What are the characteristics that separate rich from poor countries; The riches each country depends on many things, including the quality of State institutions, the culture, natural resources and latitude. An interesting video from School Of Life.

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1. p. (C). (I). says:

   07/06/2016 at 08:35

   There are no rich and poor States but manufactured and farm. the Nations that preceded the industrial revolution is natural and next to determine the path of the remaining. the transition from field to factory is what they say technological culture, rise of the biotikoy level etc.. But there is more happy residents of developed Member of the inhabitants of underdeveloped, because to be one happy in this world as long as has food, health and family. in developed countries may have more food but this has its side effects. They may have more hospitals but better is not the one you need. and with respect to the family, the poor are doing much better in this area!!

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2. Alex says:

   06/06/2016 at 17:52

   http://fairplanet.gr/cms/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&catid=7:–&id=123:2009-10-20-14-04-18&lang=theWe realized that, despite the efforts made by international organizations to stop the crisis, malnutrition remained particularly serious in these areas. The explanation, finally, was that drought and the locust invasion were not the only ones responsible for the famine, but mainly the fact the majority of the population had no money to buy even the basic food. In addition to the economic stabilization policy imposed by the International Monetary Fund, they contributed to the worsening of the crisis, the complete absence of social benefits, lax policy for food security and great corruption of government officials . Poverty in sub-Saharan Africa Written by Giorgos Kalliabetsos Kyriaki, 18 October 2009 07:50 Over 1 billion people worldwide, of which a third in sub-Saharan Africa, they live on less than a dollar a day Only when you've cut down the last tree, You would have caught the last fish, and got infected last river, You will understand that you can not eat money. A story from the Cree Indian tribe The Paris-Niamey plane landed in the capital of Niger after a 5-hour journey. We were greeted by a wave of suffocating heat loaded with unprecedented smells. in Niger, in 2004-2005, the poverty that plagued the country worsened and turned into a severe food crisis of the population due to the drought and the invasion of locusts, which hit the crops with unprecedented intensity. We were going to visit the regions of Zinder and Maradi, east of the capital, going through about 2.000 km, in order to assess the needs of the population in food aid. The testimonies we had collected, they were talking about a serious humanitarian crisis due to famine. The harvest was the worst in recent years, with the result that many children are at risk of acute and pre-mortem malnutrition. On our way to Maradi, we were impressed by the fact that in the street markets there were basic food materials in abundance. We did not understand how such a famine could be explained in an environment of peace, political stability and with markets full of goods. In Maradi the images of malnourished children were a punch in the stomach. In the food centers the situation was tragic. Apart from acute malnutrition, eight out of ten children also suffered from malaria, while 40 of the center's 250 children were in critical condition due to accompanying infection. We realized that, despite the efforts made by international organizations to stop the crisis, malnutrition remained particularly serious in these areas. The explanation, finally, was that drought and the locust invasion were not the only ones responsible for the famine, but mainly the fact the majority of the population had no money to buy even the basic food. In addition to the economic stabilization policy imposed by the International Monetary Fund, they contributed to the worsening of the crisis, the complete absence of social benefits, lax policy for food security and great corruption of government officials . In no Member of Sahel there is no provision for free medical aid, even the poorest sections of the population, making access to health in remote rural communities extremely difficult if not impossible. According to a survey of Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS), the health staff is insufficient since there is one doctor for 32,432 inhabitants, one nurse for 4,488 inhabitants and one midwife for 6,393 inhabitants. Yet, the lack of equipment of the health centers and the difficult access of the population to health and pharmaceutical care, said distance, but also because the cost of medicines, worse. The lack of access to clean water, mainly in remote rural areas, is the cause of many serious infections such as cholera. Children are the main victims of the extreme poverty that plagues the Sahel. According to statistics of UNICEF / CDC, children who have not received any vaccination amount to 45-48%, a particularly high rate which partly explains the increased mortality of children. Severe child malnutrition is well above 14% (Emergency limit), while the under-5 mortality rate exceeds 25% in the Western Sahel in non-crisis conditions. Malnourished children weigh 80% less than the normal weight of children their age, suffer from stunted growth and their fragile health makes them more susceptible to infectious diseases such as malaria, diarrhea, meningitis and pneumonia.. Niger as the entire Sahel zone constitutes, according to the classification of UNDP, the poorest region in the world, with 80% of its population living on less than $1 a day and with the problem of hunger a chronic scourge, as two-thirds of its area is covered by the Sahara. The inhabitants, with great effort, manage to cultivate a desolate land, in the south of the country, which even in 'good' years does not cover the nutritional needs of the population. The famine faced by Niger was one of the most serious humanitarian crises in West Africa, which unfortunately was slow to be noticed by the International Community. Prolonged drought and locust invasion hit vast expanses of savannah, where access and collection of information is very difficult. The silent famine, named as, to be noticed it had to go beyond the boundaries of rural communities, thus losing precious time. And once they learned of the extent of the problem, there was a long delay in calling for and responding to international aid. In heightened drama of hunger, the government's months-long concessions to market pressures and the instructions of the International Monetary Fund also played an important role, which react in delivering international humanitarian assistance, considering that such a development would lead to a significant drop in product prices. The geographic region of the Sahel is the sub-Saharan zone extending from the Atlantic to central Africa including Chad. It includes eight Member : Senegal, Guinea, Gambia, Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad. Some geographers extend it to the Red Sea, including the northern and central Sudan, northern Ethiopia and northern Eritrea. The main zone of the Sahel is characterized by the savanna climate, with distinct rainy and dry periods, with an average temperature of 35oC, and the rainy season lasts from July to September. The possibility of cultivation in this zone is limited, that's why the people of the area traditionally, adapted to climatic constraints, were nomads with first occupation trade with the caravans. When the region was divided during colonialism into zones of influence and new borders were arbitrarily drawn, the inhabitants were forced to abandon the nomadic life and limit themselves to small-scale cereal crops and animal husbandry (savannas are extensive grasslands). As a consequence of the imposed non-physical and cultural borders, the regions were exposed to civil strife and interstate conflicts that divided tribes and ethnicities into two, three or more pieces. the Touareg, the Haoussa, the Peuls, for example, they were deprived of their vital and cultural space. Every insurgency is being exploited by the West and, depending on its interests, it can be encouraged or suppressed. The areas of the Sahel, given the lack of water and the absence of any kind of irrigation infrastructure and modern land management methods, have limited cultivation potential. Global climate change is particularly intense in the Sahel zone, resulting, the last 50 years, the desertification of 250 kilometers to the south, in a depth zone up to 6.000 kilometers. These countries, after the great food crisis of 1972, created CILSS in 1973 (Inter-State Committee for the Fight against Drought in the Sahel) with the aim of mutual aid and the fight against poverty and drought. SOME DATA ON THE SAHEL COUNTRIES* COUNTRY 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Population (millions) 12,4 Ο,5 1,4 12,7 2,9 1,5 13,1 11,1 Development 1975-2003 2,6 2,0 3,4 2,6 2,5 3,0 3,2 2,7 2,8 Average life expectancy (years) 47,5 70,4 55,7 47,9 52,7 44,7 44,4 55,7 43,6 Adult illiteracy (%) 87,2 24,3 62,2 81,0 48,8 60,4 85,6 60,7 Population living on less than $ 1 44,9 50,0 59,3 72,3 25,9 60,0 61,4 26,3 Population without access to water (%) 49,0 20,0 18,0 52,0 44,0 41,0 54,0 28,0 66,0 Population in malnutrition outside crisis (%) 19,0 27,0 29,0 10,0 34,0 24,0 28,0 * The western SAHEL zone includes the countries 1. Burkina Faso, 2. Cape Verde, 3. Gambia, 4. Mali, 5. Mauritania, 6. Guinea, 7. Niger ,8. Senegal, 9. Chad. source Pnud ( www. Undp. Org). The classification of poverty can be assessed in terms of the western reality. For those countries most reliable method is the daily food consumption and not the financial rewards. As absolute poverty defined: One meal a day with minimal cereal consumption in the form of porridge. Poverty is defined : Two meals a day or more with little grain consumption. Besides milk weekly, there is no other animal protein food. As poverty threshold defined: two meals a day with cereal or rice consumption, two and three times a week consumption of milk. Once a week meat. acceptable: Two to three meals a day with adequate consumption of cereals and rice, vegetables at least three times per week, twice a week meat. Since 1960 and in the midst of the Cold War, the West has been proclaiming that in a decade it will succeed in changing the fate of poor African countries to such an extent that foreign aid will no longer be necessary. Of course, what he wanted in essence was not to leave these states under the influence of the Soviet Union. Therefore he granted political advisors, economic, military, and a multitude of organizations that were active in these areas (IMF, The World Bank, International Development of the USA and England, Inter-American Development Bank, UN Development Programme, World Health Organisation , Food and Agricultural Production Organization FAO/ UNICEF etc). We know today that all these interventions led to complete failure. Any help given, rarely offered selflessly, while the West tries to solve the problems with its own thinking and mentality. Despite the fact that he cannot know the problems and their solution better than the stakeholders themselves, none of the aid recipients are questioned. William Easterly1 cites the example of the electric blanket: 'one cold night my partner and I slept with a double electric blanket. But we confused the regulators. So when I got hot I turned the regulator down and my wife froze. She in turn raised the temperature causing my side to become even hotter, so I lowered the temperature even more. My wife kept getting cold and it raised my temperature even more'. The problem is there. The West adjusts the thermostat of a distant blanket and no one asks if it's getting cold or hot. The policies of rich countries control aid agencies and the poor lack the power to hold them accountable.. Between 1972 and 2002, the number of severely and permanently malnourished Africans increased from 81 to 203 million. Faced with the global drama of hunger, the UN recently decided to increase food aid by 50% by 2030, releasing 15-20 billion dollars a year. It is true that there should always be reserves in case of major crises. But the policy of 'emergency aid' is not suitable for solving the chronic food problem and the hunger of the people. Mostly, these practices do not bring results, but aimed at impressing public opinion. The money is a lot and with much less, much more substantial interventions could have been made such as, for example, wells in villages so farmers can irrigate their livelihoods and have access to clean water The poor farmer is not a beggar, nor lazy to ask for his food ready. It needs the elementary conditions to be able to produce it. The farmers in the Sahel region, with primitive means and without irrigation infrastructure, they try to cultivate their lands, consistently and even the good years, the harvest not being sufficient for storage or sale. Many humanitarian independent organizations, NGO. and collectives, as agents of the 'civil society' of the Western world, they have the best of intentions to altruistically give and help the developing world. They have good designs and encouraging results, but they are left without financial support because their actions deviate from the strategy of the central political and economic planning of the West. They have understood that aid should not be piecemeal but should be part of a more general anti-poverty policy and have taken important steps towards interest-free microloans, in building infrastructure for food security in crisis situations, in the installation of irrigation and water supply networks, reforestation, in the fight against illiteracy, in family planning to stabilize demographic growth, in primary health infrastructure. The issue of reforestation and food security has repeatedly concerned humanitarian organizations. Worthwhile effort to ensure food sufficiency in times of crisis, constitutes the creation of Cereal Banks (Cereal banks ή B.C.). Cereal Banks, they are actually agricultural cooperatives that were built in villages far from the center, with the aim of gathering stocks of cereals and seeds for the immediate provision of food aid but also for the prevention of a possible crisis. These banks were created by non-governmental organizations, while their management has been undertaken by a local committee of the residents of each community. The mode of operation of these banks foresees the provision of food either by symbolic monetary exchange or in the form of loans in kind. With the new crop, the farmer is obliged to return the borrowed quantity of seeds in order to always have a stock. Sahel countries like most African countries, they only have rudimentary mechanisms of public utility services (electricity and water), They have weak infrastructures (roads and railways), lending rates show sharp and wide fluctuations, inflation is high, while they face problems in work productivity which stem from insufficient education, care and housing. Market institutions are vulnerable (such as immature financial systems) and legal frameworks are underperforming. International financial organizations have no interest in fixing the fundamental and structural problems of the economy. Global economic policy and neoliberalism are the root cause of hunger. The economic stabilization plan imposed by the International Monetary Fund has created great inequality and further loss of meager income. After the end of colonialism in the 60s, neo-colonialism has proved harsher. The exploitation of the West has reached extreme limits. often abusing the market power, which they have as donors, and threaten to withdraw the preference for commercial cooperation if the Economic partnership agreements2 are not signed, under which African farmers' sales in local markets will be cut by the rapid trade liberalization that is opening the way for large amounts of subsidized imports from the E.U.. The mode of action of these agreements as aptly mentioned by CODESRIA director Antebayo Olukoshi, is essentially 'division by trade', a tactic initiated by the colonialists at the Berlin conference of 1884–85, when they fragmented the continent into colonies and 'states' in an arbitrary and illogical manner. Trade liberalization has disastrous effects on African agriculture, as only one sector of the economy is expected to develop: the processing. It is also the only activity that entices European capital to invest in joint ventures. The point about cereal crops being used as biofuels is also interesting. While global cereal production is increasing, only 50% of it covers food needs. The rest is converted into biofuels. In this way, vast arable lands are idled and new ones are created, resulting in rapid deforestation and the draining of water resources.. Economic and technical studies have shown that growing crops for the production of biofuels removes from consumption quantities of cereals that could cover 20 times the current global food deficit. A full petrol tank of ethanol needed grains corresponding to the annual diet of one anthropou3. Results of these crops are grain production decrease for food use, the increase in their price and the worsening of the greenhouse effect. The European Union's interest in biofuels, accelerates the rate at which forests are destroyed, which is considered a major factor contributing to global warming (study of Holly Gibbs, Woods Institute for the Environment at the University of USA Stafford). In conclusion, The Sahel zone is indeed small agricultural production. However, and regardless of the crisis that characterizes the current situation, neoliberal economic policy turns moderate poverty into years. The cost of living and the mandatory purchase of basic goods to meet the basic needs of the population is disproportionate to its average income. The poverty, coupled with the destruction or impairment of the crop, brings about further poverty, loan, non-repayment of debt, increase in interest rates, sale of land, again poverty. that is,, a vicious circle continues (The poverty trap) from which the peasants cannot escape. As said by Gandhi, the earth has sufficient resources to satisfy the needs of all, if certain stop the greed of some. 20% of the world's population controls 75% of the world's resources. It controls and trades it profitably through multinational agricultural companies, of water privatization and global trade laws. The battle to fight poverty is first and foremost a political issue and requires complex approaches and other strategies. The whole drama unfolds as described by Nobel laureate economist Amartya Sen, 'Hunger is not due to lack of food, but to the fact that the lower strata of society do not have the means to procure the necessities for their survival'. George Kalliampetsos, physician President D.E. Humanitarian Organization Fair Planet

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