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The Development Gap

Development is the progress in economic growth, use of technology and improving welfare that a country has made. When a country develops it basically gets better for the people living there -- their quality of life improves (e.g. their wealth, health and safety). The level of development is different in different countries, e.g. France is more developed than Ethiopia. The difference in development between more and less developed countries is called the global development gap.

Development is the progress in economic growth, use of technology and improving welfare that a country has made. When a country develops it basically gets better for the people living there -- their quality of life improves (e.g. their wealth, health and safety). The level of development is different in different countries, e.g. France is more developed than Ethiopia. The difference in development between more and less developed countries is called the global development gap.

Key Terms

Development — The progress in economic growth, use of technology and improving welfare that a country has made.
Global development gap — The difference in development between more and less developed countries.

Case Studies

Exam Tips

  • •Learn the full table of development indicators -- know which ones measure wealth, health or education, and whether they go up or down as a country develops.
  • •Be able to explain limitations of individual measures -- GNI per head hides inequality within a country (Qatar example), and social indicators can be misleading (Cuba example).
  • •Know the five stages of the DTM and be able to link them to levels of development and HDI values.
  • •For causes of uneven development, group them into physical (climate, farming land, raw materials, natural disasters), economic (trade links, primary products, debt), and historical (colonisation, conflict).
  • •Use specific statistics for consequences: UK GNI per head is 40x higher than Chad; UK life expectancy is 81 vs Chad's 53; infant mortality 73/1000 in Chad vs 3.7/1000 in UK.
  • •For strategies, know at least one specific example for each: FDI (Vietnam, $162 billion), Aid (UK to South Sudan, £100 million), Fair Trade (Malawi tea farmers), Intermediate Technology (Nepal solar LED), Microfinance (Ethiopia), Debt Relief (Zambia, $4 billion).
  • •The Kenya tourism case study is essential -- learn the key statistics (1.4 million visitors, 4% GDP, 1.1 million jobs, HDI 0.45 to 0.59).