Global Development

What Global Development covers

Global Development is examined in Paper 2, The Human Environment. It covers defining and measuring development, the global pattern of development and why it is uneven, the consequences of uneven development for quality of life, strategies to reduce uneven development: aid, top-down and bottom-up, the chosen country: location, context and internal unevenness, economic change, trade, aid and investment in the chosen country, population and social change in the chosen country, geopolitics and technology in the chosen country and the impacts of rapid development and how they are managed.

The 9 subtopics

Each one has its own page.

• Defining and measuring developmentEconomic, social and political definitions and measures of development, how income, education, technology and culture affect it, food and water security, GDP per capita and its limits, the Human Development Index, measures of inequality and indexes of political corruption.Open →
• The global pattern of development and why it is unevenWhere the richest and poorest countries lie, the development gap, the UK's north–south divide, and how climate, being landlocked, natural resources, colonial history and industrial decline explain uneven development.Open →
• The consequences of uneven development for quality of lifeHousing, health, schooling and work in the least developed countries, the informal sector, the digital divide, food insecurity, disease from unsafe water and sanitation, and how uneven development within one country affects daily life.Open →
• Strategies to reduce uneven development: aid, top-down and bottom-upInternational, bilateral, multilateral and tied aid, emergency against long-term aid and its criticisms, inter-governmental agreements and debt cancellation, and the advantages and limitations of top-down and bottom-up projects and who runs them.Open →
• The chosen country: location, context and internal unevennessThe location, neighbours, coastline, latitude and world position of a chosen country, its political, social, cultural and environmental setting, core and periphery, why growth concentrates and migration widens the gap, and calculating and mapping difference from the mean.Open →
• Economic change, trade, aid and investment in the chosen countryPrimary, secondary, tertiary and quaternary sectors and how employment shifts between them, the benefits and drawbacks of industrial growth, exports, imports and trade surplus, changing trade and aid, public, private and foreign direct investment, and reliance on transnational corporations.Open →
• Population and social change in the chosen countryHow population structure, life expectancy and birth rates change with development, the problems of an ageing population, the dependency ratio, a growing middle class and its effect on the economy, rising inequality, and the value of schooling and of educating girls.Open →
• Geopolitics and technology in the chosen countryGeopolitics, foreign policy and relations with powerful countries, military pacts and territorial disputes, defence spending, connectivity, mobile banking, the gap between urban and rural technology, internet healthcare, technology in farming and who gains least from connection.Open →
• The impacts of rapid development and how they are managedThe social and economic benefits of rapid development, its costs in informal settlements, pollution, emissions and lost traditions, and how governments, international bodies and communities manage those impacts.Open →

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Take Global Development further

The same content, four other ways.

Commonly confused

Pairs that lose marks when they are blurred together.

• Bilateral aid vs Multilateral aid

  Bilateral aid: help given directly by one government to another, often with conditions. Multilateral aid: help contributed by many countries to an international organisation that decides its use.

• Core region vs Periphery

  Core region: the area holding most investment, industry and highest-paid jobs. Periphery: outlying regions with less investment, fewer services and lower incomes.

• GDP per capita vs Human Development Index

  GDP per capita: the total value of goods and services produced yearly, divided by population. Human Development Index: a combined score of income, life expectancy and years of schooling.

Questions from this topic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

1. 1

   What does it mean to say that a country has developed?

   Model answer

   It has made progress in raising the wealth, wellbeing and living standards of its people.

2. 2

   How does an economic definition of development differ from a social one?

   Model answer

   An economic definition judges progress by wealth and income, while a social one judges it by wellbeing such as health, schooling and housing.

3. 3

   Why is judging a country only by its wealth a narrow view of progress?

   Model answer

   Wealth can be very unequally shared, so a high average income can hide widespread poverty, poor health and poor schooling.

4. 4

   Give two political measures that can be used to judge how developed a country is.

   Model answer

   Whether its elections are free and fair, and how much corruption there is in its government and courts.

5. 5

   Give three social measures used to compare the development of countries.

   Model answer

   Life expectancy, adult literacy rates and the proportion of people with access to clean water.

6. 6

   Why can two countries with similar average incomes have very different living standards?

   Model answer

   Because how the money is shared out and spent on health, schooling and services matters as much as how much of it there is.

What is inside Levo

Six ways to work the same material.

Global Development revision questions

What does Global Development cover in Edexcel GCSE Geography A?

9 subtopics: defining and measuring development, the global pattern of development and why it is uneven, the consequences of uneven development for quality of life, strategies to reduce uneven development: aid, top-down and bottom-up, the chosen country: location, context and internal unevenness, economic change, trade, aid and investment in the chosen country, population and social change in the chosen country, geopolitics and technology in the chosen country and the impacts of rapid development and how they are managed. Each one has its own page with questions and model answers.

How is Global Development organised?

By the Edexcel 1GA0 specification, subtopic by subtopic, so it matches the order you are taught it in.