries is 74 times the level in the world's poorest five, the widest it has ever been. Nearly 1.3 billion people have no access to clean water. About 840 million people are malnourished.
The most famous pattern in development is the North-South divide. The North-South divide separates the rich North or the developed world, from the poor South. This line of division is not as straightforward as it sounds and splits the globe into two main parts. It is also known as the Brandt Line.
The "North" in this divide is regarded as being North America, Europe, Russia, South Korea, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and the like. The countries within this area are generally the more economically developed. The "South" therefore encompasses the remainder of the Southern Hemisphere, mostly consisting of KFCs. Another possible dividing line is the Tropic of Cancer with the exceptions of Australia and New Zealand. It is critical to understand that the status of countries is far from static and the pattern is likely to become distorted with the fast development of certain southern countries, many of them NICs (Newly Industrialised Countries) including India, Thailand, Brazil, Malaysia, Mexico and others. These countries are experiencing sustained fast development on the back of growing manufacturing industries and exports.
Most countries are experiencing significant increases in wealth and standard of living. However, there are unfortunate exceptions to this rule. Noticeably some of the former Soviet Union countries has experienced major disruption of industry in the transition to a market economy. Many African nations have recently experienced reduced GNPs due to wars and the AIDS epidemic, including Angola, Congo, Sierra Leone and others. Arab oil producers rely very heavily on oil exports to support their GDPs so any reduction in oil's market price can lead to rapid decreases in GNP. Countries which rely on only a few exports for much of their income are very vulnerable to changes in the market value of those commodities and are often derogatively called banana republics. Many developing countries do rely on exports of a few primary goods for a large amount of their income (coffee and timber for example), and this can create havoc when the value of these commodities drops, leaving these countries with no way to pay off their debts.
Within countries the pattern is that wealth is more concentrated around urban areas than rural areas. Wealth also tends towards areas with natural resources or in areas that are involved in tertiary (service) industries and trade. This leads to a gathering of wealth around mines and monetary centres such as New York, London and Tokyo.
Geography can also affect economic development in a number of ways. Analysis of current data sets show three significant implications of geography on developing nations.[7] First, access to sea routes is important; this has been noted as far back as Adam Smith. Sea travel is much cheaper and faster than that of land, leading to a wider and quicker dissemination of both resources and ideas, both of which are integral to economic stimulus. Geography also dictates the prevalence of disease: for example, the World Health Organization estimates roughly 300–500 million new cases of malaria every year. Malaria is largely associated with nations that have struggled to achieve sound economic development. Not only does disease decrease labor productivity, but it changes the age structure of the country, forcing the population to lean heavily toward children as adults die from disease and the population sees an increase of fertility to keep up with the high death rates. High fertility both lowers the quality of life for each child due to a decrease in resources allocated to each of them, and also decreases labor productivity for women. The third way geography affects development is through agricultural productivity. Temperate regions have shown the highest output of major grains; regions such as the African savanna relatively yield much less value for the labor cost. Low agricultural output means that a larger portion of the population must spend their efforts in agriculture, leading to a slower urban development. This, in turn, discourages technological advance: an essential source of development for the twenty-first century.
Barriers to international development
Geographers along with other social scientists have recognized that certain factors present in a given society may impede the social and economic development of that society. Factors, which have been identified as obstructing the economic and social welfare of developing societies, include:
Effective governments may address many barriers to economic and social development, however in many instances this is challenging due to the path dependency societies develop regarding many of these issues. Some barriers to development may be impossible to address, such as climatic barriers to development. In these cases societies must evaluate whether such climatic barriers to development dictate that society must relocate a given settlement in order to enjoy greater economic development.
Many scholars agree that foreign aid provided to developing nations is ineffective and in many instances counter productive.[16] This is due to the manner in which foreign aid changes the incentives for productivity in a given developing society, and the manner in which foreign aid has the tendency to corrupt the governments responsible for its allocation and distribution.
Cultural barriers to development such as discrimination based on gender, race, religion, or sexual orientation are challenging to address in certain oppressive societies, though recent progress has been significant in some societies.
While the aforementioned barriers to economic growth and development are most prevalent in the less developed economies of the world, even the most developed economies are plagued by select barriers to development such as drug prohibition and income inequality.
Aid
MEDCs (More Economically Developed Countries) can give aid to LEDCs (Less Economically Developed Countries). There are several types of aid:
Governmental (bilateral) aid
International Organizational (multilateral) aid, e.g. The World Bank
Voluntary aid from individuals, often mediated through NGOs
Short-term/emergency aid (humanitarian assistance)
Long-term/sustainable aid
Non-governmental organization (NGO) aid
Aid can be given in several ways. Through money, materials, or skilled and learned people (e.g. teachers).
Aid has advantages. Mostly short-term or emergency aid help people in LEDCs to survive a natural (earthquake, tsunami, volcano eruption etc.) or human (civil war etc.) disaster. Aid helps make the recipient country (the country that receives aid) get more developed.
However, aid also has disadvantages. Often aid does not even reach the poorest people. Often money gained from aid is used up to make infrastructures (bridges, roads etc.), which only the rich can use. Also, the recipient country becomes more dependent on aid from a donor country (the country giving aid).
Whilst the above conception of aid has been the most pervasive within development geography work, it is important to remember that the aid landscape is far more complex than one directional flows from 'developed' to 'developing' countries. Development geographers have been at the forefront of research that aims to understand both the material exchanges and discourse surrounding 'South-South' development cooperation. 'Non-traditional' foreign aid from Southern, Middle Eastern and post-Socialist states (those outside the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the OECD) provide alternative development discourses and approaches to that of the mainstream Western model. Development geographers seek to examine the geopolitical drivers behind the aid donor programmes of "LEDCs", as well as the discursive symbolic repertoires of non-DAC donor states.[17] Two illustrative examples of the complex aid landscape are that of China, which has been active as an aid donor throughout the latter half of the twentieth century but published its first report on foreign aid policy as recently as 2011[18] and India, an often cited aid recipient, but which has had donor programmes to Nepal and Bhutan since the 1950s.[19]
Related Research Articles
Gross domestic product (GDP) is a monetary measure of the market value of all the final goods and services produced in a specific time period by a country or countries. GDP is most often used by the government of a single country to measure its economic health. Due to its complex and subjective nature, this measure is often revised before being considered a reliable indicator.
Per capita income (PCI) or total income measures the average income earned per person in a given area in a specified year. It is calculated by dividing the area's total income by its total population.
A variety of measures of national income and output are used in economics to estimate total economic activity in a country or region, including gross domestic product (GDP), gross national product (GNP), net national income (NNI), and adjusted national income. All are specially concerned with counting the total amount of goods and services produced within the economy and by various sectors. The boundary is usually defined by geography or citizenship, and it is also defined as the total income of the nation and also restrict the goods and services that are counted. For instance, some measures count only goods & services that are exchanged for money, excluding bartered goods, while other measures may attempt to include bartered goods by imputing monetary values to them.
The Physical Quality of Life Index (PQLI) is an attempt to measure the quality of life or well-being of a country. The value is the average of three statistics: basic literacy rate at the age of 15 years, infant mortality, and life expectancy at age one, all equally weighted on a 1 to 100 scale.
A developed country, or high-income country, is a sovereign state that has a high quality of life, developed economy, and advanced technological infrastructure relative to other less industrialized nations. Most commonly, the criteria for evaluating the degree of economic development are the gross domestic product (GDP), gross national product (GNP), the per capita income, level of industrialization, amount of widespread infrastructure and general standard of living. Which criteria are to be used and which countries can be classified as being developed are subjects of debate. Different definitions of developed countries are provided by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank; moreover, HDI ranking is used to reflect the composite index of life expectancy, education, and income per capita. Another commonly used measure of a developed country is the threshold of GDP (PPP) per capita of at least USD$22,000. In 2023, 37 countries fit all four criteria, while an additional 16 countries fit three out of four.
In the economics study of the public sector, economic and social development is the process by which the economic well-being and quality of life of a nation, region, local community, or an individual are improved according to targeted goals and objectives.
The category of newly industrialized country (NIC), newly industrialized economy (NIE) or middle income country is a socioeconomic classification applied to several countries around the world by political scientists and economists. They represent a subset of developing countries whose economic growth is much higher than other developing countries; and where the social consequences of industrialization, such as urbanization, are reorganizing society.
The world economy or global economy is the economy of all humans of the world, referring to the global economic system, which includes all economic activities which are conducted both within and between nations, including production, consumption, economic management, work in general, exchange of financial values and trade of goods and services. In some contexts, the two terms are distinct "international" or "global economy" being measured separately and distinguished from national economies, while the "world economy" is simply an aggregate of the separate countries' measurements. Beyond the minimum standard concerning value in production, use and exchange, the definitions, representations, models and valuations of the world economy vary widely. It is inseparable from the geography and ecology of planet Earth.
The Human Development Index (HDI) is a statistical composite index of life expectancy, education, and per capita income indicators, which is used to rank countries into four tiers of human development. A country scores a higher level of HDI when the lifespan is higher, the education level is higher, and the gross national income GNI (PPP) per capita is higher. It was developed by Pakistani economist Mahbub ul-Haq and was further used to measure a country's development by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)'s Human Development Report Office.
The Index of Economic Freedom is an annual index and ranking created in 1995 by The Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal to measure the degree of economic freedom in the world's nations. The creators of the index claim to take an approach inspired by Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations, that "basic institutions that protect the liberty of individuals to pursue their own economic interests result in greater prosperity for the larger society".
The green gross domestic product is an index of economic growth with the environmental consequences of that growth factored into a country's conventional GDP. Green GDP monetizes the loss of biodiversity, and accounts for costs caused by climate change. Some environmental experts prefer physical indicators, which may be aggregated to indices such as the "Sustainable Development Index".
The gross national income (GNI), previously known as gross national product (GNP), is the total domestic and foreign output claimed by residents of a country, consisting of gross domestic product (GDP), plus factor incomes earned by foreign residents, minus income earned in the domestic economy by nonresidents. Comparing GNI to GDP shows the degree to which a nation's GDP represents domestic or international activity. GNI has gradually replaced GNP in international statistics. While being conceptually identical, it is calculated differently. GNI is the basis of calculation of the largest part of contributions to the budget of the European Union. In February 2017, Ireland's GDP became so distorted from the base erosion and profit shifting ("BEPS") tax planning tools of U.S. multinationals, that the Central Bank of Ireland replaced Irish GDP with a new metric, Irish Modified GNI. In 2017, Irish GDP was 162% of Irish Modified GNI.
The Human Poverty Index (HPI) was an indication of the poverty of community in a country, developed by the United Nations to complement the Human Development Index (HDI) and was first reported as part of the Human Development Report in 1997. It is developed by United Nations Development Program which also publishes indexes like HDI It was considered to better reflect the extent of deprivation in deprived countries compared to the HDI. In 2010, it was supplanted by the UN's Multidimensional Poverty Index.
The economy of Northern Cyprus is dominated by the services sector, which includes the public sector, trade, tourism and education. Industry contributes 22% of GDP and agriculture 9%. Northern Cyprus's economy operates on a free-market basis, with a significant portion of administration costs funded by Turkey. Northern Cyprus uses the Turkish lira as its currency, which links its economic situation to the economy of Turkey.
The Gender Development Index (GDI) is an index designed to measure gender equality.
The Economist Intelligence Unit’s where-to-be-born index attempts to measure which country will provide the best opportunities for a healthy, safe and prosperous life in the years ahead.
This article includes several ranked indicators for Chile's regions.
↑ Bowman, Brett; Matzopoulos, Richard; Lerer, Leonard (2008). "Spearheading human and economic development in the Arab world through evidence‐based and world‐class healthcare". Education, Business and Society: Contemporary Middle Eastern Issues. 1: 12–15. doi:10.1108/17537980810861475.
↑ Singer, Merrill (2008). "Drugs and development: The global impact of drug use and trafficking on social and economic development". International Journal of Drug Policy. 19 (6): 467–478. doi:10.1016/j.drugpo.2006.12.007. PMID19038724.
↑ Hernando de Soto, Dead Capital and the Poor, The Johns Hopkins University Press. 2001[pageneeded]
↑ Merideth Kolsky Lewis "The EU's Protectionist Problem" Georgetown journal of International affairs. 01/01/2009
↑ Africa: the poorest continent is rising. Really. Dambisa Moyo. Foreign Policy. .172 (May–June 2009) p90
↑ Sachs, Jeffrey D.; Warner, Andrew M. (2001). "The curse of natural resources". European Economic Review. 45 (4–6): 827. doi:10.1016/S0014-2921(01)00125-8.
↑ Africa: the poorest continent is rising. Really.Dambisa Moyo. Foreign Policy. .172 (May–June 2009) p90.
↑ Mawdsley, E. (2012) 'The Changing Geographies of Foreign Aid and Development Cooperation: Contributions from Gift Theory' Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 37(2): 256–72
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