War also causes a lot of poverty, in places such as Africa, there are always civil wars occurring because when the Europeans started building empires in the 19th century they artificially mixed ethnic groups causing civil wars to happen. Also, wars between countries like Somalia and Ethiopia caused by the corruption of governments occur. Wars cause poverty because very often the infrastructure of countries are destroyed because of the fighting. Schools, hospitals, homes and resources are all destroyed in the midst of war and when this occurs in a country which is already poor it takes the poverty even further. Not only this but then also because of these wars people have to seek asylum and therefore are an economic burden on other countries which then may make that country poor.
On the 26th December 2004 a deadly tsunami struck Asia effecting Indonesia, Thailand, India and Sri Lanka the most, killing an excess of 200,000 people. This is just one of the many natural disasters that occur that is out of our control. These disasters tend to occur in the poorer areas of the world and have disastrous effects that makes these areas poorer. Earthquakes, floods, droughts etc. happen more frequently and severely in these LEDCs more than anywhere else in the world. One earthquake is enough to destroy a countries infrastructure, schools, roads etc. And for disasters like floods, these countries don’t have the money to install piping and drainage systems as well. So natural disasters cause world poverty.
Poor countries borrow money from rich countries to help develop and become more wealthy however the rich countries charge a large amount of interest so poor countries end up paying more in interest than the actual amount hey borrowed in the first place. For example in the seventies Chile borrowed $3.9 billion. Almost a decade later in 1982 Chile paid $12.8 billion in interest and still owed money. This excess money could be used to help advance the country, instead its going to richer countries. The amount poor countries owe richer countries has risen by $2.9 billion because of the interest rate. Live 8, which was a concert held on the 2nd July 2005, was organized to take place during the time of the G8 summit, at which it was being decided whether to drop the debt of Africa or not. Clearly the public want their tax payers money to go to Africa and help them because they know the interest rates are unreasonable and are not helping the world poverty problem because debts can cause poverty.
Diseases such as AIDS and HIV are spreading uncontrollably in poor countries because they don’t have the education or resources to become aware of the risks and dangers. There are less adults than children in South Africa for example because so many die of the diseases therefore there are a large amount of children that need financial support but not enough adults to provide this, this is essentially poverty. By 2010 it is estimated that one out of four South African children would have lost there parents, only rich countries can help this situation.
There is of course definitely a need for world development and many of us try to help out of compassion, as it says in the bible, “love thy neighbour,” which applies because we should be helping fellow humans. However, poverty in other parts of the world can effect us as well. We depend on imports from countries such as India for spices and all sorts of imports like tea and coffee. If we want cotton for clothes from Sudan for example we need to make sure they have the food and resources to survive so they can farm it. Over 700 million illiterate adults are found in only eight countries, India, China, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Indonesia, and Egypt, out of all these, two-thirds are women and extremely low literacy rates are concentrated in three regions, the Arab states, South and West Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. There is one way to solve this injustice: world development. After all, is it fair that in some parts of the world people survive on 50p a day whilst in others people are severely obese because of the wealth of food there is, the solution is world development.
The world is a small place, cheap air travel from airlines like easyJet and the invention of the revolutionary world wide web has made the world more interdependent, we rely on each other’s way of life and cultures to survive. The richer countries will always rely on poor ones to produce copper, cotton, and many more and in a similar way the poor countries rely on the rich ones to buy their produce, we support and depend on each other for survival. However if the poor countries feel they’re being treated badly then they may refuse to farm for us, so its important they have a reasonable lifestyle to make sure they carry on supplying the richer countries like the US and the UK.
Capitalism is not only an economic system but it’s also a way of life, people are free to set up enterprises in order to create new things that people will buy. If the poor countries don’t have enough money to buy the products of the richer countries then the richer countries aren’t going to be making as much money as they could be. So it would be a good idea to promote world development to broaden the market for a variety of products like mobile phones for example, it would strengthen the economy of the richer countries.
In 10th December 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was drawn up and signed by the majority of the world. Richer countries often openly violate human rights, like the USA who enforce the death penalty, nevertheless it is important to live up to declaration and try our best to develop the world to a point where human rights are fulfilled across the globe. Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services.” This right is violated billions of times a day, some people in Africa have hardly any of the things mentioned in this article. World development is the only way that the rights can be obeyed and respected.
Sometimes poor countries feel that its unfair that they have a poor quality of life whilst richer countries have a much better quality of life so they often revolt. The 9/11 attack of 2001 can be perceived as a revolt against a rich country. If the world is not balanced and the people are not satisfied war break out which then causes more poverty as explained before. Therefore it seems sensible to develop the world to prevents these things from occurring.
So it can be said that there is definitely a need for world development and that world development can solve many of the world’s key problems. In the words of Victor W. Watton, “World development is the way to bring not only world prosperity, but also world peace.”
