War has badly effected many LDC’s. In many LDCs there are civil wars which are fought between different groups striving to take control of the nation. The best example of this is in Africa when European countries, largely France, left Africa at the fall of their empire, leaving behind countries formed not of people of tribes or groups of people who lived in the same area, but countries with more than one tribe and sometimes tribes were split in half. This often resulted in civil war with both fractions trying to gain control. In Rwanda there were two different tribes the Hutus and the Tutsi, and one day the Tutsi had had enough of the Hutus and so went and massacred them. Development is needed in this case to bring peace and political stability.
LED’s are often situated in areas where natural disasters are common. Bangladesh experiences frequent flooding which is essential for its crops, but many lives are lost each year because there are no safety shelters. Moutserrat was devastated when a believed to be safe volcano erupted and destroyed thousands of homes and livelihoods. The area where the farmers grew their crops was covered in ash and the area deemed unsafe so the island was on the verge of starvation. In areas like Bangladesh development is urgently needed to build shelters as well as to show people how to build better houses rather than shacks which easily get knocked over in a storm or tsunami.
The majority of LDC’s have to borrow money to support their infrastructure and to further their development. However these banks charge a huge amount of interest which easily builds up the debt as the country struggles to pay it all off in one go. In the end they may end up paying many times the money they borrowed in the first place. The best example of this is when Chile borrowed 3.9 billion dollars in the late sixties and in 1982 she hand paid 12.8 billion dollars because of the interest rates. The 9 billion interest she paid could instead have been used instead to further develop Chile. The banks that lent these poor countries money should be persuaded to cut off the interest payment once the debt has been cleared.
One of the ways LDC’s manage to pay off some of their debt is by using all the land they would normally use to grow food instead to grow tobacco, coffee and cotton. This results in people starving as the farmers stop growing food and start growing cash crops, this also slows down development. So in the end the indebted country ends up in a vicious circle of borrowing, growing cash crops, starving and then borrowing more to try and sort out the original debt.
There is a need for world development as LDCs are being threatened by war, natural disasters and debt. LDC need development so that they can become self sufficient and stop relying on borrowing money which creates a even worse situation.
