What is the North-South divide, how does it contribute to explaining global poverty and why is it sometimes said to be an outdated idea?
What is the North-South divide, how does it contribute to explaining global poverty and why is it sometimes said to be an outdated idea? 24 marks
The North and South divide refers to the division of the world into a primarily rich, industrialised North Hemisphere and a poor, developing Southern Hemisphere which is almost entirely dependent on the North. This idea reached its peak with the publishing of the Brandt report in 1980, which made 10 key proposals for policies to reduce the global inequality between the north and the south. All 8 of the G8 nations are in the Northern Hemisphere and out of the 30 members of the OECD, 26 are northern countries. This concept is believed to belong to the neo-colonialist school of thought who believe that the origin of this divide came from the exploitation of the South by the North through colonialism, which, they argue, has been reasserted by the forces of globalisation in recent years.
The North and South divide explains that the practices of TNCs and the huge amount of debt that developing countries have helped to perpetuate structural inequalities between the richer and high wage north and the low wage south. There is evidence which shows that there has been an increase in global inequality in the past few decades with the rise of globalisation. In 1960 the income of the richest 20% of the world’s population was about 30 times that of the poorest 20%, by 2000 this reached 74 times greater. In 2001 the poorest 1.2 billion only accounted for 1.3% of global consumption.
Some see that the gain that the north has enjoyed because of globalisation has been at the expense of the south and that has contributed to global poverty. This is because, it is argued that the north is the core area within the global economy, in that it is home to high technology production and large TNCs and the South is the peripheral area in the global economy which is still largely restricted to agricultural production and supply of raw materials.
The North and South divide refers to the division of the world into a primarily rich, industrialised North Hemisphere and a poor, developing Southern Hemisphere which is almost entirely dependent on the North. This idea reached its peak with the publishing of the Brandt report in 1980, which made 10 key proposals for policies to reduce the global inequality between the north and the south. All 8 of the G8 nations are in the Northern Hemisphere and out of the 30 members of the OECD, 26 are northern countries. This concept is believed to belong to the neo-colonialist school of thought who believe that the origin of this divide came from the exploitation of the South by the North through colonialism, which, they argue, has been reasserted by the forces of globalisation in recent years.
The North and South divide explains that the practices of TNCs and the huge amount of debt that developing countries have helped to perpetuate structural inequalities between the richer and high wage north and the low wage south. There is evidence which shows that there has been an increase in global inequality in the past few decades with the rise of globalisation. In 1960 the income of the richest 20% of the world’s population was about 30 times that of the poorest 20%, by 2000 this reached 74 times greater. In 2001 the poorest 1.2 billion only accounted for 1.3% of global consumption.
Some see that the gain that the north has enjoyed because of globalisation has been at the expense of the south and that has contributed to global poverty. This is because, it is argued that the north is the core area within the global economy, in that it is home to high technology production and large TNCs and the South is the peripheral area in the global economy which is still largely restricted to agricultural production and supply of raw materials.