MBA Breton University Assignment 2022

An Hai Le
MBA, Cape Breton University
MBAC-6107-15: Comparative Development
Professor Michael McNamara
April 13, 2021
Word count: ________

One of the reasons why I choose to study the course Comparative Development is to understand
the meaning of sustainable community development within an international development
context, why there are poor countries and why they are in that situation.
The course examines a variety of global development issues that include discussion of North-
South disparities, shifting between the regional and national levels and the community level.
An emphasis is placed on the role and possibilities for projects to affect community development
in international settings.
The prospects and problems of international development and development projects are explored
systematically through the text as well as through case studies and additional issue-oriented
readings.

In the first several week of this course, we looked at various ‘development indicators’ used by
international aid organizations such as World Development Indicators (WDI) to ‘evaluate’
development in the world. WDI is the primary World Bank collection of development indicators,
compiled from officially recognized international sources. It presents the most current and
accurate global development data available, and includes national, regional and global estimates.
The World Development Indicators is a compilation of relevant, high-quality, and internationally
comparable statistics about global development and the fight against poverty.
The global highlights in this section draw on the six themes of World Development Indicators:
1. Poverty and shared prosperity, which presents indicators that measure progress toward the
World Bank Group’s twin goals of ending extreme poverty by 2030 and promoting shared
prosperity in every country.
2. People, which showcases indicators covering education, health, jobs, social protection, and
gender and provides a portrait of societal progress across the world.
3. Environment, which presents indicators on the use of natural resources, such as water and
energy, and various measures of environmental degradation, including pollution,
deforestation, and loss of habitat, all of which must be considered in shaping development
strategies.
4. Economy, which provides a window on the global economy through indicators that describe
the economic activity of the more than 200 countries and territories that produce, trade, and
consume the world’s output.
5. States and markets, which encompasses indicators on private investment and performance,
financial system development, quality and availability of infrastructure, and the role of the
public sector in nurturing investment and growth.
6. Global links, which presents indicators on the size and direction of the flows and links that
enable economies to grow, including measures of trade, remittances, equity, and debt, as well
as tourism and migration.
From the analysis of WDI reveals some ‘persistent’ underperformers (both as regions and
countries).
The Global South is a term often used to identify lower income countries on one side of the so-
called global North–South divide, the other side being the countries of the Global North.[1] As
such the term does not inherently refer to a geographical south; for example, most of the Global
South is actually within the Northern Hemisphere.[1]
The term, as used by governmental and development organizations, was first introduced as a
more open and value free alternative to "Third World"[2] and similar potentially "valuing" terms
like developing countries. Countries of the Global South have been described as
newly industrialized or in the process of industrializing and frequently have a history
of colonialism by Northern, often European states. The countries
of Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, and Mexico have the largest populations and economies