For years I've been talking about how the "1st world" has taken a blind eye to the "3rd world". Other than a "fair" number of initiatives like micro-finance and a focus from the United Nations for the millennium goals (I highly recommend you read them ... they are on the U.N. website) it is like we really pay no attention to Africa (or Haiti for that matter) or any of the poorest countries. Obviously there are groups of people who pay attention, but by and large the 3rd world receives a small amount of attention in western society. We pay little attention to the fact that one billion people live on less than two dollars a day ... let alone the people in our own country that live at or below the poverty level. So, I thought I'd see what I could find out about the who's, what's and why's of the current situation. I imagine that 3rd world "living" could get much worse in the economic environment of 2009/2010.
The term "3rd world" was coined during the cold war. It was originally applied to any country that was neither aligned with NATO or with the communist block. Eventually, it came to be the name for developing countries of Africa, Asia, Latin America and Oceania. Today, common usage seems (to me) to reference poverty laden as the 3rd world. At best, many poorer nations have adapted the term in describing themselves.
There are generally five categories that we use to evaluate 3rd world countries. These are:
As it relates to political repression there are eight countries that make the list of "worst" status.
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When evaluating national income it is common to use the G.N.I. in a context of purchasing power per capita (P.P.P.) The average amount spent per day in the U.S.A. is $114.00 In Malawi the amount is $1.60 per day, or less than 1% of the U.S.A.'s daily "personal" (H.H.) spending. There are 16 countries with gross national income that is lower than $1,000.00 per year ... all of them are in Africa except for Yemen which as you recall is in the Middle East. The CIA's World Fact Book lists Timor-Leste as the lowest G.N.I. at $400.00/person/year.
When evaluating human development the three characteristics evaluated include ... (1) long and healthy life, (2) knowledge (literacy) and (3) a decent standard of living. Senegal rates the lowest overall. Burkina-Faso has the lowest adult literacy rate of 12.8% ... Zambia has the lowest life expectancy from birth at only 32.7 years.
The worst country for press freedom was North Korea and there are significantly more countries from Asia than Africa, the Middle East or Eastern Europe.
When you read about the 3rd world today, a lot of the "chatter" is about ... "what should we do?" There is actually debate over whether or not foreign aid works. In a review by Economics and Statistics there was no positive (nor negative) relationship found between aid in-flows and economic growth in the 3rd world. In a book published last year, Gregory Clark, a University of California economist argues that aid actually leaves African countries worse off.
There is also debate as to how foreign investment only aids the wealthy in these countries. While there are few people with wealth in every 3rd world country, as the ratio of wealth/poverty is so skewed, we should remember that there are some wealthy people. However, they appear to have little incentive to leave the money in the country, or even stay there. If you have $500,000.00 to invest in the U.S.A. ...you get a green card!! If you have a net worth of $800,000 Canadian you are welcome to immigrate to Canada. Why should they stay? Think about it ... why would you stay?
Have a great month.
W2
 | Classification of Economics |
| Countries of the Third World |
| Creating Wealth in Third World Countries |
| Free Democracy |
| Landlocked |
| The Hindu |
| Third World Traveler |
| Why are Third World Countries Poor? |
colin harper - 6/25/2009 5:33:47 AM DST (GMT-4)
Interesting newsletter as usual.
Is there a difference between 3rd world, basket cases, and developing countries?
So for example calling both Tanzania and Zimbabwe 3rd world because they’re both in Africa would seem disingenuous.
How about Sudan, and the badlands of Somalia, compared with south Africa?
As for Politically repressed countries, I’d have thought Zimbabwe and Iran would be on the list. Tamils might have a different view of Sri Lanka than the general Sinhalese population, as might the Kurds who straddle the border of Turkey / Iraq. (picking countries that have had recent electoral ‘aberrations’ this time).
How about Russia? It’s democracy, Jim, but not as we know it. And China?
How would you classify India – clearly strongly democratic, but with a massive range of per-capita wealth – it can send satellites to orbit, has had astronauts in the international space station, has some of the worlds major IT / systems firms located there; and at the same time has a massive number (absolute and as a percentage of the total population) of people at or below the official poverty level, generally poor infrastructure (roads, rail, Utilities etc.)
And the Middle east Gulf states? These are in the category of benign dictatorships or Sovereign states depending on your perspective. Actually I think the Emirate model is a good one for that part of the world as it fits culturally very well, whether or not the ‘state’ has oil / gas income, or like Bahrain, does not. The point being - they do have money, but they don’t have ‘political rights’.
So I’m not sure that ‘3rd world’ is a useful label – the of places it might cover are way too diverse…
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