North & South GAP
North & South GAP
North & South GAP
Submitted by:
Abdul Hadi Sahoo
Muhammad Umer Nawaz
1. NORTH
Some of the most developed countries considered as the part of the North are named as Canada,
United States, Australia, New Zealand, Europe, Israel, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, and
Taiwan, also the North consists all of the countries which are part of the G8 (Group of 8, now
known as G7 after the suspension of Russia) and 4 of the countries from the United Nations
Security Council, in other words 4 countries from the P-5 states are part of the North. Moreover,
North generally includes the west side, the first world countries, and much of the second world
countries. Nation who with time became economically stable were able to join the North no
matter where they were located in the world or what was their geographical location such as
Japan. This is why the North is a developed side, as it’s countries are politically, economically,
and socially stable, and the can provide their citizens with food, shelter and water as basic needs
with ease, it is said that 95% of the North has enough food and shelter. In economic terms, the
North having population equal to that of one quarter of whole earth, controls four-fifths of
income earned everywhere around the world.
2. SOUTH
The South corresponds with some of the second world countries and all of the third world
countries, so one can say the Global South is made up of Africa, Latin America, and developing
Asia including the Middle East. The South is considered as the lesser developed region due to the
under developing and poor countries being part of it. Other factors that differentiate the South
from the North are that The Global South;
"lacks appropriate technology, it has no political stability, the economies are disarticulated, and
their foreign exchange earnings depend on primary product exports."
Economically speaking, in contrast to North the South having 3 quarter population only controls
one-fifth of income earned anywhere in the world. Not only this but that most of the countries in
South are having major population under poverty line, most of these countries are African.
HISTORY
The idea of classifying countries on the basis of their economical and developmental status
began during the Cold War with the classifications of West and East, the Soviet Union and China
represented the East, and the United States and their allies represented the West. The term 'Third
World' came into existence during the second half of the twentieth century, it originated in a
1952 article by Alfred Sauvy entitled "TroisMondes, UnePlanète.". Early definitions of the term
foreground its exclusion from the East-West conflict of the Cold War as well as the ex-colonial
status and poverty of the nations it comprised. However, Efforts to mobilize the Third World as
an autonomous political entity were undertaken, in the 1955 when Bandung Conference was held
(an early meeting of Third World states) in which an substitute to alignment with either the
Eastern or Western Blocs was endorsed. Due to this, in 1961 the first Non-Aligned Summit was
organize. Contemporaneously, a mode of economic criticism was developed which separated the
world economy into "core" and "periphery". Also it was given the expression in a project for
political reform which instead of East & West, "moved the terms 'North' and 'South' into the
international political lexicon."A New International Economic Order was initiated in 1973
which was to be negotiated between the North and South at the Non-Aligned Summit held in
Algiers, also in same year, as a result of the Yom Kippur War the oil embargo initiated by Arab
OPEC countries caused an increase in world oil prices, and continuously rising prices throughout
the decade, this contributed to a worldwide recession. Because of which industrialized nations
increased economically protectionist policies and contributed less aid to the less developed
countries of the South. The Western banks, provided substantial loans to Third World countries
in the meanwhile. However, many of these countries were not able to pay back their debt, where
IMF had to take over by extending them further loans on the condition that they undertake
certain liberalizing reforms. This policy came to be known as structural adjustment. It was
institutionalized by International Financial Institutions(IFIs) and Western governments, which
represented a break from the Keynesian approach to foreign aid which had been the norm from
the end of the Second World War, therefore soon after 1987, reports on the negative social
impacts that structural adjustment policies had had on affected developing nations led IFIs to
supplement structural adjustment policies with targeted anti-poverty projects. Afterwards at the
end of the Cold War and the break-up of the Soviet Union, some Second World countries joined
the First World, and others joined the Third World, but a new and simpler classification was
needed. Since then the use of the terms "North" and "South" became more widespread.
EXPLAINING THE DIVIDE
The development disparity between the North and the South has sometimes been explained in
historical terms. Dependency theory looks back on the patterns of colonial relations which
persisted between the North and South and emphasizes how colonized territories tended to be
impoverished by those relations. Theorists of this school maintain that the economies of ex-
colonial states remain oriented towards serving external rather than internal demand, and that
development regimes undertaken in this context have tended to reproduce in underdeveloped
countries the pronounced class hierarchies found in industrialized countries while maintaining
higher levels of poverty. Dependency theory is closely intertwined with Latin American
Structuralism, the only school of development economics emerging from the Global South to be
affiliated with a national research institute and to receive support from national banks and
finance ministries The Structuralists defined dependency as the inability of a nation's economy to
complete the cycle of capital accumulation without reliance on an outside economy. More
specifically, peripheral nations were perceived as primary resource exporters reliant on core
economies for manufactured goods. This led the Structuralists to advocate for import-substitution
industrialization policies which aimed to replace manufactured imports with domestically made
products.
Uneven immigration patterns lead to inequality: in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
immigration was very common into areas previously less populated (North America, Argentina,
Brazil, Chile, Australia, New Zealand) from already technologically advanced areas (Germany,
United Kingdom, France, Spain, Portugal). This facilitated an uneven diffusion of technological
practices since only areas with high immigration levels benefited. Immigration patterns in the
twenty-first century continue to feed this uneven distribution of technological innovation. People
are eager to leave countries in the South to improve the quality of their lives by sharing in the
perceived prosperity of the North. "South and Central Americans want to live and work in North
America. Africans and Southwest Asians want to live and work in Europe. Southeast Asians
want to live and work in North America and Europe".
New Economic Geography explains development disparities in terms of the physical
organization of industry, arguing that firms tend to cluster in order benefit from economies of
scale and increase productivity which leads ultimately to an increase in wages. The North has
more firm clustering than the South, making its industries more competitive. It is argued that
only when wages in the North reach a certain height, will it become more profitable for firms to
operate in the South, allowing clustering to begin.
BRANDT LINE
The Brandt Line is a visual depiction of the north–south divide, proposed by West German
former Chancellor Willy Brandt in the 1980s. It encircles the world at a latitude of
approximately 30° North, passing between North and Central America, north of Africa and
the Middle East, climbing north over China and Mongolia, but dipping south so as to include
Australia and New Zealand in the "Rich North
OBJECTIVES
North South Roundtable was founded in 1978. The original purpose of North South Roundtable
was to bridge a gap between North South dialogue process by bringing together key policy
makers, academic and research analysts in an independent intellectual form where they discuss
Global issues free of constraints and discuss those major world issues that affect North South
relation.
This forum can help to monitor of North South negotiation underway in official fora, a sounding
board for new policy initiatives in the mutual interest of North and the South, a public educator
on global development issues through direct briefings and through the dissemination of
Roundtable publications.
The North South Roundtable act as a bridge between leading thinker and policy maker of the
world. They generally chose its topic of discussion by reviewing carefully the important
development issues agitating the minds of national and international policy makers.
1. Energy Crisis: In mid 1970s there was a general hysteria that the energy crisis had
been caused by the manipulation of the OPEC cartel, the energy roundtables of NSRT
had the courage to point out the rise in energy prices was largely the natural result of long
term forces of demand and the supply and the world should get used to seeing the energy
price fluctuate in future.
2. Famine: In 1980s famine were hit in several African countries and global pre-
occupation was with the supply of emergency food assistance the NSRT roundtable on
attempted to attract the attention of the policy makers toward the long term reordering of
domestic development priorities in Africa, from cash crops to food crops and suggest that
no viable solution could be found without accelerate food production within Africa.
3. Debt Issue: When a serious debt problem hit the developing world in 1980s and when
World Bank and other financial institutions insisted on treating it on a case by case basis
the NSRT roundtables on money and finance kept reminding the world that it was a
generalized problem and must be dealt with on a global basis.
When the world community was still fascinated with economic growth models and when
the human costs of structural adjustment were being ignored by the international financial
institution during the 1980s, the NSRT organized four major roundtables on human
development, arguing that there is no link between economic growth and human
development and the financial budget can b balanced without unbalancing human lives.
4. Trade: When the Uruguay round of multilateral Trade negotiation was dominating the
globally in 1980s and when the developing countries were still reluctant to include issues
of trade in service and intellectual property within these talks, the NSRT roundtables on
trade took the important step that a freer world trade order, include in services.
5. Welfare approach: It delivers services to specific groups like; child-sponsorship or
famine relief but in programmatic terms is not particularly concerned with empowerment
of local communities.
6. Developmental approach: In which the program is focus on support of development
projects that increase the productive capacity of self-reliance.
7. Empowerment approach: This approach see that poverty as a result of political
processes and is committed to enabling or training communities to enter those processes.
Therefore they make relationship with northern (international) NGOs with southern
(local) NGOs. Northern NGOs may help to increase the capacity of southern NGOs to
become important role of change in technology, management and communications
systems, administrative linkages, including coordination with government and other
NGOs.
8. Before there was a wide spread recognition of the increasing marginalization of African
continents, the NSRT organized several roundtables on Africa which focus global
attention on the neglected domestic and international development in Africa.
9. Recently when the global community was wrestling with new issues of global
governance the NSRT organized several roundtables on the restructuring the UN system,
include the Bretton Woods institution and advanced many concrete proposals from the
idea of an Economy Security Council to a second Bretton Woods Conference.