早稲田国際教養学部AO入試 Causes of Poverty - revised (The old title: Necessary Factors of Development)

 

This map is taken from a website entitled World Map of Railways. Take a look at it and answer the following questions.

 

World Map of Railways

(http://theintrepid.blogspot.com/2009/10/world-map-of-railways.html)

  

1.    Focusing on Africa and India, write a paragraph explaining what you can learn from this map concerning the relationship between the development of train networks and poverty.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　

 

2.    Discuss what aspects other than infrastructure are necessary to fight poverty.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　

Answer Keys

1.    Focusing on Africa and India, write a paragraph explaining what you can learn from this map concerning the relationship between infrastructure and poverty.

 

I can learn from this map that whether a country has its infrastructure in place or not is related to its poverty. Africa, the world’s poorest continent, has few railway networks except in South Africa and countries up in the north, while India, which is now regarded as an emerging economy, has railways which are as closely woven as those in many developed nations such as England and Japan. This contrast between these two countries, which share the history of colonization, independence after WWII, and epidemic-like poverty which followed after the independence, tells that the existence of railways can be one of the factors that have decided their destinies. During the Green Revolution in the 1960s and the IT revolution in the 2010, India had a transportation system that the British had built during the colonial period. It was ready to accommodate the needs to move materials and people quickly and in large amounts. Africa, on the other hand, has few railways to provide necessities such as food, medicine, and materials, and this hampers the efforts for development.

 

2.    Discuss what aspects other than infrastructure are necessary to fight poverty.

 

The key to successful fight against poverty is to assist the poor out of the vicious cycle of subsistence by making them able to support themselves and develop their community by themselves. To help start their self-sustaining growth, developed countries can assist them in four areas other than helping build their infrastructure.

1) assistance in agriculture: We must help them out of food shortage through provision of materials, technology, and skills.

2) assistance in health care: We must help them eliminate preventable deaths from bad healthcare conditions, providing basic healthcare, and fight against epidemic and endemic diseases.

3) assistance in education: We must help their children receive proper education so that they can contribute to the community.

4) assistance in reducing violence: We must support the people to escape from violence by men, the powerful, and the police.

5) eliminate discrimination: We must get rid of discrimination based on race, religion, or sex, which prevent people from functioning normally or getting appropriate results for their efforts and ability.

 

Reference

Excerpts from Common Wealth Economics for a Crowded Planet, Jeffrey D. Sachs

Underlined by Sasaki

pp.227-228: Unlike the Eurasian landmass, sub-Saharan Africa is inherently isolated by the Sahara and by the lack of rivers navigable from the ocean to the interior. Moreover, the colonial powers did not build much infrastructure in the interior of Africa. In India, the British raj constructed a thorough rail network often connected to rural roads, in part to bring India’s rural cotton production to British factories. In Africa, by contrast, rails were not built to reach villages but rather a few diamond and gold mines. The result was not a rail network but some disconnected rail capillaries that reached only a tiny proportion of Africa’s rural population.

 

pp. 229-231: The poor know what to do but are too poor to do it. Since they can’t meet their immediate needs (food, safe water, health care) they also can’t afford to save and invest for the future. That is where foreign assistance comes in. A temporary boost of aid over the course of several years, if properly invested, can lead to a permanent rise in productivity. That boost, in turn, leads to self-sustaining growth. The logical chain is the following:

 

Temporary aid→Boost of productivity→Rise of saving and investment→Sustained growth

 

The escape from extreme poverty requires four basic types of investment. The first is a boost to productivity of the core livelihood, agriculture. This is the hallowed Green Revolution that initially lifts smallholder farmers out of subsistence. The second is health, including control of the main killers－infection, nutritional deficiencies, and unsafe childbirth－through the provision of preventative and curative health services. The third is education, which ensures that households develop the requisite skills to navigate the local global economy. The fourth is infrastructure, essential for productivity in every sphere, including power, roads, safe water for drinking and sanitation, phone and Internet connectivity, and port services. The boost of farm production has very often been the deus ex machina that triggers the long term growth process. It is also a process that often starts with outside help, as when the United States funded the initial research and many of the inputs (improved seeds and fertilizer) that went into India’s Green Revolution, which began in the second half of the 1960s. In the urban areas, the initial investment will not support agriculture but rather manufacturing or services. Perhaps the trigger to growth will be improved roads that facilitate trade or an improved port that permits the start of an apparel sector or a power plant that provides vital power for factory production. Whatever the particular investment, the concept is the same: raise productivity above subsistence in order to trigger a self-sustaining process of economic growth.