Development means ''improvement in a country's economic and social conditions''. More specifically, it refers to improvements in ways of managing an area's natural and human resources in order to create wealth and improve people's lives.
Measuring development:Studying development is essentially about measuring how developed one country is compared to other countries, or to the same country in the past. There are many different ways of considering development, but the two most important are economic development and human development.
Development indicators:There is no simple, single way to calculate the level of development of a country, region, or people, because countries and economies, cultures and peoples differ so much. Instead geographers use a series of development indicators to help them judge a country's level of development. For example:
- Health. Do all the people in a country have access to medical care? What level of healthcare is available - basic or advanced? Is it free or paid for?
- Industry. What type of industry predominates? LEDCs tend to focus more on primary industries, such as farming, fishing and mining. MEDCs focus on secondary industries, such as manufacturing. The most advanced countries tend to focus more on tertiary industries - services businesses, such as banking and information technology.
- Education. Do all the people in a country have access education? Is it free? What level of education is available (ie primary education, secondary education or further/higher education)?
Economic development indicators:In order to assess the economic development of a country, geographers use economic indicators. The most important of these indicators are listed below:
- Gross Domestic Product (GDP) measures the wealth or income of a country. GDP is the total value of goods and services produced by a country in a year.
- Gross National Product (GNP) is another measure of a country's wealth or income. GNP measures the total economic output of a country, including earnings from foreign investments which are not included in GDP.
- GNP per capita is a country's GNP divided by its population. (Per capita means per person.)
- Economic growth measures the annual increase in GDP, GNP, GDP per capita, or GNP per capita.
- Inequality of wealth is an indication of the gap in wealth and income between a country's richest and poorest people. It can be measured in many ways (eg, the proportion of a country's wealth owned by the richest 10% of the population, compared with the proportion owed by the remaining 90%).
- Inflation measures how much the prices of goods, services and wages are increasing each year. High inflation (above a few percent) is believed by many to be a bad thing, and suggests a government lacks of control over the economy.
- Unemployment is measured by the number of people who cannot find work.
- Economic structure shows how a country's economy is divided between primary, secondary and tertiary industries.
- Demographics studies population growth and population structure. It compares birth rates to death rates, shows average ages, and compares numbers of people living in towns with numbers living in the countryside. (Many LEDCs have a younger, faster-growing population than MEDCs, with more people living in the countryside than in towns
Human development indicators:Development often takes place in an uneven way, resulting in some countries being more developed in some ways than in others. A country may be economically developed, with a very high GDP - derived, for example, from the exploitation of rich oil reserves - while segments of the population still live in poverty, and lack access to basic education, health, and decent housing.
Hence the importance of human development indicators. These measure the non-economic aspects of a country's development, therefore helping to give a more balanced view of what constitutes development.
The most important human development indicators are listed below.
- Life expectancy is the average age to which a person lives.
- Infant mortality rate counts the number of babies, per 1,000 live births, who die under the age of one year.
- Poverty indices count the percentage of people living below the poverty level, or on very small incomes (eg under £1 per day).
- Access to basic services measures the availability of services necessary for a healthy life, such as clean water and sanitation.
- Access to healthcare takes into account statistics such as how many doctors there are for every patient.
- Risk of disease calculates the percentage of people with dangerous diseases such as AIDs, malaria, tuberculosis, etc.
- Access to education measures how many people attend primary school, secondary school and higher education.
- Literacy rate is the percentage of adults who can read and write.
- Access to technology, includes statistics such as the percentage of people with access to phones, mobile phones, television and the internet.
- Male/female equality compares statistics such as the literacy rates and employment between the sexes.
- Government spending priorities compares health and education expenditure with military expenditure and paying off debts.
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