CLASS ASSIGNMENT

 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?

GENDER AND DEVELOPMENT

- 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. 

Gender Roles:

- Gender roles in society mean how we're expected to act, speak, dress, groom, and conduct ourselves based upon our assigned sex.

-Gender roles are the behaviors men and women exhibit in the private and public environment. They are the sociocultural expectations that apply to individuals based on their assignment to a sex category (male or female).

-Gender is embedded in social relationships at all levels, from individual interactions and identities to institutional processes. 

-Societies organize based on gender, such as what is considered masculine and feminine.

-Thus, the gender identities that emerge in social interaction also serve to privilege men, give them an earned advantage, while they usually disadvantage women, giving them unearned priorities.

-Gender roles refer to the social roles that men and women play and the power relations between them, which usually have a profound effect on the use and management of natural resources.

-Gender is not based on sex, or the biological differences between menand women. Gender is shaped by culture, social relations, and natural environments. 

-Thus, depending on values, norms, customs, and laws, men and women in different parts of the world have evolved different gender roles.

-Gender roles of women and men include different labor responsibilities, decision-making processes, and knowledge. According to their needs, men and women often use and manage resources in different ways. 

THE EFFECT OF GENDER ROLES ON THE DEVELOPMENT PROCESS:

• Economic Development
• Education
• Healthcare
• Political Participation
• Social Dynamics
• Innovation and Creativity
• Psychological well-being

• Economic Development: Gender roles often dictate who participates in the labor force and what types of jobs they take on between men and women. Hence may negatively affect the development process. 
• Education: Gender roles can influence access to education. In many societies, traditional gender norms prioritize boys' education over girls’. This disparity in education can perpetuate cycles of poverty and limit overall societal development.
• Healthcare: Gender roles can affect access to healthcare and health outcomes. For example, in patriarchal societies, men may receive preferential treatment in healthcare settings, leading to disparities in health outcomes between men and women.
• Political Participation: Gender roles can shape participation in political processes and leadership roles. Societies that uphold traditional gender norms may discourage women from participating in politics or seeking leadership positions. 
• Social Dynamics: Gender roles influence interpersonal relationships and social dynamics within communities. Stereotypical gender expectations can create barriers to communication and collaboration between genders, impeding the development of mutual understanding and cooperation.
• Innovation and Creativity: Gender diversity is crucial for innovation and creativity in development processes. When gender roles limit the participation of certain groups, such as women or non-binary individuals, in decision-making and problem-solving activities, it hampers the diversity of perspectives and ideas, hindering innovation and progress.
• Psychological Well-being: Gender roles can impact individuals' mental and emotional well-being. For example, rigid gender norms may contribute to feelings of inadequacy or identity conflict for individuals who do not conform to societal expectations. This can lead to increased stress, anxiety, and depression, ultimately affecting overall development and productivity.

GENDER SENSITIVITY:

-Ability to recognize gender issues and realization of different characteristics/needs of different people (men and women), and deliberate efforts to respond to these needs to foster their interests, balance their power, and utilize their potential.

-It involved a deep understanding of the conditions and positions of each in a given circumstance beyond generalization. 

-This sensitivity calls for knowledge of :

• Roles and problems/needs of each
• Strengths and weaknesses 
• Access to and control of resources
• Potentials and expectations of each

-Generally, gender roles affect theeconomic, political, social, and ecologicalopportunities and constraints faced by both men and women.

-Gender may affect positively or negatively in:

1. Decision making
2. Division of labor 
3. Resource allocation
4. Execution process 
5. Monitoring and evaluation stage 
6. Benefiting from the outcome
7. Ownership 
8. Sustainability

GENDER INEQUALITY:

• Around the world women, as a group, earn less than men, receive fewer benefits, and work longer hours every day. Their work and their opinions are deprecated. 
• In general, women have more onerous family responsibilities and are frequently threatened with violence. 
• They are also under-represented at the decision-making level and face many obstacles when they aspire to positions of authority

Some oppressive applications:

-Men are public, women are private

-Men are decision makers, women are followers

-Men are owners, women are producers

-Men are talkative, women are listeners

GENDER RELATIONS(SOCIALIZATION):

-How women and men in a given society are assigned different attributions, roles, and responsibilities based on the standards and values of a (group in) society. 

-These relations are changeable and influenced by class, caste, ethnicity, and race, etc, and are expressions of power relations.

-The socialization process for boys /girls (men/women) is happening more at the household level and extending to the public spheres. 

-Patriarchal processes or socialization are institutionalized within policies in the public arena. 

-Empowerment of women and men through transformed cultures and policies is crucial.

 

POVERTY IN AFRICA

 What is Poverty?

• Poverty is the inability of a people to produce (access, grow, or make) the goods and services they need to satisfy their basic needs and other needs of a modern livelihood on a sustainable basis.

Types of Poverty:

Poverty comes in different forms: Absolute, Relative, and Chronic.

1. Absolute poverty: The situation of being unable or only barely able to meet the subsistence essentials of food, clothing, shelter, and basic health care.
2. Relative poverty: Is often defined based on comparison of particular aspects of life, such as household expenditure, family budget, and household livelihood.
3. Chronic or generational poverty: Occurs when poverty is handed over to individuals and families from generations before them.  

POVERTY IN AFRICA – A FUNCTION OF LOW ECONOMIC PRODUCTIVITY

• Poverty is a function of low productivity of needs to satisfy basic needs and to other needs of a modern life.
• The lower the economic productivity of the people in a given society, the poorer the society.
• All other forms of poverty in society are mere manifestations of economic incapacity to produce enough for accumulation into the wealth of the society. 
• From there, poverty manifests itself in the form of food shortages and hunger, poor clothing and shelter, poor health, poor education, poor infrastructure, poor state of security, and poor communication.

PRODUCTIVITY - POVERTY AND DEVELOPMENT:

LEVEL OF PRODUCTIVITY MAKES A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN POOR AND WEALTHY:

MANIFESTATION(SYMPTOMS) OF POVERTY IN AFRICA:

It manifests itself in many forms, including:

- Mass unemployment, 

- hunger and insufficient food, 

- lack of or poor housing and clothing, 

- poor education, 

- insecurity, 

- poor health and disease

HOW MUCH POVERTY IN AFRICA

Poverty in Africa:

Poverty in Africa, Europe, Asia and Rest of the World:

FACTORS CAUSING POVERTY IN AFRICA:

• Poor governance and compromised leadership serving the interests of developed countries
• Absence of industrialization by way Level of tool and machine making and mass production at all fronts of society’s life
• Focus on agriculture based on imported, backward technology
• Intensity of anti-manufacturing drive by colonial governments and post independence African governments
• Colonial imposed anti-manufacturing phobia
• Craze for consumption of imported goods without corresponding technological and high mass production of export goods
• Compromised professionals who have become conduits for the consumption of imports in Africa

ROLE OF GOVERNMENT IN POVERTY ERADICATION:

• This involves a great deal more than economics. The standard justifications for government action in the economy are monopolies, externalities, public goods, asymmetric information, redistribution, and macroeconomic stabilization.
• Governments should act when inadequate engagement, situational framing, and social practices perpetrate poverty.
• In Africa, colonial structural conditions perpetuate unbalanced trade due to a lack of industrialization, thus leading to the continent’s poverty and aggravation of poverty within individual countries. 

The Developmental State:

• The Developmental state takes an active role in promoting development
• The state has to play a central role in the early stages of development
• African governments need to play a role in all markets by: 

- creating the rules of the game that allow markets to  function, including a legal system that  enforces property rights and contracts

- Ensuring the mining and processing of main metals and other infrastructure for the production of tools and machines by the indigenous population, toward the creation of an industry-based economy

- Mobilizing engineers and technicians to spearhead tool and machine making for mass production in industry and agriculture and the service industry

- Ensuring manufacturing capacity, ensuring competition, and regulating financial markets

ORGANIZING EDUCATION FOR MASS ECONOMIC PRODUCTIVITY:

1. Organizing education to ensure availability of acquisition and adoption of  knowledge and technical and managerial skills supportive of mass  industrial productivity by the indigenous population in each region of the country; 
2. Organizing and mobilizing engineers, technicians, and political and other academic members of the population to shed off manufacturing phobia and to focus on modern tool and machine making; 
3. Ensuring they embark on industrial leadership to ensure restructuring of the relationship between education and the use of the country’s natural resources for industrial mass production for wealth creation and overall development. This means ensuring: 

- Mass scientific and technological education for the population;

- Industrial education for the organization of  productive investment and management;

- Education for rapid  establishment of tool and machine making culture as the most important venture,    covering all sectors of society;

- Education for mass production by both the state and the private citizens (some of whom are known as    the private sector)

MOBILIZING FOR MASS INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTIVITY:

• Adequate manufacturing of energy tools, machines, and equipment to ensure production and supply of power to factories, industries, farms, and businesses;
• Adequate production and supply of water for industry and modern farms, as well as adequate supply of water and sanitation products for various needs of the population;
• Adequate manufacturing and top-level maintenance of modern communication hardware and software technologies;
• Construction of transport infrastructure, including the railway, road, water, and air transport infrastructure;
• Mass production of transport machines and equipment, and related services;
• Countrywide mass production of tools, machines, and goods through the timely and efficient supply of raw materials to factories;
• Distribution of finished goods to consumers through markets;
• Rapid commercialization of agriculture and related activities through the manufacturing and use of tools, machines, equipment, and farming and other inputs.