Question

The most striking feature of the global economy is its extreme contrast with a mix and severity of challenges to meet development constraints (Todaro and Smith, 2015). For all their diversity, less developed countries are linked by a range of common problems.

1. a) What are these problems faced by some of the Asian, African and Latin American developing countries?
2. b) Which policies are most crucial to address the problems of less developed countries in these regions?
3. c) Do you think there could ever be a single, unified theory of development?

Answer 1

(A) There’s a whole range of social, economic, security, cultural and political problems that are common in Asian, African and Latin American developing countries.

For instance, Venezuela in South America is the latest example of a country facing hyperinflation, which is leaving permanent scars on their economy, a similar situation was seen in Zimbabwe a few years ago under the reign of Robert Mugabe, where goods and food prices increased exponentially in a short period of time.

Secondly, most countries in these regions are facing security threats, be it the stronghold of the mafia in Argentina, Boko Haram in Nigeria and ISIS in middle east Asia.

Most countries in these regions have a socialist kind of economic model, due to this private enterprises weren't able to thrive there, plus the prevalent corruption here makes the ease of doing business a hellish experience.

(B) Firstly, they’ll need to tweak some changes in their existing polices, this can be done by forward-backward linkage under which, a system is created, by which the output obtained from agriculture sector is used in the development of the industrial sector and the products obtained from the industrial sector is directly used in the service sector.

Secondly, a lot of these countries have a large force of manpower working in informal, unorganized sectors, the government should try to bring more and more people under formal organized system of conducting business.

Lastly, they should focus on Import substitution industry, under which these countries should try to cut down on their import secorts by developing industries and service sectors that would fill this gap, this way, most of the money going outside the country would reduce which ultimately would help in the country’s development.

(C) I don’t think there ever could be a single unified theory of development, because its quite evident from human history that, every plan of unifying the whole world under one large umbrella has failed miserably, hence we should appreciate and address the fac that every region has its uniques demands, economic condition, and different culture and hence every country requires a tailor-made economic theory for their individual economic development.

And lastly, a single theory wont stand the test of time and lose its relevance soon in this pragmatic 21st centuary, with time deveoplment theories would need to evolve and adapt to the changing times.