A decade before the United Nations established the Millennium Development Goals, an anthropologist named James Ferguson wrote a book called The Anti-Politics Machine, highlighting the damaging effects of so-called “development” on Lesotho. Much of this stemmed from a lack of consideration of the real economic and political situation in Lesotho. Similar development packages are used in many “Third World” countries and indicators such as GDP growth are used without consideration of things such as government organization and political parties or the social realities of the people living within countries. The use of results-based management, i.e. the looking at of quantity-based indicators rather than the quality of development, has been an ongoing criticism of the Millennium Development Goals. (Van Norren) Although the failed Thaba-Tseka Development Project occurred in the 1970s and 80s, I believe it is important today to look at whether the Millennium Development Goals are impacting impact Lesotho positively or if they make the mistake continuing what Ferguson called the “development discourse fantasy.” This fantasy Ferguson talks about leads to unrealistic goals and puts more power in the hands of the state. (Ferguson)
The UN Millennium Development Goals are as follows: eradicate extreme hunger and poverty; achieve universal primary education; promote gender equality and empower women; reduce child mortality; improve maternal health; combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases; ensure environmental sustainability; and global partnership for development. At face value, these sound like worthy goals for the world to strive toward. However, the achievement of these goals and the positive impact, if any, these have on developme...
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...wledge, or the willful ignorance of the realities of life in Lesotho that have been perpetuated since the 1970s will continue hurt the country. All of the goals are tied together and impact each other and if we do not look at the impact of assuming trade liberalization will improve quality of life and continue ignoring the need to adopt specific strategies for each country, development will continue to be a tool for maintaining the status quo.
In conclusion, I firmly believe that developing countries need to push against broad development goals with unattainable standards. Lesotho in particular needs to focus on addressing the cultural issues within the country. Pouring money into the country will not work if there is a corruption, enormous dependency on the Western world, and a lack of true equality and understanding of the wellbeing of our nation.
Works Cited: Ferguson, James. (1990) The Anti-politics Machine: ‘Development’, Depoliticisation, and Bureaucratic Power in Lesotho, Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Cambridge. University Press McMichael, Philip. The. (2000) “Development and social change: a global perspective.”
What would you say if I asked you to tell me what you think is causing the death of so many people in the horn of Africa? AIDS? Starvation? War? Would it surprise you if I told you that it all boils down to the women of Africa? Kofi Annan attempts to do just this in his essay “In Africa, Aids Has a Woman's Face.” Annan uses his work to tell us that women make up the “economic foundation of rural Africa” and the greatest way for Africa to thrive is through the women of Africa's freedom, power, and knowledge.
A beautiful precious diamond can last forever, but what most people do not know is that a majority of our diamonds come from Africa. The civil wars in Africa over diamonds began around 1961 and ended in 2003. Conflict diamonds were rampant and it would be difficult to say if any jewelry sold prior to 2003 was conflict free. Conflict diamonds are diamonds that have been mined and were controlled by African rebels. The rebels would use the profits from selling conflict diamonds to fund illegal activity and to purchase more weapons for their armies. While rebels had control of the diamond mines they killed approximately 4 million people and countless families were displaced.
...e senseless and heartless government, which ruthlessly destroys the peaceful atmosphere in the villages. Africa will only reach its potential when everybody realizes the importance of preserving the cultural traditions.
United Nations Development Programme. Poverty Reduction and UNDP. New York: United Nations Development Programme, Jan. 2013. PDF.
Dr. Noah Zerbe is a professor and chair of the department of politics at Humboldt State University in California and someone who has spent time in both South Africa and Zimbabwe. Dr. Zerbe goes in depth into the factors that surrounded the 2002 famine in Africa, where 14 million Africans were on the brink of starvation. The Malawi president, just a season before the famine, sold off all of Mal...
Africa has long been a nation of conflict and strife. Certain countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have a prolonged history of corrupt leaders, violence and lack of resources. These conflicts often can lead to spill over and create wars in their neighboring countries. When a weak state has internal conflict it often spreads to surrounding weak states as it did with many of the countries in central Africa. This type of crisis will often involve the entire world in a variety of capacities such as militaries, foreign aid and the global economy. Congo especially has proved to create problems that continue to persist in the modern world and much of that is due to leadership of Motubu Sese Seko. “The conflict [in Congo] produced tremendous carnage: as many as 3.8 million dead and many more injured or displaced. Both phrases of the war (1996-97 and 1998-2002) involved domestic militias, a massive foreign invasion, and shifting alliances – with Angola, Rwanda, Uganda and Zimbabwe playing major roles. Even though the was has officially ended, peace remains elusive”(Atzili 2007 pg 141). One player’s internal conflicts spread through an entire continent and affected the whole world and caused enormous damage. All countries need to strive to maintain strong institutions to be a good global citizen and one of the keys to this is leadership.
Entering the 21st. Century – World Development Report 1999/2000. World Bank 2000. Oxford University Press. New York, NY 2000.
...egarded as equal partners in development cooperation. For example, in some societies, girls are not sent to school to get an education; they either remain at home with their mothers learning how to clean, cook and make the home or in some societies, be sent off to learn trades or forced to do unskilled labor work to support the home. Subsequently, these girls will grow to become women and with very little or no skills to make a living, they will be forced to rely on their husbands, they would have no place in the bigger society and as a result, the cycle of poverty will continue.
The ways that the African country of Rwanda has been able to transform itself from a grief stricken state devastated by genocide to a vibrant and prospering country in just a matter of twenty years is a remarkable feat that deserves be noted and celebrated. In the recent 58th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women, the theme that centered around the challenges and achievements in the implementation of the Millennium Development Goals for women and girls was of a particular interest to Rwanda, as the country had much to share about it’s commitment and progress made in implementing many of the MDGs. Rwanda’s success can be attributed to a number of innovative initiatives to improve the livelihoods of it’s citizens. While it is important to recognize that challenges still exist within the country, initiatives such as the Vision 2020 Umurenge Program and the Economic Development and Poverty Reduction Strategy (EDPRS) have and are currently working to transform Rwanda into a knowledge-based middle-income country. With these initiatives comes a necessary focus on reforms aiming to improve the quality and accessibility of education. The basic source of power for individuals in a society is access to education and information, so as a result, Rwanda needs to continue to put policies and initiatives that work to improve education as a priority in order for the country to reach it’s transformation goals and prepare itself for a continuing future of prosperity and success.
Smith, R.K. (1996). Understanding third world politics: theories of political change and development. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Thus, all these problems like poverty, education, transport, health facilities is creating problem for African people to develop and live a healthy life. It is also affecting the economy of the country and therefore government and many other organizations should take steps to look after all these issues for better development of Africa.
McMichael, Philip, ed 2012. Development and Social Change: A Global Perspective, 5th ed. London: Sage Publications, Inc.
As mentioned above, South Africa has been working on improving the lives of people. The Reconstruction and Development Program is one of the many that have been implemented that work on improving the life styles of people in South Africa. This is one of the strategies that has been very successful and is still standing as is. It is through this program that the lives of the many South Africans living in rural areas will be made
Some of the goals are doing well, such as primary schooling. However the “reducing hunger by half” goal is not. The chart shows that two regions of the world, Sub-Saharan Africa and Southern Asia, have high hunger with only fair progress. The rest of the regions they included have moderate hunger with very little progress. This proves that the methods used to accomplish the MDGs were ineffective and insufficient (in text citation- progress chart). The fact that the Sustainable Development Goal pertaining to hunger includes food security, nutrition, and agriculture is an achievement in itself because “it acknowledges the crucial role played by food-based approaches to nutrition” (in text citation- Goal 2). Improvements in agriculture can ultimately lead to ending hunger because people will have access to more nutritious foods and farmers will be able to produce more food. The UN said the purpose of the Millennium Development Goals was “to shape a broad vision to fight poverty and combat numerous issues hampering development progress” (in text citation- chart). This claim is contradicting because the only goal regarding hunger was to reduce it by half. Perhaps one of the reasons this goal wasn’t fully accomplished was because the UN didn’t incorporate other components such as nutrition and agriculture into the Millennium