Case Study: Assessing Paul Collier's Traps in a Bottom Billion Country

This essay provides a comprehensive analysis of Paul Collier's 'Bottom Billion' theory, focusing on the four key traps that prevent the poorest countries from achieving economic development: conflict, the resource curse, being landlocked with bad neighbors, and bad governance. The essay begins by outlining the global context of poverty and the integration of economies, highlighting how globalization can reduce poverty but also emphasizing the challenges faced by low-income nations. It then delves into Collier's critique of development theories and his identification of these four traps. The essay examines each trap in detail, providing examples and discussing the complexities involved. The essay discusses the conflict trap, highlighting the impact of civil wars and the association between poverty and conflict. It also explores the resource curse, analyzing how resource wealth can hinder growth due to weak governance and elite control. The landlocked trap is examined, emphasizing the challenges faced by countries with limited access to the sea and surrounded by unfavorable neighbors. Finally, the essay addresses the bad governance trap, discussing the impact of corruption and ineffective institutions. The essay concludes by emphasizing the significance of these traps in understanding the challenges faced by the bottom billion and the need for effective strategies to promote economic development, using Africa as a relevant case study.

Running head: PEACE & DEVELOPMENT
PEACE & DEVELOPMENT
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1PEACE & DEVELOPMENT
Global poverty has been declining for decades. However, a few countries which are
caught in four distinct traps related to resource curse have been experiencing deterioration
and consequently falling apart. Support and services fail to show utmost effectiveness in
these places. Societies and economies across the world are turning out to be highly integrated.
Integration is regarded as the outcome of reduced expenditures of transport, lower trade
barriers along with rapid communication of concepts with increasing capital flows and rising
pressure for migration. Globalisation usually reduces poverty as more integrated economies
are likely to expand in rapid pace1. This intensification is typically and broadly diffused. As
low-income nations engage into global markets for manufacturers as well as services, low
economic range people can shift from the vulnerability of crunching rural poverty to better
employment services particularly in towns and cities. However, significant attention must be
given to the inefficiencies of these nations to secure the future of the upcoming generations.
Nonetheless, Paul Collier’s Bottom Theory can be used in order to criticise all former grand-
theories of development such as modernisation theory, dependency theory and
neoliberalism2. The thesis statement is “Bottom Line Country like Africa being in trap is still
falling behind and falling apart.”
Disadvantaged populations like economically deprived tend to pose complex set of
challenges to the procedures of economic growth. Irrespective of development, low-income
nations are trapped in several traps which circumvent them from flourishing. However, to
worsen certain aspects, the current global economy shows lack of inclination to the bottom
billion population and the nations where they live3. As a result, it is highly challenging for
deprived nations to come out of the traps which they have formerly found themselves. Paul
1 Upreti P. Factors affecting economic growth in developing countries. Major Themes in Economics.
2015;17(1):37-54.
2 Beegle K, Christiaensen L, Dabalen A, Gaddis I. Poverty in a rising Africa. The World Bank; 2016 Mar 10.
3 Mahembe E, Odhiambo NM. On the link between foreign aid and poverty reduction in developing countries.
Revista Galega de Economia. 2017 Dec 3;26(2):113-28.

2PEACE & DEVELOPMENT
Collier describes four such traps which have formerly attained minimal attention.
Nonetheless, what several people would take into account to be a source of affluence and
prosperity like natural resource has been viewed as a trap by Paul Collier4. The other traps
discussed by Collier are conflict, being landlocked and surrounded by wicked neighbours and
immoral governance.
Conflict takes place in every society. Most importantly, sustained or recurrent
detrimental conflicts tend to trap nations in poverty. However, one of the shortcomings of this
kind of trap is that it instigates civil war. Conventional wisdom regarding civil war is usually
wrong. For instance, political criticisms and unequal incomes fail to be associated and neither
do past conflicts as well as the risk of civil war. Nonetheless, an integrated association tend to
exist between poverty and civil war. Nations with low earnings and slow development show
higher propensity to encounter civil war. Furthermore, internal armed conflicts related to the
ones in Syria, Sudan and the Central African Republic exhibit great human as well as
financial outlays5. Hence, the need to evade or de-escalate these conflicts has been considered
excessively accurate with the fact that conflicts appear to have self-perpetuating impacts.
However, strength of Collier’s conflict trap reveals that conflict strengthens the foundation of
military establishment and typically adds to undue and counterproductive government
military costs. By drawing relevance to Collier it has been claimed that short period conflicts
tend to instigate continued post war decline, but sufficiently continually wars give rise to a
period of rapid growth.
Meanwhile, a rich endowment of natural-resources wealth tends to trap nations in
slow growth. Less than a third of the bottom billion live in nations whose economies rely on
natural resources. However, while assessing the strengths of natural resources it can be noted
4 Collier P. Bottom billion. The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology. 2007 Feb 15:1-3.
5 Draper P, Nene MM. Rethinking the (European) foundations of sub-Saharan African regional economic
integration. Limits to regional integration. 2015 Mar 28;77.

3PEACE & DEVELOPMENT
that majority of economically deprived nations have weak governance, even if not absolute
corruption. However, elite minority usually shows competence of regulating the production
and export of the valued resource. These nations are able to reduce majority of the financial
wealth for them6. Furthermore, few nations aim to take over the resource industry with an
effort of attaining an equitable distribution of resources to the rest of society through
democratic resources. This unavoidably establishes significant power scraps between political
divisions who pursue to control affluent and authoritative government.
On the contrary, Collier has underlined the significance of not having single
democracy but government limitations provided by checks and balances of control in society
and government. While understanding the limitations of natural resource trap it has been
noted that financially more affluent countries to some of the similar dynamics. Conversely,
when economically affluent financial systems face stagnation, they usually do with
individuals at a superior economic level7. Thus, although the natural resources trap is not
completely distinctive to economically deprived nations, it significantly shows major
damage.
The third poverty trap explained by Collier is the “Landlocked with Bad Neighbours
Trap”. The significant majority of the world’s population live in nations with accessibility to
the oceans. Conversely, Collier mentions that around 38% of the bottom line lives in nations
which are landlocked and 1% of these populations live in Africa8. For example, Africa
comprises of a remarkably high number of these types of countries. One of the strengths of
this trap is that it is not destructive at all stages. There are several landlocked countries like
6 Venables AJ. Using natural resources for development: why has it proven so difficult?. Journal of Economic
Perspectives. 2016 Feb;30(1):161-84.
7 Manojlovic B. Book Review: The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can be
Done About it. CEU Political Science Journal.;3(3).
8 Mackenzie-Smith A. Complex challenges facing contemporary local ownership programmes: a case study of
South Sudan. InLocal Ownership in International Peacebuilding 2015 Apr 24 (pp. 67-85). Routledge.

4PEACE & DEVELOPMENT
Switzerland and Austria which have made major advancements. These nations have
capitalized on the current association with their upright neighbours. Furthermore, Botswana
in Africa has performed extraordinarily as compared to majority to African states by the
means of thriving exportation of range of natural resources.
On the other hand, landlocked nations with limited natural resources and immoral neighbours
are excessively damaged. Shortcomings of this trap lies on the fact that bad neighbours tend
to make global trade challenging for landlocked countries9. Majority of these landlocked
countries are either considered as inward-looking or primarily put emphasis on global trade.
However, only by means of regional development, landlocked countries can endeavour to
develop as a part of the global financial system. Landlocked nations are handicapped. Their
transportation outlays show higher expenses as they rely extensively on the nations which
surround them. For example, countries like Switzerland comprise of neighbours like
Germany and Italy with constructive and reliable transportation systems. On the contrary,
countries like Kenya, Tanzania, Somalia and Sudan are neighbours of Uganda whose
transportation infrastructures fail to attain productiveness like the European standards. Since,
neighbours do not only serve as corridors to the sea, but are considered as potential markets.
At this juncture, Uganda can be seen at a detrimental position. Nevertheless, to evade these
circumstances, landlocked countries can aim to support reduction of trade barriers within and
outside the region10. Furthermore, nations like Uganda can urge neighbours to pursue
significant policies and regulations and additionally stimulate cost reduction carriers and e-
services and support emigration and remittances11.
9 Monsod TC. Human development in the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao: Trends, Traps, and
Immediate Challenges. Mindanao: The Long Journey to Peace and Prosperity. Anvil Publishing, Inc.:
Mandaluyong City, Philippines. 2016:199-242.
10 Tsakok I. Macro and Political Stability Essential Condition for Successful Agricultural Transformation1.
Group. 2015;3:8.
11 Fanou EH, Wang X. Assessment of transit transport corridor efficiency of landlocked African countries using
data envelopment analysis. South African Journal of Science. 2018 Feb;114(1-2):1-7.

5PEACE & DEVELOPMENT
The fourth trap mentioned by Collier in The Bottom Billion relates to the Bad
Governance in a Country Trap. Although, Collier claimed that outstanding and first rate
governance and financial strategies tend to facilitate the development process, there remains
an obstruction to feasible growth rates at nearly 10 per cent where financial systems simply
fail to progress rapidly despite of continual functioning of governments.
Conversely, moral governance facilitates country to distinguish prospective avenues.
Additionally, with quick and beleaguered intervention, developed countries can function and
lessen the transition time. However, it has been argued that good and facilitating governance
is not a silver bullet for reducing or eradicating poverty. With good power and authority
along with superior development rates of 5-10%, nations would take significant period to
develop from poverty12. On the contrary, dumping aid into a nation lacking of good
governance is ineffective.
Comprehensive studies have mentioned that number of nations tend to encounter the
outcomes of bad governance ranging from brain drain to plundered or robbed wealth,
nevertheless recover for upward mobility. Weakness of this trap relies to the fact that other
countries tend to get captured in this trap as the influential capitalize on bad governance.
Example of bureaucrats has been cited which gather revenues through inducements and
settlements in order to cut through unconstructive policies and governance. This is due to the
fact that most underprivileged nations have low rate of educated population and skills to
recover waning governance. Moreover, majority of the economically disadvantageous
countries are falling states. As a result, improvements become challenging, risky and
questionable, but do not show unfeasibility. As deteriorating states impose expenditures
extending their limitations, these states promote developments to be constructive for other
12 Khan MA. Putting ‘good society’ahead of growth and/or ‘development’: overcoming neoliberalism's growth
trap and its costly consequences. Sustainable Development. 2015 Mar;23(2):65-73.

6PEACE & DEVELOPMENT
states. The cost of a failing state as compared to the entire record of failure along with its
neighbours has been estimated to be around $100 million.
The difficulty of landlocked nations is considered as one of the most striking and
continuing features of the developing world. Africa is a bottom billion country where major
proportion of the world’s landlocked inhabitants lives. Although the achievement of
landlocked nations in the developed world has attained substantial attention, chiefly in
Western European countries, countries like Africa still faces extensive cost of being
landlocked. Studies have found that landlocked countries experience distinctive hindrance in
its pathway of development and must transit neighbouring nations to obtain accessibility to
seaborne trade13. By drawing the case of Africa, it has been noted that such transit is
attributed by inadequate and restricted infrastructure with unproductive services and frequent
road blocks in addition to security issues. Moreover, considering Africa, being landlocked
has reserved access to markets as the chief trading associates have been situated out of the
country where intra-African trade is relatively small. Africa’s landlocked economies trade
with Europe, whereby neighbouring nations act as an obstacle instead of functioning as a
market. The causes of global transport expenses using data on the expenditure of shipping a
40 feet container from Baltimore to numerous cities across the world. Land distance is
considered to be considerably more expensive in comparison to sea routes that have been
accounted to be 1000 km extra by land thus adding around $1380 to the shipment cost in
comparison to only $190 by sea. However, transportation to landlocked countries is
considerably more expensive even while controlling land distance. Several reasons have been
conjectured by scholars for such abundant landlocked cost comprising of border delays,
coordination issues and increased insurance expenses made by transit country14.
13 Watts MJ. The resource curse. InCompanion to Environmental Studies 2018 Jan 1 (Vol. 95, No. 99, pp. 95-
99). ROUTLEDGE in association with GSE Research.
14 Levinson M. The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy
Bigger-with a new chapter by the author. Princeton University Press; 2016 Apr 5.

7PEACE & DEVELOPMENT
Post-independence Africa has been devastated by civil war with disastrous impacts on
economic opulence. Burkina Faso, a landlocked West African country has been gaining
attention due to continual unrest since 2014. If the country would have attained peace and
solidity, the country would have been considered as few African nations to lessen level of
poverty over the past 15 years. As per report, Africa’s advancement towards achieving the
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) has shed light on its constructive practices as well
as policies to promote the new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) over the next one
decade15. Regardless, of all these progresses, Africa as a bottom billion country has been
lagging behind with half of its population being suffering from immense hunger and poverty.
On the other hand, mines of Milner and Zgovu have experienced considerable impacts of
trade policy as well as shipping expenses on the exports of Malawi thus exploiting the civil
war in Mozambique as a natural environment. Furthermore, a transfer of supply utility for
Malawi has been estimated, and considered transport prices to be highly major determinant of
exports as compared to trade policy. At this juncture, it is vital to consider to what degree the
Malawian experience generalises and if the instability on transit pathways has negatively
impacted landlocked nations in the collective16. Furthermore, while Africa’s economic
expansion has been significant for the last two decades and has added to reduction of poverty,
there has been an inadequate development level to engineer structural monetary
transformation. While, unemployment continued to remain at almost 7.5% in 2012, this
percentage failed to give any indication to major proportion of employees in susceptible
employment or significant proportion of the ones involved in subsistence agriculture.
Additionally, although development has been modest in most of the nations, countries like
15 Rjoub H, Aga M, Oppong C, Sunju N, Fofack A. The Impact of FDI Inflows on Economic Growth: Evidence
from Landlocked Countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. Bilig-Turk DunyasI Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi.
2017;10(1):153-68.
16 Perez-Niño H. The Road Ahead: The Development and Prospects of the Road Freight Sector in Mozambique–
A Case Study on the Beira Corridor. Questions on productive development in Mozambique. 2015 Sep;269.

8PEACE & DEVELOPMENT
Kenya and Nigeria have experienced rise in poverty levels similar to the Central African
Republic, Mauritania as well as Zambia17. Comprehensive studies have claimed that with
considerably developing economies in Nigeria and Kenya has led these nations to gather
bottom position in the list for poverty reduction; there are still challenges which are
experienced by several African countries. Increasing population growth, fluctuating
commodity prices and weakening transport infrastructure and most importantly continuing
conflicts have led Africa to remain as a landlocked nation18.
Meanwhile, shortage of access to seaborne trade has been considered as a major
obstacle to development. Developing nations which usually face challenges with several
structural issues are particularly impacted. Nonetheless, being centrally positioned within a
continent delivers major avenues. On the contrary, it has been argued that Africa being
landlocked has faced reduction in growth by almost 1.5% by the year. Hence, landlocked
developing nations have been paying high price for lack of sea port of their own, thus show
great dependence on its neighbours19. By drawing relevance to these aspects example of the
Tanzania Zambia Railway line (TAZARA) has been cited which has been initially
constructed as due to Southern Rhodesia which has since developed as Zimbabwe and thus
closed its borders during the 1960s. However, the primary agenda focused on removing
Zambia’s access to the South African ports in retribution for its support of the liberation
movement. On the other hand, Malawi has been compelled to redirect its shipping from the
Mozambican ports of Beira as well as Nacala in the direction of Durban in South Africa and
Dar es Salaam in Tanzania during the Mozambican civil war. In addition to this, trade
expenses of food prices are increasing with the cost of living in landlocked developing
17 Olotu A, Salami R, Akeremale I. Poverty and rate of unemployment in Nigeria. Ijm. 2015 Mar;2(1):1-2.
18 Isaac O. Transport Infrastructure Development in Kenya: How Connectivity Impacts Eastern Africa Regional
Integration. Insight on Africa. 2019 Jul;11(2):200-18.
19 Dana LP, Ratten V. International entrepreneurship in resource-rich landlocked African countries. Journal of
International Entrepreneurship. 2017 Dec 1;15(4):416-35.

9PEACE & DEVELOPMENT
countries. Besides, these nations have been highly susceptible to global price instability.
During the current global fuel emergency, fuel prices in oil importing landlocked nations like
Zambia increased by approximately 50 %20.
To conclude, economically affluent nations are not immune to some of these similar
dynamics. The ones with extensive records of restrained governance show greater degree of
resistance to these challenges. Nonetheless, when more affluent nations face stagnation, they
generally align with populations at a superior economic level. Understanding the limitations
of natural resource trap it has been noted that financially more affluent countries to some of
the similar dynamics. Thus, while the Natural resource trap highlighted by Collier is not
completely distinctive to poor nations, it is considerably more damaging. Collier supposed
that with abled and besieged intervention, developed countries can successfully curtail the
transition time. Thus, the fight for the future of the bottom billion must not be viewed as a
challenge between an evil rich realm and an upright underprivileged world. It must be
considered as a struggle within the societies of the bottom billion.
20 Hanif R, Kaluwa E. Analysis of transport logistics challenges affecting freight forwarding operations in
Malawi. African Journal of Business Management. 2016 Dec 28;10(24):607.

10PEACE & DEVELOPMENT
References
Beegle K, Christiaensen L, Dabalen A, Gaddis I. Poverty in a rising Africa. The World Bank;
2016 Mar 10.
Collier P. Bottom billion. The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology. 2007 Feb 15:1-3.
Dana LP, Ratten V. International entrepreneurship in resource-rich landlocked African
countries. Journal of International Entrepreneurship. 2017 Dec 1;15(4):416-35.
Draper P, Nene MM. Rethinking the (European) foundations of sub-Saharan African regional
economic integration. Limits to regional integration. 2015 Mar 28;77.
Fanou EH, Wang X. Assessment of transit transport corridor efficiency of landlocked African
countries using data envelopment analysis. South African Journal of Science. 2018
Feb;114(1-2):1-7.
Hanif R, Kaluwa E. Analysis of transport logistics challenges affecting freight forwarding
operations in Malawi. African Journal of Business Management. 2016 Dec 28;10(24):607.
Isaac O. Transport Infrastructure Development in Kenya: How Connectivity Impacts Eastern
Africa Regional Integration. Insight on Africa. 2019 Jul;11(2):200-18.
Khan MA. Putting ‘good society’ahead of growth and/or ‘development’: overcoming
neoliberalism's growth trap and its costly consequences. Sustainable Development. 2015
Mar;23(2):65-73.
Levinson M. The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World
Economy Bigger-with a new chapter by the author. Princeton University Press; 2016 Apr 5.
Mackenzie-Smith A. Complex challenges facing contemporary local ownership programmes:
a case study of South Sudan. InLocal Ownership in International Peacebuilding 2015 Apr 24
(pp. 67-85). Routledge.

11PEACE & DEVELOPMENT
Mahembe E, Odhiambo NM. On the link between foreign aid and poverty reduction in
developing countries. Revista Galega de Economia. 2017 Dec 3;26(2):113-28.
Manojlovic B. Book Review: The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and
What Can be Done About it. CEU Political Science Journal.;3(3).
Monsod TC. Human development in the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao: Trends,
Traps, and Immediate Challenges. Mindanao: The Long Journey to Peace and Prosperity.
Anvil Publishing, Inc.: Mandaluyong City, Philippines. 2016:199-242.
Olotu A, Salami R, Akeremale I. Poverty and rate of unemployment in Nigeria. Ijm. 2015
Mar;2(1):1-2.
Perez-Niño H. The Road Ahead: The Development and Prospects of the Road Freight Sector
in Mozambique–A Case Study on the Beira Corridor. Questions on productive development
in Mozambique. 2015 Sep;269.
Rjoub H, Aga M, Oppong C, Sunju N, Fofack A. The Impact of FDI Inflows on Economic
Growth: Evidence from Landlocked Countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. Bilig-Turk DunyasI
Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi. 2017;10(1):153-68.
Tsakok I. Macro and Political Stability Essential Condition for Successful Agricultural
Transformation1. Group. 2015;3:8.
Upreti P. Factors affecting economic growth in developing countries. Major Themes in
Economics. 2015;17(1):37-54.
Venables AJ. Using natural resources for development: why has it proven so difficult?.
Journal of Economic Perspectives. 2016 Feb;30(1):161-84.
Watts MJ. The resource curse. InCompanion to Environmental Studies 2018 Jan 1 (Vol. 95,
No. 99, pp. 95-99). ROUTLEDGE in association with GSE Research.