Universität Lüneburg, SoSe 2005
„Internationale Arbeitsfelder“

A Comprehensive Overview of Criteria Defining a Third-World-Country
and an Exemplification of the Development of AIDS in the
Sub-Saharan African State of Zambia

von: Kerstin Meyer

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1. Introduction 3

2. Which criteria characterize a developing country? 3

2.1 Economics 3

2.1.1 Low Added Value 3
2.1.2 Export 4
2.1.3 High Unemployment 4
2.1.4 Poverty 6

2.2 Ecology 7

2.2.1 Rain forest 8
2.2.2 Urbanization 8
2.2.3 Desertification 9

2.3 Demography 9

2.3.1 Population growth 9
2.3.2 Low life expectancy 10
2.3.3 Childhood mortality 11

2.4 Physical Health 12

2.4.1 Food 12
2.4.2 Hunger 12
2.4.3 Water 13
2.4.4 AIDS 14

2.5 Sociocultural attributes 14

2.5.1 Situation of women 14
2.5.2 Child labour 16

2.6 Political attributes 16

2.6.1 Political instability 16
2.6.2 Corruption 17
2.6.3 Human rights 17

3. Prevalence of AIDS in Africa 19

3.1 One Example: Zambia 20

3.1.1 History of AIDS in Zambia 20
3.1.2 Ways of HIV Transmission and cultural features 22

4. Conclusion 26

5. Bibliography 27

1. Introduction

In the Seminar “Corporation for Development and Education – the case of El Salvador” we focused on the problems of Developing Countries and Third World Countries. The target of this overview is to show the different criteria which classify a developing country and to give a short description how the situation of one criteria is labelled and what consequences this has.
As each topic could form an essay in itself, I can only give a short explanation. In the second passage of this essay I will focus the situation of AIDS in one African state, Zambia, up from history to recent statistics and prospects of the future.

2. Which criteria characterize a developing country?

In the following I will specify the different criteria which are said to characterize a developing country. These attributes are understood as symptoms of structural problems. These attributes have a different significance in industrialized countries. Before explaining the criteria for developing countries, I think it necessary to emphasise, that more than 80% of the world’s population lives in developing countries – only 17% live in the industrialized part of the world. In 1950 30% of the worlds population lived in the industrialized part. As per estimation of the “Deutsche Stiftung Weltbevölkerung (DWS)” in 2050 only 12% of the worlds population will live in industrialized countries.¹

2.1 Economics

2.1.1 Low Added Value

A major part of economical problems arise from the low value.² Most people work in the prime sector: agriculture and raw materials. In this sector surpluses cannot be expected. The industrial sector including e.g. trade, energy industry or the service sector, has a very low level of development. As a consequence the income does not rise and the possibility for people to make capital investments or to have money available to spend is very low. Therefore the gross domestic product is small.

2.1.2 Export

As most people in developing countries are working in the prime sector, the export-palette is one-sided. It consists mostly of agricultural goods and raw materials.³ Also the terms of trade are not favourable, because developing countries try to conform to the terms of foreign trade and payments of the industrialized countries. Therefore the conditions do not harmonise with their possibilities. In connection with the low added value and huge unemployment (see next) the export and the gross national product remain on a low level.

2.1.3 High Unemployment

The unemployment rate is very high, per estimation in all developing countries it is more than one third of the habitants, for example in South Africa more than 50% of the population is unemployed. According to the “Lexikon Dritte Welt” unemployment can be split into two different groups

1) open unemployment; official unemployment (?)
2) underemployment; “hidden unemployment”⁴

The amount of underemployed people is much higher than the officially disclosed statistics. The underemployed are people, who have a workplace, but work less than they would like to or who do not earn enough money for basic subsistence. Furthermore the “hidden unemployed” can be situated in different groups:

- seasonal work, meaning that people only get a job for tillage and for harvest;
- cyclical work, meaning varying work, depending on demand
- stationary work, meaning the underemployment of helping family members.⁵

Without investments, creating jobs is not possible. But governments lack money. Developing countries are dependent on help from the industrialized part of the world. The unemployment has different causes. In general there is a difference in the causes for unemployment between the rural and the city. In the paper “Welt im Wandel” Mr. Claus D. Gupp writes about the causes as follows:

Rural unemployment:
- unequal possession: the bigger part of the rural population does not possess land or only little land. Therefore they are not only dependent on the products of foreign farmers, but also on a workplace on a foreign farm. (This affects especially Latin America and South Asia, less Africa.)
- Low productions for the market: Many farmers only work for their own needs, because the government gives only little money for the goods. Also many farmers do not have enough money for fertilizers or seeds. Thus the work supply is automatically reduced. (This is characteristic for Asia and Black Africa).
- population growth: with population growth the density of the population grows, too. This way the agricultural area gets smaller and the workforce grows.
- natural disasters: many people are forced to leave rural environments and are emigrating to the big cities, because they cannot find work anymore. This is a reason for slum growth in the metropolis of the third world countries, because the big cities cannot supply enough work, either.
- the sales market for trade and business concerns is limited, because the purchasing power on the part of the rural is low. This causes low possibilities to work in the concerns

Urban unemployment:
- due to a growing mechanisation in agriculture, less workers are needed.
- automation is growing, modern technology displaces the traditional manufacture, an area where many people worked.
- the willingness of businesses to create workplaces is low, because of restrictions on the part of the government. (Typical in Black Africa and in South- and Southeast Asia.)
- due to the migration from the rural in the cities the number of applicants for work grows continuously.⁶

2.1.4 Poverty

[...]

1 http://www.dsw-online.de/

2 http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entwicklungsland#Demographische_Merkmale

3 Ebd.

4 http://www.payer.de/entwicklung/entw24.htm#2

5 Ebd.

6 Ebd.