Development

This topic speaks about the world development, what it is and how it relates to us

Development against (or for) poverty or global inequality?

One of the meanings of development is trying hard to decrease financial inequalities in the world, but the fact is that in the history of mankind, there was never such a financial inequality as nowadays.

“As of 1820, the biggest gap between the rich and poor – specifically, between the world´s leading economy of the day – United Kingdom, and the world´s poorest region – Africa – was a ratio four to one per capita income. By 1998, the gap between the richest economy, the United States, and the poorest region – Africa – had widened to twenty to one”. Forty percent of the world´s population, 2.6 billion people, are living on less than US$2 a day. How many are living on the margins of survival with less than US$1 a day?

Correct answer: 1 billion people

This could be a source of frustration and compassion fatigue of people and institutions, who support development activities.

Example:

Many people from the minority world give donations through different programs and are supporting development activities in the majority world. It is their way of assisting people, who are not as fortunate as they are. They started to donate with the expectation, that their contribution would help poor people in the majority world to get out of the bad situation, they are in. Donors got a feeling of vanity for helping others.

But as time goes on, they keep paying and the situation is not getting better. Their disesteem grows. Compassion fatigue is coming up. They are skeptic that the money is not reaching the target and it ends with frustration caused by the inability to improve the situation for the target group.