ST. ANDREW’S HIGH SCHOOL

GEOGRAPHY DEPARTMENT

HIGHER GEOGRAPHY

INTRODUCTION TO

DEVELOPMENT

Higher: Development and Health

MEASURING DEVELOPMENT

Success Criteria

Know what is meant by development.

Recap on the fact that the world can be divided into developed & developing areas and where these areas are located

Describe the various ways in which development can be measured – indicators of development

Explain the limits of some indicators of development.

Suggest examples of composite indicators of development, explain how at least one is calculated and comment on their usefulness.

REMINDER!

Two very important Human Geography terms:

1. Developed Countries, sometimes known as EMDCs (Economically More Developed Countries) or ‘Rich World’.

2. Developing Countries sometimes known as ELDCs or ‘Poor World’.

The Developed & Developing World

What do we mean by Development?

A general definition is progress or change over time.

It can also be understood as growth and was traditionally understood as economic growth – that is societies and countries advanced by becoming richer.

Another term for development is Standard of Living.

Measuring Wealth - GNP GNP stands for Gross National Product.

Wealth is measured by working out the value of goods and services produced in a country in one year as well as adding in all the money earned from services abroad.

This figure is then divided by the total population to give and average per person.

This gives the GNP per capita

Advantages and Disadvantages?

Advantages and Disadvantages?

Advantages:

- Easy to calculate, map and then compare places.

Disadvantages:

- Disguise inequalities between richest and poorest in society (it is averaged over everyone).

- Disguises inequalities between regions in a country.

- Figures exaggerate the Development Gap as GNP/GNI does not take in relative Purchasing Power (eg. even though a country seems to have a low GNP, goods in that country are cheaper to buy).

- Ignore Subsistence Activities eg. farming & informal economy (cash in hand work).

- Assumes that currencies remain stable but this isn’t the case - $100 US changes in value daily.

- Ignores conditions peculiar to a country eg. an especially cold winter pushing up fuel costs.

GNP isn’t enough – how else can we measure development?

Measuring Wealth - Energy

The amount of energy (coal, oil, gas…) that is used by a country indicates economic development - energy used per capita (per person, usually per year)

This shows how industrialised a country is – countries with many industries will produce much wealth.

People with a high standard of living will use a lot of petrol in their cars and electricity in their homes.

Measuring Wealth - Farming

Economic Development is also measured by looking at the number of people in agriculture.

This shows how industrialised a country is – a country with many people employed in farming is not very industrialised and therefore not very developed.

In addition farms are likely to be small and unprofitable in many poorer countries.

Show how a country uses its wealth to improve the quality of life of its people.

HealthEducationLifestyle

SOCIAL INDICATORS

Measuring Health Life Expectancy

Number of people per doctor (are high numbers good or bad?)

Infant mortality

Access to Contraception

Prevalence of HIV/AIDs

Battle-Related Deaths

Births attended by Health Professionals

Prevalence of Malaria

Measuring Health - Food

Calories per person per day

Grams of Protein per person per day

Malnutrition Prevalence

Measuring Education

Percentage of children who attend secondary school.

Literacy rate

Pupil – Teacher Ratio (Secondary)

Lifestyle

Internet Users (per 100 people)

Access to Sanitation Facilities (% of the Population)

Mobile Phone Subscriptions (per 100 people)

Access to Electricity (%)

Vehicles (per km of road)

Greenhouse Gas Emissions (tonnes)

Daily Newspapers (per 1000 people)

Disadvantages/Limitations with

Social Indicators Averages can hide big differences. Eg What is the average of 2000 and 3000?

2500 – but this hides the fact that someone is being well fed (3000 calories) whereas someone else is undernourished (2000 calories).

One indicator of standard of living is not enough! Having food doesn’t tell us whether you are educated or not.

With all these limitations – what’s

the solution?

How do we measure

development effectively?

Combined Indicators – the PQLI and HDI

Life Expectancy

Infant Mortality

Adult Literacy

Life Expectancy

Adult LiteracySchool Enrolment

GNP Per Person

The PQLI

Physical Quality of Life Index

Developed in 1977

Life ExpectancyLiteracy RateInfant Mortality

Focus on Social Indicators to counterbalance the Economic ones used up to that point.

A score of above 77 is regarded as satisfactory. UK scored more than 90.

The HDI Human Development Index

Developed in 1990 by the UN Programme for Development.

GNP (adjusted for purchasing power) Life ExpectancyEducational Attainment (Adult Literacy + Average number of years of schooling)

Each of these is ranked on a scale of 0 to 1 then averaged to give a final score between 0 and 1 (1 is the best)

Allows direct comparisons between countries eg. El Salvador with a score of 0.492 is roughly half as developed as Canada with a score of 0.982.

Allows a comparison with the ideal, ‘perfect’ score of 1.

Limitations of Composite Indicators

No index can measure human happiness. Does development bring happiness?

Data is not always obtainable or reliable.

All statistics over-generalise and ignore inequalities.

Measuring Development doesn’t help the people - it doesn’t show the obstacles to overcome to help countries develop.

DOES BEING RICH MAKE YOU HAPPY?!

Web Exercisehttp://data.worldbank.org/data-catalog/world-development-indicators

http://www.gapminder.org