Global development is concerned with the development of the world on several different parameters. These parameters include financial development, human development, poverty alleviation, lack of education and child labor, violence and terrorism. Development as we see it is the sum total of all these factors. Again the sum of these factors is greater than when we take up the factors individually. Global development or International development is separate from just development which only refers to individual development on any one factor. International development on the other hand is the holistic development of the world on any one of several collective factors as given here. Comprehensive global development is very important as it shows how much progress has been made by the whole world. This is more important than individual progress of one area of the world on one or two factors. We start off here with a description of all the above factors one by one.
Financial Development- the world has made impressive development on the financial front. The financial market has developed to include almost all countries along with the development of the Dollar as the currency of exchange. The New York Stock Exchange or NYSE has gone from strength to strength. In September 2015 transactions were started to be done with hand held computers (HHC). This helped the traders to receive and execute orders electronically. This process is much faster than the previous process where transactions were done on paper. Several other countries have their exchanges where a lot of trading is done.
Human development- Human development includes several key points. This includes all the developments from the invention of the wheel to the development of computerised vehicles which remove the need for the presence of a human driver. This has coincided with the development of the marketplace where people gather for sale and purchase of several goods and services useful to people. Humans have succeeded to a large extent in the development and manufacture of what they eat, what they wear and what and where they work with in a typical day’s work. The manufacturing and use of computers in the latter part of the 20th century and the 21st century has placed humans at a very high point in their development.
Apart from these points of success humans also are facing certain challenges in their development.
Poverty alleviation- Poverty alleviation has become one of the greatest challenges that humans are faced with. The poverty line was set to $ 1.90 in 2015. This means that a person living below this line is unable to gather the basic means of living and eating for himself. This again means that money is concentrated in the hands of a few people with 80% to 90% people living below the poverty line. There is also a variation in wages of people living in the developed countries as compared to the wages of people in the developing countries. This difference becomes the source of tension between different countries.
Lack of education and child labor- Lack of education is another challenge to the humans which they need to overcome. Along with lack of education about 150 million children are forced to work as labourers in activities that are directly dangerous to their health. There is again a lot of difference between the related statistics for the developed countries and the developing countries. These statistics are very grim for several countries in Africa and Asia. Very few students complete secondary education in these countries.
Violence- is a worldwide phenomenon that continues to harm people in several areas of the world. Violence is carried out against specific groups like women or LGBTQ members or people of a specific religion. Violence may be the result of poverty, lack of education, or more and more people compared to fewer resources available for leading a proper life. To stop violence we require very well thought out and scientific solutions. These solutions must be specific and original for the different categories of people being affected by the violence. The main problem with these solutions is that we do not have such solutions right now.
Terrorism-In several places of the world societies continue to be affected by terrorism of one form or another. Terrorism again results from lack of education, lack of money, and lack of adequate resources to lead a proper lifestyle. Terrorism in the last 25 to 30 years has taken an extreme form. People have become jihadis. As against the rule of live and let live, jihadis or terrorrists follow the credo of death for themselves along with murder of innocent people. Due to terrorism several areas in the world have almost become off limits for normal people to lead their lives. These require a mixture of political and military solutions to end terrorism in those areas.
All in all one can say that the world has come to a very strange point in its history where proper solutions to the everyday problems of human beings are required and awaited.
