The world is divided into industrialized or developed countries and developing countries mostly made up of third world countries. This categorization is based on their level of economic development and technological advancement. The main difference between them is the amount of money that their governments apply to important sectors of the economy such as education, health and commerce.
The relationship between these two categories can be described as an unending rat race of where these developed countries subject these developing countries to perpetual indebtedness. African countries are on the worst wrung of the ladder – buried in debts as a result of their unbalanced finances, their citizens are left to wallow in failed health care systems, unstructured education system and a weak international trade.
This vicious cycle of widespread poverty among the world’s majority population is bound to continue unless the wealthier nations of the world show interest to minimize the global economic differences, as well as take more responsibility at assisting the developing nations especially African countries.
The African situation presents a more dire situation as their population live under sub-human conditions because of extreme poverty, natural disasters, climate change, environmental pollution, civil wars, hunger, disease, unemployment, poor quality and access to education, and inexperienced and corrupt administrations.
The devastating consequences of the AIDS epidemic and Covid-19 pandemic in the continent could improve if there is more commitment to vaccine and information access, and improved health care. But this can only be achieved through international aid programmes where leaders of the world’s richest countries donate medicine and human resources to help treat and educate those in need. The task of helping out distressed and war ravaged African countries like Sudan, South Sudan, Somalia, Eritrea, Ethiopia are crucial collective actions.
Moreover, the inability of these developing countries to balance their trade has also put them in perpetual economic quagmire and huge financial deficits. The impact is that they borrow a significant part of their revenue from local and international lenders such as the World Bank. And even at that, endemic corruption means that these borrowed monies end in the pocket of cronies and not for the betterment of the citizenry.
It, therefore, goes without saying that the world’s developed nations should support the developing countries to fight corruption, provide economic bail out programmes, forgive debts and introduce more friendly loan tenures. The leaders of industrialized countries can also play an indispensable role by assisting developing nations deal with the challenges in health, education and trade.
It is key to underline the fact that industrialized nations cannot maximize their potential in the next century if the wide imbalance between them and the developing nations is not addressed. Global problems of health and economic pandemics and epidemics will only change forms but will not come to an end. Only a helping hand from the developed north to the developing South will change the indices.
Written by EMEKA AKUBUE
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