Characteristics of LDCs

'the poorest and most economically weak of the developing countries, with formidable economic, institutional and human resource problems, which are often compounded by geographical handicaps and natural and man-made disasters'

 

- At the beginning of the 21st century, the UN recognised 50 countries as LDCs, until Cape Verde was removed in 2007

- of this number, 33 are in Africa, others in SE Asia and small island states in the Pacific

 

Features of LDCs:

 - < $800 GDP per capita per year

- human resource weaknesses based on health, nutrition, education and literary indicators

- economic vulnerability due to share of manufacturing in GDP, share of labour force in manufacturing industry, annual per capita energy consumption and export concentration levels

- on-going and widespread political conflict, e.g. Dafur in Sudan

- extensive political corruption

- lack of political and social stability

- authoritarian government, e.g. a dictatorship

 

Evaluating the characteristics of LDCs:

- The 50% adult literacy target for 2015 has been met by 26/33 LDCs for women, but inly 10/33 LDCs for men

• clearly poor education in countries which haven't met the target for either
• more focus on women's education compared to men's

             --> government trying to increase women's status in the 16 LDCs where the target has been met for only women - this may lead to lower fertility rate in those countries

             --> possibly due to international pressure from other countries - much more focus on women's rights

             --> lack of skilled male workers in LDCs as literacy is a crucial skill for most jobs - so lower income leading to low GDP for the country

 

- 470 million people to live in extreme poverty by 2015

• Almost 50% of population living on < $1 a day - not enough money for a suitable quality of life
• rates of undernourishment of >40% reported in 10 LDCs = high death rates and infant mortality

             --> undernourishment means that more people will be ill and vulnerable to diseases - this means that the healthcare system will be put under pressure

             --> need more doctors per person, more equipment and better hospitals, which developing countries cannot afford

 

- Under 5 mortality is 160 deaths per 1000 live births compared to 86 for the rest of the world

• possibly higher fertility rate for women due to the high possibility that they may lose some of their children
• women unable to work and earn money for the family as they are having to look after sick children

            --> leads to a high dependency ratio if more children are being born because of the fear of death

            --> demand for better quality healthcare to treat the children - less children able to be treated due to lack of life-saving medicine and equipment

            --> higher dependency on aid efforts such as Comic Relief and Save the Children

            --> lower economically-active population in the future as children are dying

 

Quality of Life in LDCs

- the income of much of the population in an LDC is too small to meet their basic needs

- the resources in the economy are not enough to provide for the needs of the population on a sustainable basis

- their economic freedom is constricted

 

- In some cases the incidence of poverty has been falling, but a high population growth rate means that the actual number of those in poverty has increased over the long term

• total population in LDCs living on < $1 a day was 40-36% from 1990-2005
• but 212 million to 277 million in total
• %s can sometimes be misleading

- poverty is much higher in Africa (374 million have an income of < $2 per day) compared to Asia (303 million)

- in African LDCs, more people live on < $1 a day (206 million) than between $1-2 a day (169 million) - so the poor are poorer relative to the number of Asians who live on < $1 a day (71 million) and those who live on $1-2 a day (133 million)

- the % of the total population living on < $1 a day in African LDCs is considerably higher than the % of all LDCs - showing that African LDCs have a higher proportion of extremely poor people