Population growth is at the core of most of its issues, it has a growth rate of 200 million people per year and its population is estimated to reach 200 million in 10 years. There have been attempts to reduce this through a population policy implemented in the late 1990’s however this has been unsuccessful due to lack of resources. Other ways have included increase family planning, reduce harmful traditional practices such as early marriage and increase the number of women in education. Currently 5% of women are estimated to be illiterate, 16% with some primary education and 45% with secondary education. This is an important statistic as educated women are more likely to put off having children at a younger age, and would also contribute to the country’s economy. However, this method would not be effective until the population reaches critical levels. Population distribution.
Another factor is the economy; Ethiopia’s economy is open market agriculture which makes it vulnerable to the climate and to being undercut by MEDCs. The country could effectively trade its way out of poverty if it were simply allowed to however falling global prices on coffee and high import tariff to MEDCs saw a loss of $900 million from1999-2005, despite the industry being the 3rd largest in Africa. Ethiopia also has a wealth of natural resources such as sugar cane and cotton however; there is again the same issue of barred trade.
Agriculture - Its primary industry is vulnerable as a source of economic gain as 90% of it is watered by nature, despite large scale developments in water irrigation. 80% of the country’s workforce is employed in its primary sector which accounts for 45% of revenues.
Education is another issue as it is key in building a skilled workforce. There were improvements between 1997 and 2009 the percentage of children in education rose from 27% to over 90%. However distribution of secondary schools is not correlated with population and although university enrolment increased from 3000-32000 between the same time these are also concentrated within a small area.
Lastly an issue which is similar in many developing countries is that of debt. Ethiopia owes $10 billion in debt from aid grants and development assistance however; this is 13 times its revenues from foreign exports. It also spends 4 times as much paying off this debt than is spent on services in its own country such as health and d education. The situation is similar for other countries such as Guyana, which the IMF pressured into selling off its natural resources to pay off loans, putting the country in a precarious position in terms of future development. When it struggled to repay the interest on the loans (which is all that was required) the IMF pressured the country to borrow more in order to do this leaving it with an even larger sum to pay off. This has devastating effects on the countries services as teachers and doctors were vastly underpaid. As a result many emigrated and left the country with less than 250 qualified doctors and many school being taught by untrained teachers. As a result 45% of the country’s spending goes on debt repayment compared to 15% on national services.
Other issues that are shared by many include conflict such as that between north and south Sudan, and corruption. In Zaire, president Mobutu is reported to have a fortune of up to $5 billion, most of which has been siphoned off of world bank loans designated for the social economic development of the country.
Why do these issues exist? see 'Reasons for the Development continuum'
Measuring development
Development can be measured in many ways and in different terms such as economic, social or political. One of the most recent measures of development is the ‘big Mac’ indicator, which is essentially how many hours it takes for someone to afford a big Mac.
The most common indicator is GDP If this is high it can indicator a large amount of production industries and a well developed service industry as would be true for countries such as the UK and USA and also NICs including China and India, China for example has the largest no employed in the secondary and tertiary sector (and a large population) therefore large GDP. In comparison with for example Ethiopia which has 85% employed in its primary industry sector mainly agriculture. Therefore, it is a good indicator of the productivity of an economy and is also easy to rank. However this doesn’t account for informal activities within the economy and also doesn’t show the distribution of wealth in the country where there may be inequalities (such as China which has a vast development gap between the urbanised east and rural west).
Another indicator is that of infant mortality and death rate. These are useful in showing the level of healthcare, provision of food, sanitation etc. This is an easy indicator to understand how it can be very difficult to get accurate results from e.g. LEDCs where numbers aren’t reported or noted. It also gives to indication to the cause of death which could be a result of a pandemic or natural disaster.
HSI Human suffering index and HDI are also useful indicators as HSI focuses on 10 factors including daily calorie intake and civil rights and marks out of 10 (10 being bad). HDI has less factors and measures wealth, health and education these are again easy to understand and rank and give a more proportionate view of the state of the whole country, taking into account each sector.
The concept of the development continuum
The development continuum is the more recent description of the differences in development of countries around the globe. Previously known as the north south divide it has become outdated as patterns of development no longer fit this model. This is especially indicated by the growth of NICs or newly industrialised countries in teh past 25 years. Which have developed as a result of the ‘filter down’ industry from MEDW through the Asian tigers, second generation NIC and the third generation of NICs including China and India. The development continuum is more appropriate term as recently these NICs have threatened the power of the MEDW for economic and political power indicated by the demand for greater voting rights at negotiating rounds of the WTO and a fair share of responsibilities taken for emissions resulting in climate change (India). The BRIC nations have also been predicted to overtake the economies of the G8 by 2040 and be level with them in 2025 in terms of GDP (2 Goldman Sachs analysts). Many countries also show development in vastly different ways for example GDP is not the only measure of development as there also exists cultural and political development.
Reasons for the development continuum
The development continuum exists for many reasons one of the main being the need for a polarity between the MEDW and LEDW for use of primary industries for resources and the need for economies to be in a hierarchy.
Social and economic groupings can be partly to blame as they arguably reduce outside trading with other nations by creating a single market ~(EU) or vastly superior free trade areas (NAFTA) which reduce the need for outside trade. These also undercut producers in the developing world by putting tariffs on imports such as the US on their steel industry and for example the Common Agricultural policy where vast amounts of over production were caused due to food security worries. Ethiopia as another example could effectively trade its way out of poverty, however due to tariffs on imports to the MEDW and falling world prices is still owes a debt of $10 billion from aid loans which is 13 times higher than its revenues from foreign exports.
Regulatory bodies including the WTO and G8 are often dominated by MEDCs. One of the roles of the G8 is to promote growth the less developed countries; however it does not represent a single developing country within the group.
Trade itself is also dominated my MEDCs which account for 75% of trade and 80% of manufactured exports.
As well as this the increase in technology and therefore productivity is no longer attributed to the increase in wages. For example Chinas development in recent years has resulted in a heavily industrial secondary sector with particularly high productivity of labour in the coastal areas where industry is situated. Although there has been a rise in wealth as a result of industrialisation wages throughout the country are comparatively low compared with equally developed industries in western markets of the UK and US.
Debt leading to aid dependency and inability to develop - Ethiopia and Guyana.
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