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What is science?
According to the Oxford Advanced Learner’s dictionary, science is defined as: “…organized knowledge especially when obtained by observation and testing of facts about the:
The following assignment is distributed among all programs studying this course. It should be done in groups, and each group has a question that needs to be answered. All groups should meet and thoroughly discuss these questions. Each group is expected to submit answers on a maximum of 1 page, including references.
Submission: Thursday, 3/7/2025
LL.B
Question:
You are an advisor to a hypothetical African country, “Africana,” where 65% of the population lives below the poverty line. The government has identified low economic productivity and over-reliance on imports as key issues. The political leadership seeks your guidance for a policy to break the cycle of chronic poverty.
Group 1- Define the main forms of poverty relevant to Africana’s context. What types of poverty should be considered when assessing Africana’s situation?
Group 2 - Summarize how poverty is currently measured or indicated in Africana. Which indicators would you use?
Group 3 - Identify at least three visible effects of poverty observable in Africana that could be prioritized.
Group 4 - Explain the relationship between economic productivity and poverty. Why is low productivity linked to persistent poverty?
Group 5 - List key historical and structural factors causing low productivity in Africana. How have history and economic structure contributed?
Group 6 - Assess the role of government in poverty eradication. What responsibilities does the government have?
Group 7 - How can education empower citizens for economic transformation? Propose three educational or human capital strategies to increase productivity.
Group 8 - Identify infrastructure and technological investments most urgent to support industrialization.
Group 9 - Suggest a policy for supporting local industry and reducing reliance on imports. What direct interventions will encourage domestic production?
Group 10 - Discuss the importance of agricultural transformation. How does commercial agriculture fit into poverty reduction?
Group 11 - Consider regulatory/legal reforms needed for sustained development. What changes are needed to support economic growth?
Group 12 - Outline a step-by-step implementation plan for Africana. How would you arrange your strategies? (Reference: Start with education, legal reform, etc.)
BCED
Question:
A government plans to launch a nationwide water supply project. Compare the expected outcomes if a top-down approach is used versus a bottom-up approach, discussing potential impacts on efficiency, sustainability, and community satisfaction.
Group 1 - Explain the difference between a “top-down” and a “bottom-up” development approach. Outline key characteristics of each.
Group 2 - How would community involvement during planning and implementation affect the project’s long-term sustainability
Group 3 - How can the government ensure transparency and accountability when working with local stakeholders?
Group 4 - If faced with local resistance, how can project managers adapt their strategy to increase acceptance and effectiveness?
Group 5 - What evaluation criteria should be used to measure the impact and success of the water supply project?
Group 6 - In what ways might combining both approaches, the strengths of top-down and bottom-up, yield better results?
Group 7 - How can cultural or traditional practices in the community influence the success of a top-down or bottom-up water project?
Group 8 - How might the community handle disagreements or conflicts about the design or location of water pumps?
Group 9 - Explain ways in which local schools or youth organizations can be involved to support long-term water resource education and care.
BCMA
Question:
A country has achieved a 12% increase in GDP for three years, yet it still faces high poverty, unemployment, and poor public health. As national advisor, interpret these findings and suggest what additional strategies are necessary for true development.
Group 1 - Explain what indicators besides GDP could be assessed to gauge whether real development is occurring.
Group 2 - What does the persistence of poverty and health issues alongside high GDP growth tell you about the nature of that growth?
Group 3 - Explain which development theories best explain the country’s problem and what remedies they suggest.
Group 4 - Who appears to be benefiting from the economic growth, and why might the poor be left out?
Group 5 - Why is it important to promote investments in health and education, not just economic output?
- People often use the terms “sex” and “gender” interchangeably, but this is incorrect.
- “Sex” refers to the physical differences between male or female people. A person typically has their sex assigned at birth based on biological characteristics, including their genitalia and chromosome composition.
What is Poverty?
1. THEORY OF MODERNIZATION
According to modernization theory, modern societies are more productive, children receive a better education, and the needy receive more welfare.
Modernization is a progressive process that, in the long run, is not only inevitable but also desirable.
Modernized political systems are more capable than traditional systems of dealing with the functions of national identity, legitimacy, penetration, participation, and distribution.
Modernization is a lengthy process. It is an evolutionary change, not a revolutionary one. It will take generations or even centuries to complete, and its profound impact will be felt only through time.
Assumptions are derived from European and American evolutionary theory:
Drive to Maturity:
Age of high mass consumption: At the time of writing, Rostow believed that Western countries, most notably the United States, occupied this last "developed" stage. Here, a country's economy flourishes in a capitalist system, characterized by mass production and consumerism. It is characterized by the existence of relatively high income per capita and the ability for the income to engage in a wide range of consumer durables -cars, refrigerators, stereo sets, air conditioners. It is associated with a relatively large amount of leisure for the working masses. It was argued that advanced countries had all passed the stage of "take-off into self-sustaining growth and the underdeveloped countries that were still in either the traditional society or the preconditions stage had only to follow a certain set of rules of development to take off in their turn into self-sustaining economic growth.
2. DEPENDENCY THEORY:
-Dependency theory is the idea that resources flow from a "periphery" of poor and exploited states to a "core" of wealthy states, enriching the latter at the expense of the former. A central contention of dependency theory is that poor states are impoverished and rich ones enriched by the way poor states are integrated into the "world system". This theory was officially developed in the late 1960s following World War II, as scholars searched for the root issue in the lack of development in Latin America.
-The theory arose as a response to modernization theory, an earlier theory of development that claimed all societies progress through similar stages of development.
The premises of dependency theory:
3. WORLD SYSTEMS THEORY:
-A central element from which the theory of world-systems emerged was the different form that capitalism was taking around the world, especially since the decade of the 1960s.
-Starting in this decade, Third World countries had new conditions in which to attempt to elevate their standards of living and improve social conditions. These new conditions were related to the fact that the international financial and trade systems began to have a more flexible character, in which national government actions had less and less influence.
-These new international economic circumstances made it possible for a group of radical researchers led by Immanuel Wallerstein to conclude that there were new activities in the capitalist world-economy which could not be explained within the confines of the dependency perspective.
-These new features were characterized mainly by the following aspects:
-Wallerstein and his followers recognized that there are worldwide conditions that operate as determinant forces, especially for small and underdeveloped nations, and that the nation-state level of analysis is no longer the only useful category for studying development conditions, particularly in Third World countries. Those factors which had the greatest impact on the internal development of small countries were the new global systems of communications, the new world trade mechanisms, the international financial system, and the transference of knowledge and military links. These factors have created their dynamic at the international level, and at the same time, these elements are interacting with the internal aspects of each country.
-Today, this is not the situation, especially when considering the significant economic role of transnational corporations, the international political climate, the interdependence affecting the governments of poor nations, and the influence of speculative investments. For the world-systems school, current economic conditions cannot be fully explained within traditional development theories. This criticism of the capitalist system has existed since its inception. Under current international conditions, there are specific characteristics of monopoly capital, its modes of transaction, and its tangible operations worldwide, which have significantly impacted international relations among nations.
4. GLOBALIZATION THEORIES:
Globalization theories seek to explain the increasing interconnectedness of economies, cultures, and societies around the globe. These theories emphasize the intensification of global social relations, where local events are increasingly influenced by distant occurrences and vice versa. Key aspects of these theories include the emergence of a globalized economy, new transnational cultural patterns, and the concept of a global culture.
The main assumptions that can be extracted from the theory of globalization can be summarized in three principal points:
The globalization and world-systems theories take into account the most recent economic changes in world structure and relations that have occurred in the last couple of decades, for example:
1. Population Control:
-The development process has to concern itself with the human population in terms of density, size, birth rates, and growth rates.
-The human population is the number of people in a given location.
-Population density
is the number of people per given area, while population size is the result of
additions and subtractions through birth, immigration, emigration, and death.
-Birth rate is the
total number of live human births per 1,000 population for a given period
divided by the length of the period in years. The growth rate is the number of
births minus deaths per 1,000 people per year.
-In both developed and developing countries, increasing human numbers put intense pressure on ecosystems and natural resources. This pressure is expected to increase until the world population stabilizes at 10 billion (2050 and 2070). This will only be achieved if the present efforts to check population growth and pursued vigorously.
-Population control remains an important strategy in the development process. This is because rapid population growth has caused serious concerns about the outlook of economic growth, human development, and the environment in developing countries. The present population growth rate threatens the world population growth rate, which threatens the world population with starvation.
-In many developing countries, high fertility rates and mass poverty together form a vicious cycle that threatens the welfare of the population.
-Malnutrition,
disease, and poverty in many poor countries have led to more infant and child
deaths, and this has induced some couples to have children to guarantee the
survival of some. If the rate of population growth is not taken up as an
important strategy in the development process, then the expanding population
will exhaust the world’s supply of natural resources. If lack of resources and
food does not spell doom, the environmental damage by an expanding population
will. This is largely being witnessed by what human activity has caused to the
air, water, and land pollution.
-World population growth is a controversial and vital issue in the development process. Unless drastic action is taken to reduce it, the welfare of humankind is threatened worldwide over and thus a need for population control. Even people living in vast lands are clamoring for population control, and government policies have emphasized family planning measures to reduce population growth. In general, developed countries have lower fertility rates than developing ones.
-Family planning has contributed significantly to the decline of fertility rates in developing countries.
2. Food and Agricultural Development:
-Lack of the right
food affects the extent to which people contribute to development efforts. Poor
nutrition can affect mental performance as well as physical productivity. Where
the lack of quality of food has been a global problem, it is more prominent in
developing nutritional needs. World food production has to increase to maintain
the current nutritional level for its high population. To achieve this,
cropland must be expanded or the yields must increase. Another way to solve these
problems would be to increase the share of the world’s food going to poor
countries.
-In most countries lacking minerals, agricultural development continues to be one of the primary development strategies. Agriculture provides the basis for the development of other sectors of the economy. Thus, most countries lacking in minerals, agricultural development continues to be the primary development of other sectors of the economy. This strategy needs emphasis because development is expected to achieve internal sufficiency in food production, provide adequate raw materials for agro-based industries, and finally generate additional supplies for export.
-International public sector institutions have developed the environmental green revolution technologies for agricultural production and trade.
3. Health:
-The emphasis on
the importance of health as a strategy for development is based on the fact
that a healthy population is not just a social byproduct of economic
development but a precondition of such development. Weakness and illness due to
reduced energy reduce the capacity to learn, work, produce, and learn.
-The provision of health services is not only a basic need but also an essential condition for overall economic development. All people in all countries are expected to have a level of health that allows them to lead a socially and economically productive life. Health as a strategy in the developmental process needs to be emphasized because, although there has been marked progress in improving health conditions throughout the world, enormous gaps remain between the rich and the poor countries.
-In 2024, the life expectancy in Africa is 64.38 years, according to the United Nations. This is a significant improvement from 53 years in 2000. Healthy life expectancy, which is the number of years an individual can expect to live in good health, has also increased, reaching 56 years in 2019, compared to 46 years in 2000.
-To have a healthy, productive population calls for two tasks:
