Africa And Some Other Underdeveloped Countries example essay topic

Poverty occurs in most parts of the world. Nevertheless, the more serious and problematical poverty takes part in the third world and the southern parts of the globe. First of all, we have to clearly define the word 'poverty'; . In a broad sense, it means that people within this 'poverty'; region are poor or have a lower average income per capita than other regions.

To a deeper approach, we refer 'poverty'; as people have low educational backgrounds, lack of food supplies, or people with lower standard of livings, etc. According to the Webster's New World Dictionary, the word 'poverty'; can be defined as: 1) the condition or quality of being poor 2) deficiency; inadequacy 3) scarcity (Webster's p. 461). Generally in this essay, we will examine the facts that lead to the poverty of these third world and southern countries. The first and the most serious problem that causes by poverty are hunger, or preciously, malnutrition. We can find these kinds of problems almost all over Africa and some other underdeveloped countries. These were witnessed by thousands of people through TV, radio, newspaper, journals, etc.

'In the early 1980's, the mass media dramatically brought us the picture of hunger from Africa - starving children, skin and bone, with their bloated bellies, too weak to even stand up. ' ; (Warnock p. 1) At the same time, people living in more developed countries or wealthy states are enjoying different kinds of delicious meals and dumping whatever they don't like. Why would this happen? Can we refer this to the government or economical policies that rise the problems? To further explore the problem of hunger in Africa, we can easily relate this to poverty.

In fact, there may be some other problems that cause the hunger. For example, local drought in the African Sahel that damages the cropping; which in turn shorten the local food supplies. The other factor is the rapid population growth in Africa. Increasing capita means an increase demand of food. People in Africa are rarely taught the knowledge of birth-control.

'If you have money you eat well, no matter how fast the population around you is growing and no matter how short the supplies of energy or land or fertilizer. ' ; (Kent p. 77) According to Kent's view, we shall see that money can buy off the problem of hunger easily. But why Africa is still facing a lot of famine problems within its region? This can be explained by the 'chain-effect'; of poverty and hunger.

If people are poor, they won't have enough to produce in order to exchange for money. Without money, they will suffer from hunger and famine and not be able to produce efficiently due to their lack of energy. Now that we can see the problem is magnetized. The other issues that rise poverty in Africa is the irrational economical policies and huge amount of financial debts.

'According to U.N. Economic Commission for Africa, the debt-service obligations within African countries dedicating an estimated 34 percent of the income generated by the export of goods and services to interest payments. ' ; (Reeves p. 115) We can see that many of the incomes generated by the working forces are obligating for the foreign debt payments. One of the irrational policies that spread hunger in Africa is the structural adjustment program (SAPs): ... promoted by the World Bank and other donors. Central to adjustment programs, cuts in government food subsidies have triggered riots in many African capitals during the last several years and have meant that many families are unable to purchase sufficient amounts of bread, sugar, or other basic commodities... Throughout the continent, SAPs have called for the reduction of the often-bloated civil service sector, triggering widespread urban unemployment, and have also prescribed repeated currency devaluation, thus reducing the purchasing power of consumers. (Reeves p. 124) The third factor that triggers hunger is the militarization Africa.

Throughout the years, in wars were fought inside and outside the lands of Africa. These wars had negatively weakened the production of the people. 'War turns farmlands into battle zones, removes able-bodied producers from the agricultural sector, disrupts transport and marketing, and directs the bulk of foreign exchange earnings to the military. ' ; (Reeves p. 111) As wars continue to spread throughout the lands, people turn to refugees and try to seek the way out of the war-zones. This flow of refugees will contribute more hunger inside Africa. The problem of refugees also increases the unemployment rate as people are unable to work stable and continue to perform at one cite.

Refugees also lead to more diseases around the lands as medications are lacked throughout their trips. In addition, some international donor organizations refuse to give assistance to these refugees as they are difficult to provide appropriate identification status to the organizations. '... uprooted within their own countries, the displaced cannot gain official refugee status, and so are cut off from many sources of international assistance. ' ; (Reeves p. 92) Now we can find that Africa countries are really facing a very serious problem of poverty. To illustrate this point, there is a useful chart to look at: (Jackson p. 70) The Best and Worst Places to Live The 10 Best The 10 Worst 1. Canada (0.950) 1.

Niger (0.207) 2. United States (0.938) 2. Sierra Leone (0.221) 3. Japan (0.937) 3. Mali (0.222) 4. Netherlands (0.936) 4.

Ethiopia (0.227) 5. Finland (0.934) 5. Afghanistan (0.228) 6. Iceland (0.933) 6. Burkina Faso (0.228) 7. Norway (0.933) 7.

Guinea (0.237) 8. France (0.931) 8. Mozambique (0.246) 9. Spain (0.930) 9. Somalia (0.246) 10. Sweden (0.929) 10.

Burundi (0.286) The Index takes into account life expectancy at birth; adult literacy rates; mean years; educational attainment; real purchasing power. Source: United Nations, Human Development Report, 1995 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 212 According to the above chart, we can find the worst place to live mainly in African countries and southern regions of the hemisphere; or preciously, the 'third world'; and undeveloped countries. On the other hand, countries with better political institutions and economic policies (i.e. Canada and United States) are ranked the best places to live in. The other country that we are going to explore is Indonesia.

Despite the crisis and strikes that occurred in 97, Indonesia is experiencing a declining rate of poverty. 'In 1970, it was one of the poorest countries in the world: 70 million people, 60 percent of the population, lived below the official poverty line... In 1987, the average Indonesian's income was $450, the poverty rate had fallen to 17 percent, or about 30 million people. ' ; (Reeves p. 65) Although hunger is still striking the mainland of Indonesia, it is processing in a declining rate. General Suharto took power in 1966 and applied lots of new economic policies to strengthen the 'postwar'; country. 'Early on, Suharto brought a group of Western-trained economic 'technocrats'; into the government.

They have exerted considerable influence over economic policy... Since the mid-1970's, the government has maintained balanced budgets and a realistic exchange rate. ' ; (Reeves p. 66) The rising international petroleum prices during the 1970's also brought Indonesia a lot of foreign revenues. This could help the new government to renovate the postwar cities and towns. 'The Indonesian government made better use of the oil bonanza than many other oil-blessed governments did. The Indonesian authorities used oil money to finance the 'green revolution'; on Java.

' ; (Reeves p. 66) The government used oil revenues to invest in non-food export crops, neglecting cassava and corn (the main foods of poor people). Thus, hunger in Indonesia is still a serious problem to be solved. The central government passed much of the money on to lower levels of government, which managed the construction of roads, schools, and other infrastructure. This movement created a stable government and consistent political system inside the country. Beginning in 1983, falling oil prices dramatically worsened Indonesia's economic circumstances. However, the crisis was not that worse.

Income continued to rise in a slower manner rather than dropping dramatically. This was partly because many of the public investments from the oil boom period were paying off. Also, the 'technocrats'; managed a relatively quick and sophisticated shift in the economic policies to cope with declining oil revenues. In addition, in order to help the poor, the government posted some adjustment policies: First, the government devalued Indonesia's currency to make the country's exports more competitive internationally, and Indonesia's main exports, aside from oil, are farm products. Moreover, small farmers under labor-intensive conditions often grow key agricultural exports, such as rubber, coffee, and tobacco. In other countries, where exports are produced by a small number of capital-intensive enterprises, devaluation would help rural poor people less.

Second, as the government cut its spending, it protected expenditures for agriculture, local government, health, and education. The U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF) considers Indonesia's National Family Nutritional Improvement Project to be a model of 'adjustment with a human face,' ; i.e. measures aimed at making fundamental changes in the economy to achieve long-term growth while maintaining social services for the poorest people, especially women and children. (Reeves p. 67) According to the modernization theory, 'Third World countries will have to follow the same path that Western states did earlier if they wish to modernize. ' ; (Jackson p. 440) Countries like Africa will have to accept the modern ideas about political processes, education, and the economy.

Nonetheless, leaders of these undeveloped countries normally followed the idea of authoritarian, which restricted the freedom of people. On the other hand, world institutions are only willing to provide fund and assistance to those countries with norms about freedom and capitalism. As a result, these 'third world'; countries are unable to obtain fund to work their way out of poverty. In order to achieve modernization, Western states suggested that 'the way for Third World countries to develop is by competing with developed states in worldwide free trade. If domestic producers in these countries were exposed to international competition, they would be forced to become more efficient and effective: that is, they would have to modernize. ' ; (Jackson p. 440) How could these Third World countries succeed if world organizations in developed states refuse to provide support to them?

How could they compete with those highly developed countries with such limited resources? The other factor that affects Third World countries is the dependency theory. 'It is basically Marxist inspired, attempts to describe the situation of LDCs as being caused by their incorporation into the global, capitalist economy during the period of colonization. ' ; (Jackson p. 440) Dependency theory actually suggests that LDCs should not follow the Western route to development. It also suggests that forcing the undeveloped countries to compete globally will only increase the gap between Third World countries and developed states. In other word, it increases poverty in those Third World countries.

The existence of these Third World countries is only to provide cheap labors for the benefit of richer states. In the above case (Indonesia), government g rowed crops that are for sale on the world market for cheap prices rather than to provide food for the poor. This is a good example of benefiting the Western states while giving up the whole interest of domestic people. We can see that Third World and southern countries like Africa and Indonesia are still facing the problem of poverty. In order to work their way out, the governments should apply some appropriate policies and economic applications to overcome the problem. On the other hand, the richer states or more developed countries should provide the necessary financial aid to those poorer countries.

They should work hand-to-hand in order to strengthen the global benefit and interest.