Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
countries, including the lack of infrastructure to cope with
those hazards. It is clear that the world economic system
often works to the disadvantage of the periphery but that
the system is not the only obstacle that peripheral coun-
tries face.
Conditions within the periphery, such as high
population growth rates, lack of education, foreign debt,
autocratic (and often corrupt) leadership, political insta-
bility, and widespread disease hamper development. It is
possible to get into the chicken-or-the-egg debate here:
did the structures of the world-economy create these
conditions, or do these conditions help to create the
structures of the world-economy? Many think that nei-
ther argument can stand alone, but understanding both
structures and conditions is important if you are to form
your own opinion.
Regardless of which came fi rst, numerous people
throughout the periphery are burdened with familial,
economic, cultural, and political hardships. In this sec-
tion of the chapter, we discuss several of the conditions
that affect the economic development prospects of peo-
ple in the poorest countries of the world, including many
factors outlined in the United Nations Millennium
Development Goals.
common. Mike Dottridge, a modern antislavery activ-
ist, explains that
traffi cking
happens when “adults and
children fl eeing poverty or seeking better prospects are
manipulated, deceived, and bullied into working in con-
ditions that they would not choose.” This phenomenon
is not considered slavery because the family does not sell
a child; instead the child is sent away with a recruiter
in the hopes that the recruiter will send money and the
child will earn money to send home. The traffi cked chil-
dren are often taken to neighboring or nearby countries
that are wealthier and in demand of domestic servants.
Others are traffi cked across the world, again typically
to work as domestic servants. Dottridge explains that
the majority of traffi cked children are girls and that the
majority of girls are “employed as domestic servants or
street vendors,” although some girls are “traffi cked into
prostitution.”
Some countries are working to change access to
primary education in order to make education univer-
sally available. In 2000, the Millennium Development
Report prompted the government of Rwanda to improve
access to education. In 2003, fees for primary educa-
tion were eliminated, and two years later schools started
receiving revenues based on the number of students
they were educating. Rwanda's goal was to make pri-
mary education available to all by 2010. Progress has
been made, but it is diffi cult to assess whether the goal
was achieved. Moreover, access and completion are two
different things; of the almost two million children cur-
rently in primary schools, only half reach the sixth year
of school. Moreover, without adequate funding to sup-
port the growing student population, some of Rwanda's
students meet under trees and many convene in swelling
classrooms. Aid is fl owing in from outside, but sustaining
support for the country's educational sector remains an
ongoing challenge.
Social Conditions
Countries in the periphery face numerous demographic,
economic, and social problems. Most of the less well-
off countries have relatively high birth rates and low life
expectancies at birth (see Chapter 2). Across the global
periphery, as much as half the population is 15 years old
or younger, making the supply of adult, taxpaying laborers
low relative to the number of dependents. Low life expec-
tancies and high infant and child mortality rates stem
from inadequate nutrition (protein defi ciency is a com-
mon problem). Many in the global economic periphery
also lack public sewage systems, clean drinking water, and
access to health care, making economic development all
the more diffi cult.
Lack of access to education is also a major problem
in the periphery. In some places, even the poorest families
pay for their children to attend school. As a result, large
numbers of school-age children do not go to school, and
illiteracy rates are high. Moreover, access to education
in the periphery is often gendered, with boys attending
school longer than girls. Girls often stop attending school
and instead work in the city to pay for their brothers'
school fees.
Lack of education for girls is founded on and com-
pounded by the widespread assumption (not just in the
periphery but in most of the world) that girls will leave
their homes (and communities) when they marry, no
longer bringing income to the family. In parts of the
periphery, traffi cking in children, especially girls, is
Foreign Debt
Complicating the picture further is the foreign debt
crisis that many periphery and semiperiphery coun-
tries face. Shortly after the decolonization wave of the
1960s, banks and other international fi nancial institu-
tions began lending large sums of money to the newly
independent states, money earmarked for development
projects. By the 1980s and 1990s, the World Bank and
the International Monetary Fund (IMF) were lending
signifi cant amounts of money to peripheral and semi-
peripheral countries, but with strings attached. To
secure the loans, countries had to agree to implement
economic or governmental reforms, such as privatiz-
ing government entities, opening the country to for-
eign trade, reducing tariffs, and encouraging foreign
direct investment. These loans are known as
structural
adjustment loans
.
