Throughout the world there is a huge disparity in the wealth between nations in the world. Whilst the richest countries maintain a high quality of life the same cannot be said for those poorest countries (LDC’s). LDC countries often have population living in poverty with a low quality of life, barely any social mobility and little if any access to change and develop as a country. However the world seeks to change these impacts and hopes to change the future of LDC countries, but around the world there are many different views on how these countries can develop be that from intervention or not.
There are many barriers which LDC countries face, these have all been seen as essential factors to develop and so the UN created a set of goals (Millennium Development Goals) as targets for some of the poorest countries to achieve. These 8 goals include stopping poverty, greater primary education rates, equality, improved health and also striving for sustainable methods to develop. Whilst few countries have achieved all or any of these targets, they have set ways for countries to develop and to provide a better life for their population. A number of NGOs are also helping to achieve these goals with groups like the Micah Challenge, Millennium Campaign and others. This shows two types of aid, both bilateral as all UN government members work together to help, as well as multilateral through the NGO’s and other charities which worked to help solve these issues. However aid cannot for all countries as for many it becomes something they have to rely on, such as Mozambique were aid accounts for 60% of the country’s GDP, which in the long run is incredibly unsustainable.
While many do agree that intervention is needed for these countries to develop those who don’t believe in intervention from the rest of the world point to the Asian Tigers a grouping of nations who rapidly developed and have since made a huge impact on a global economic stance as they have entered the manufacturing sector and out priced other countries. This was a stark rise before their recent rapid rate of economic development. One of the largest growths of development can be seen with South Korea one of the tigers, before the rapid industrialisation they had a HDI of 0.640 in 1980 the equivalent of 117th in the world today, however they have rapidly risen to 12th in the world with a rating of 0.909, better than the UK and France. Although many believe that this growth has come from not outside intervention. However although little aid has reached the Asian Tigers to help them development they instead benefitted from large levels of FDI from tnc’s mainly based in the western world. This investment has greatly increased the general quality of life in the country as the manufacturing provided more stable and greater earning than the previous dominant agriculture business. This extra income has allowed the population to increase their services through taxes as well as to provide more stuff for their family.
However many see this type of intervention as impossible in the poorest countries in the world and they cite the high prevalence of corruption in the countries as a huge negative for foreign companies to invest. Whilst there was corruption in the Asian Tigers they also had other negatives to get investment including higher levels of literacy as well as close transport links to large areas of consumption especially to the booming South East Asian countries including China & India. This is vastly different to many LDCs who have little infrastructure which would be an increased cost that TNCs would have to cope with, also with 33 of the 50 countries being in the same continent Africa they don’t have the close links to huge economic
