The Obstacles To Development Faced By Most Ldcs Economics Essay

The less developed countries take a large part in our world. Concerning about the development situation in these countries is very necessary, because it closely relate to the people’s living in these countries and also influences the whole world’s development as it becomes a global issue. There are factors that the less developed countries are still in low level, which become the obstacles that hinder the development of these countries in 21st century. The health is the most fundamental issue in one country; however for most people in less developed countries, the health can’t be insured. The education is also not universal and of high quality in these LDCs, which make the development can’t reach high efficiency. And also the economic mode also contributes to the less development. The agriculture is not high productivity, which makes it hard to transfer to the industrialization to promote the development. So in my opinion, the health, the education and the economic mode are the most serious obstacles to these less developed countries.

The development of a country is measured with statistical indexes such as income per capita, life expectancy, the rate of literacy, et cetera. The UN has developed the HDI, a compound indicator of the above statistics, to gauge the level of human development for countries where data is available. Developing countries are in general countries which have not achieved a significant degree of industrializationrelative to their populations, and which have, in most cases a medium to low standard of living (wikipedia.org). The number of less developed countries is still large. LCDs mainly refer to the 130 countries in the Third World, which take 70 percent of the overall land and population in the world (baike.baidu.com). The people in these less developed countries could not get better security and fulfillment. What’s more, the resources in these countries are not well utilized and it is also not good for the rest of the world like the immigration problem, environment harming.

Health is the premise that we do every development activities. The former Secretary General of the United Nations Kofi Annan, defined a developed country as follows. “A developed country is one that allows all its citizens to enjoy a free and healthy life in a safe environment.” (uneasp.org). From his words, we know that health is a big issue in the LDCs countries. Relative to the poorly nourished workers, those who consume more calories are more productive, and that at a very low levels of intake, better nutrition is associated with increasingly higher productivity. (Leibenstein, 1957). While the overall health condition in LDCs is not very good, the productivity is also not very high. In Uganda, per capita spending on health is US $57 per year. In Rakai, a rural district about 200 miles southwest of the capital city of Kampala, there is one doctor for every 22,400 people (globalproblems-globalsolutions -files.org). The health problem in LDCs is very serious. Only after ensuring the health security, can we have the condition to develop the countries.

While people ensure the health condition in less developed countries, the education level also can restrict development. Education is the knowledge of putting one’s potentials to maximum use (islamweb.net). Education can make people get rid of the harm of the pseudoscience and rise the productivity from the technology. In Africa, there are far too many children who do not have a chance to go to school, and far too few who complete the bare minimum of schooling needed to become permanently literate and numerate (Chimombo, 2005). In the Less developed countries, both of the basic education and high education are not advanced. On average each one-year Increment m mother’s education corresponds with a 7-9% decline m under-5S’mortahty. Education exercises a stronger Influence m early and later childhood than m infancy (Cleland & Ginneken, 1988). The education does not only influence the current generation’s living standard, but also influence the next generations. Education is a project in a long term and the countries should improve it step by step.

Despite the health and education these basic people’s livelihood, we tend to the economic side, which determine the countries’ degree of development directly. Rural areas take the most percent in less developed countries and in these areas the agriculture is their most important property they have. The less developed countries still face the problem of low labor productivity, small family farms and limited commercialization (psu.edu). While these countries begin to research the industry, they should still put the agriculture at a very important place. If the country pay too much attention on the industry in order to chase development, it will get the reverse effect. When the agriculture is developed very well and have surplus after satisfying the domestic needs, then the surplus can be used to research the development of industry (Kay, 2002). In this way, the country will develop step by step. And while the industry is advanced, it is also good for the agriculture as the mechanized farming is very effective. The economic mode may bring the economy into a virtuous cycle. Some developing countries have opened their own economies to take full advantage of the opportunities for economic development through trade, but many have not (imf.org). While the countries have surplus, they can export their products. Additionally, they should also import goods but not only make import substitutes. Policies that make an economy open to trade and investment with the rest of the world are needed for sustained economic growth. The evidence on this is clear. No country in recent decades has achieved economic success, in terms of substantial increases in living standards for its people, without being open to the rest of the world (imf.org). So economy mode and close market also become obstacles to development.

There are also many other factors that obstruct the development of the less developed countries, like the population growth and urbanization. In fact, these factors can influence each other and they unite together to lead to the less development of the LDCs. We should start solving this problem from the health, education and economy mode improvement. The development of these LDCs is a problem that relate to our whole world. While we find the main obstacles, the other countries and international organization should also provide help. And the obstacles don’t keep the same all the time. We should keep adjusting the obstacles all the time.