Chapter Two

Problems in Developing Countries

             By: Cory Grow

We the citizens of the United States of America are blind to all the problems the developing countries of the world have to deal with. I was surfing the Internet searching for events involving developing countries and some of the information I found very enlightening but at the same time sickening. I came across many articles with gross true-life examples of death caused by horrible infectious diseases and shocking statistics about pollution and the unbelievable amount of people living on this earth without the common necessities. After reading some of these articles I realized that the majority of people living in America don’t have the slightest idea what’s going on out side the US. The non-western countries of the world have horrible problems and a lot of the problems they have are due to the more technological and industrialized countries. Throughout this paper, I will give you researched statistics of some of the events that are going on throughout the developing world, explain some of the causes of these horrible things that are happening in the developing countries, and give the reader some ideas about what he/she can do to help.

Ninety nine percent of pregnant women who died in childbirth last year were Africans (1). In Zimbabwe one in every four adults is HIV positive (2). Forty percent of developing countries inhabitants are illiterate (2). 750 million people in the world will go to bed malnourished tonight (3). In Ghana 500,000 infants die each year because their government lost the power to provide basic levels of food, clean water, sanitation, education and health care (4). These are some of the problems that developing countries are going through and the sad thing is the citizens of the United States are so wrapped up with so much smaller problems that we forget to poke are heads above the crowd and look to see what the less fortunate humans are fighting against every day, they could use our help and it really wouldn’t take that much time or effort.

Infectious disease, pollution, and human lifestyles of wastefulness are plaguing the world. In the developing world a child dies every 8 seconds from water related disease (2). These children are dying because of pollution that we as humans are responsible for. The UN environment agency has started a program the theme of this program is " everyone lives downstream". This program is set up so we can save the lives of the children we love; I will leave a internet address on the reference page and I strongly encourage that everyone check the web-page out as the information can save lives. There are other pollution problem that are killing the less fortunate people of the developing countries everyday. An article in Greenpeace was talking about how pollution is traveling the world over, it is reported that water pollutants have been reported traveling from the east coast of the united states to as far as the upper west coast of the Africa, the pollutants that travel by air have been reported to travel more than half way around the world. In fact, carbon monoxide, radon, aerosols, hydrocarbons, as well as Plus dust particles containing arsenic, copper, nickel, zinc, and sulfur, from the U.S. have been found in parts of northern Africa and Asia (5). These pollutants can and will kill people; we are obligated to care about the people our pollutants are killing. In a statistical article I read of the internet it was reported that one quarter of the world’s population produces 70% of carbon emissions from fossil fuels, boosting global warming, both in absolute numbers and per capita, the US is the worst offender, spewing 165times the average citizen of Zaire (3). In that same article I read one of the most disturbing statistics anyone can ever read about pollution. It is reported that 40% of the world’s children live in cities in developing countries where breathing the air is equivalent of smoking two packs of cigarettes a day, were talking about children here (3). Another huge problem in the developing countries of the world is infectious diseases and the devastation they can bring to a country.

I mentioned that in Africa one in every four adults has HIV. This statistic is devastating. The world is plagued with diseases of all sorts and the cures might be close to coming about but even if they do find a cure for the diseases of the world only the rich sick will ever get the antidote. The fact of the matter is the cures for the horrible diseases of the world take so much money to find and cost a fortune to pay the scientist to make it perfect by the time it gets to the public the price is so jacked up that only the rich can get cured. I’m talking about the rich in the united states, so you know that the people in the developing countries won’t even hear about it until ten years after it’s already been discovered and they still wouldn’t be able to afford. I guess only the rich deserve to be cured.

The developing world deals with infectious diseases and pollutant and they have a little help from the more industrial and technological powered countries but there is one more horrible aspect of the developed countries that the underdeveloped countries can’t do anything about, I’m talking about the wasteful lifestyle many Americans have. I lifestyle of wastefulness is we as humans worse attribute. A statement made by the US Presidential commission on world hunger pretty much sums it up" we can reduce population more readily than we can reduce affluence, lifestyles and wastefulness. Reducing population growth in developing countries is a painless substitute for minding our greedy ways. It doesn’t take that much effort to eliminate all the wastefulness that goes on in the non-western world. I know that everybody’s heard it before but everything that is wasted could have been just enough to save the life of another human being. In a article in world magazine Sept 9, 1998 entitled the poor get poorer it said that African people consume 20% less than they did 25 years ago, whereas the richest 20% of people consume nearly half of the worlds meat and fish. 70-80 countries have lower per capita incomes than 10-30 years ago. This world is a placed ruled by money and in our society now a days if you don’t have money your nothing and to the rich you might as well be dead, this is why so many American don’t know about the problems in the developing countries because that don’t have money they, don’t make us money so why should we care about them. It a shame how rotten this world is becoming. I urge every person that reads this to make a conscious effort to change one of your greedy ways every week, think about all the other less fortunate people that share the earth with you and remember that everybody lives down stream and all the pollution that you put out in the world will eventually come back to you.