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Ntamack bilong [ Profil ] |
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The third world and development in cameroon
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Feb 5th, 2007 - 13:00:11 |
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THE THRID WORLD AND DEVELOPMENT IN CAMEROON
Many scholars have written about the problems of
developing countries, outlining their characteristics
as if it were one homogenous mass, despite the
differences in income, values and culture from one
nation to the other. As a common characteristic, life
in developing countries and Africa in particular is
described in the most demeaning terms, portraying
living conditions as unbearable.
Developing countries have variously been called
backward, underdeveloped, third world. Sometimes the
people of such countries are said to be unhappy, poor,
and primitive. To support this claim, statistics of
income per capita and other material goods are
manipulated, and estimates of the level of happiness
among inhabitants of such regions are made, even
though such statistics say nothing of the distribution
neither of income within society nor of the level of
general well-being.
Through western films and pictorial magazines
distributed through out the world, reports of
starvation and poor living conditions (which are in
many cases real) are presented to the world. This is a
narrow biased as it evaluate nations solely on
physical quantification of man-made goods, the results
of which has been to attribute superiority to certain
nations of the world.
With the abundance of such article, people have come
to make very wrong associations and false assumptions
of living standards in the developing worlds. E.g.
most inhabitants of Africa, Asia, and Latin America
believe that there are no miserable living conditions
in the developed worlds (as the fight for poverty is
centered in Africa, Asia, and Latin America) while
many inhabitants (youths) of the America and Europe
believe that most of Africa is jungle and starving
people.
The term third world is a remnant of cold war
thinking, which divided the world into two rigid
blocs, the capitalist western world and the communist
eastern world, with all the countries not allied to
the USA or former USSR, lumped in the remaining third
category. This political use of the term was very
imprecise because some countries like South Africa
could not fit well in any of the categories. Other
nations were important political allies of each of the
two main powers but did not even share the same
political ideologies. With such imprecision and
ambiguities, the use of the term third world gradually
lost meaning, then shifted from political to economic,
and today it is generally used to refer to states in
Africa, Asia, and Latin America that are considered
not highly industrialized.
It is important to recall tat most of the countries in
Africa, Asia, and Latin America, achieved independence
after the Second World War and to differentiate them
from older nations of Europe; they were collectively
referred to as Emergent Nations, expressing an
ethnocentric outlook as if the people of these nations
had no history and no past before achieving
independence.
The problem the terms developed and underdeveloped
faced was that many of those so called underdeveloped
(now developing countries) societies were already
making remarkable progress at the same time that some
of the developed nations were undertaking
development projects to become more developed. More
recently, the United Nations (UN) has used the
expression Less Developed Countries (LDCs) and More
Developed Countries (MDCs) to differentiate between
those countries that have not made much economic or
industrial development from those that have some
significant achievements. These UN expressions contain
the essential fact of development as a continuing
process in both societies be it the developed or
underdeveloped.
What ever term is used, it is essential to note that
there is a persistent efforts to contrast living
standards of developed nations with those of other
nations to be found in Africa, Asia and Latin America
even though there may be as many similarities as there
are contrasts.
Even when these contrasts in living standards are
mentioned, another common characteristic is noticed,
focus is on the under privileged ( who are many and
should be taken care of) and the upper strata is
overlooked in the LDCs, and for the developed nations,
focus is on the living standards of the rich people
and almost completely the poor are ignored.
This is exemplified by Denis Austin who looks at the
LDCs and MDCs. He writes and I quote That there are
not three worlds but two, a developed and an
underdeveloped world- a world of those who have and
those who have not. The haves, not only possess more
goods; they have a richer life, enjoying political
stability, old age, full stomachs, freedom from
anarchy, warm houses in winter, cool houses in summer,
the advantage of travel, and the ravels of
technology.
Such an assessment is grossly misleading because it
compares the poor people in the LDCs to the rich
portion of the population in the MDCs. It is not a
parallel comparism because the millions of people
languishing in misery in the crowded ghettoes of
America and European cities are never discussed at the
international level (it is a fact). No account is made
of the thousands of homeless people lying in the
subways and on the streets of the MDCs. They are also
overlooked. Yet, these are shocking scenes to any
newly arrived African or Asian to the United States of
America. Not taking into account also the
hunger-stricken, drug addicted and really poor people
who are classified among the first worlds nations.
The third world is not one mass. It would be highly
misleading to portray the third world as an unchanging
world of widespread poverty and illnesses. Most third
world countries have made, and are still making
significant progress. Yet there has hardly been a
change in the number of world economic categories.
China is not anything near what it was decades ago;
even between one year and the other there are great
changes.
It must be realized that physical development or
technological development is but one aspect of
national development. A balance view of development
should comprise the cultural, personal, and physical
aspects of the society. Thus we may define development
as the sustained improvement of an entire society and
social system towards a better and MORE JUST LIFE.
Walter Rodney notes that development in human society
is a many-sided process which comprises of the
following:
-Physical development which includes man-made goods
produce by the use of technology.
-Cultural development which comprises of the values,
norms and traditions of a society and,
-Personal development which includes the psychological
directions of individuals.
Development is a continuing utility to mankind and the
process of developing should be thought of as a
continuing process and not as one that is static. This
explains why such countries like Japan and the United
States continue to engage in research to become more
developed. In other words, they are still developing.
THE LEVELS OF DEVELOPMENT
Physical development: Natural resources like oil and
minerals are provided by nature. The mere presence of
natural resources within a nation is not development.
Man-made resources result from the application of
technology. If natural resources are harnessed to
provide food, shelter. Health and protection for the
citizens and for other people with whom the citizens
interact, and then there is physical development. This
is what economist called Economic Growth.
Technology, the utilization of knowledge for useful
ends, is an important requirement for man-made
resources. Technology is required for the production
of
a) Communication equipments
b)Transportation equipments
c) Military hard ware and all other goods and services
for public consumption.
Technology may also be directed against the process of
development
1) Communication equipment- If the modes of
communication are controlled by high level national or
private authorities so that the ordinary person in the
street and villages cannot express his or her views,
this has a negative effect on the intellectual
development of the nations e.g. the typical images of
Africa, Asia and Latin America on American Television
reveal mostly the exotic and negative aspects:
starving people, huts and naked people. And because
truth is distorted we cannot claim that this is
development.
2) Military Equipment: Technological progress has
produce weapons used for both international aggression
and internal subjugation of some portion of national
population. With technological progress, Africans were
uprooted from Africa and enslaved in the western
Worlds; Thousands of people were decimated by bombs in
Japan at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Some individuals and
nations (the merchant of the devil, as they are
sometimes called) increase their income by
specializing in the production of weapons and inciting
conflicts within weaker nations in order to sell
weapons. To day, the world is under the spectre of
nuclear extermination. This few examples only show how
military technology has not served a useful purpose to
mankind, yet, many would say this is development.
3) Cultural development: By culture we mean the body
of all non-genetic information. Cultural development
is an important component of development. The culture
of a society is usually reflected in its values, norms
and traditions. The economic and political
institutions of any human society are structured to
enhance the way of life of that society. Thus, two
institutions are important here: the economic
institutions and the political institutions.
Economic institutions embody those cultural values
placed on the creation, governing and distribution of
goods, whether in a traditional, market or planned
economy. All these three types of economies involve
participation and decision-making in the production of
goods and services. Two types of goods are produced in
any society, fun items and life sustaining items
necessary for the basic human survival and any nation
that discriminates against a portion of its population
or does not create conditions that improve the well
being of all or most of its people, is uncivilized and
underdeveloped.
The political institution is another cultural
component in any appraisal of national development.
The quality of any government or any leader should not
be solely judged in terms of election criteria but in
terms of the usefulness of that government and the
dedication of the leader to his people. This quality
also depends essentially on how the government
responds to its peoples need. Any government that
comes to power through and approved procedure by the
citizens and is of good service to its people is
developed. On the other hand, any government that
seeks to be of service to only a portion of the
population is underdeveloped.
4) Personal development: personal development means
the inner feeling, increased skill and capacity,
greater freedom, self-discipline, self-esteem and a
sense of responsibility. This comprises the
psychological direction of individuals. It is doubtful
if a rise in come alone or material wealth equally
increases human happiness and ones self esteem. Many
would agree that a persons contentment with his life
depends essentially on his sure sense that he is a
valuable being, that his life has some worth and that
he belongs to a community of human beings who care
about him. If one is aware that his own community on
which he depends does not recognize and respect him,
his life would appear to be useless. Self esteem is an
important component of development of development. It
is a sense of worth and self respect, of not being
used as a tool by others for their own needs- is
necessary for good life and people of all societies
need it. They may term it dignity, honour,
recognition, but it means the same thing. In the MDCs,
television has replaced human companions and telephone
enables people to transact business at a distance with
little or no human contact; and were hand guns are
frequently used to take away human life at random,
people have tended to be individualistic and confined
to themselves.
Then we asked the critical question is economic
development worth while?.
Large numbers of Peace Corps volunteers, upon
returning to their home countries have examined their
own society with critical new eyes.
After their experience say in Africa, they can compare
the treatment accorded old people in the MDCs with
that dispensed to the aged is societies where the
extended family provides satisfying roles for grand
parents.
Any society where individuals have very little self
esteem (dependence on anti-depressant, tranquilizers
etc), where killing is rampant and the rate of suicide
so high is not civilized and its development should be
questioned.
The economic crises that Cameroon is facing today
are as a result of the inefficiency of the economic
system, a mental problem and as a consequence, a
violation of the human rights. It is not possible to
understand a human being on the basis of economics
alone. A human being is better understood in a more
complete way when situated within the spheres of
culture through language, history and the position one
takes towards the fundamental events of life, such as
birth, love, work and death.
For the purpose of economic growth, Cameroon needs to
sustain its economy and technology. There can be no
doubt that Cameroon has an abundance of labour force,
but a good portion is unskilled. A persons capacity
for mental and physical energy and even his physical
comfort are affected by a number of factors-nutrition,
training, cultural habits, religion, standard of
living and even psychological factors. All these
factors affect the quality of labour force in one way
or another, and the Cameroon government and its
partners like Japan, China, France, The US etc should
help implement the economic policies that will take
Cameroon closer to its objective of caring for the
common man. These include the construction of more
schools for higher and quality education.
As a result of semi-literacy, there is therefore a
shortage of high quality labour force. With this semi
literacy status, most Cameroonians are content with
the idea of belonging to the civil service and a large
portion of the business sector is controlled by
non-Cameroonians. The few available Cameroonian
businessmen lack the real entrepreneurial skills; they
delight essentially in acting as middlemen or sale
representatives of some foreign produced goods and
because of the low quality of their education which is
also base on theory, they do not engage in the actual
production of tangible goods.
With a sound quality educational system (informal and
vocational inclusive), Cameroonians will be able to
develop creative and enterprising attitudes which are
the key factors to success.
Also, skilled technical labour supply remains an acute
problem. The shortage in skilled technical labour
results essentially from inappropriate educational
structures, curricula, school system and lack of
facilities in technical schools.
The technical schools in particular instead of sending
out professionals turn out graduates who only know
scientific facts in theory with little ability to
apply them. To solve this problem, the government
should improve on the quality of education both formal
and informal as well as encourage corporations to
accepts students for internships, so that they can
learn to put the scientific facts they acquire into
practice.
Also, there is the problem of international
brain-drain which affects many developing countries
including Cameroon. By this I mean, the emigration of
professional and skilled personnel educated in the
country but living and working in the more
industrialized nations. Typical among such
professionals are doctors, engineers, and economists,
so of whom where sponsored abroad but decided to
settle there after their studies for higher salaries.
The government of Cameroon and other developing
countries should encourage its genuss to came back
and work in their countries of origin after their
studies by providing them with all the guarantees and
facilities that would enable them fully express their
potential and develop their country.
5) Adequate and Appropriate Government Action: Every
nation and every people in the world are capable of
developing a strong economy if the right policies and
programs are implemented. To have a good Minister of
economy and finance and a competent team of economic
advisers capable of implementing a good policy, is
certainly the only way towards development. This does
not apply only for Cameroon but for all the LDCs of
the world. Many economic undertaking in Cameroon have
failed because they were either poorly conceived, or
badly managed by not only incompetent and selfish
officials but by those who have no respect to human
dignity and respect to the need of those who voted
them to power. This abuse (embezzlement) of public
wealth under heavy concealment has allow the social
services to decay, favouritism of one ethnic group
against the other
(Francophone against the Anglophones). Because of
these practices, the government has succeeded in
creating a confused citizenry (youths in particular)
unable to understand their country with all its
resources has gotten so impoverished. The present
economic crises that the country is experiencing is as
a result of mass embezzlement of public funds and
little or no accountability on the part of many public
officials not to mention tax evasion by many
industries and corporation in the country.
With the political will and a good economic policy,
Cameroonian engineers will find themselves exercising
their skills in the field rather than sitting in their
offices idle and doing nothing while expatriates
technicians are imported and paid heavily for minor
jobs which could have been performed by Cameroonians.
A typical example is the sport complex the Chinese are
building in Yaoude. Almost all of the engineers are
from china giving the impression that Cameroonian
engineers are not up to the task.
The government should also encourage a general
attitude in the population about amount and quality of
work, level of saving (though most civil servants earn
less than 400$ month), consumption and sustainability
of our natural resources and the environment
especially our forest.
With government action in this line, development will
be visible and the economy will grow to the advantage
of all Cameroonian and the youths in particular as
there will be job opportunities. This will help reduce
the unemployment rate which stands at the moment over
70%.
Cameroon have a bright prospect because of the
availability of raw materials like the forest (for the
paper industries and construction), agriculture (palm
oil, rubber, banana, cocoa, coffee and abundant food
supply for energy) and natural resources like oil and
gas. But the Cameroon economy is handicapped by
limited political will and adequate means of
commercialization, employment of imported qualified
labour and managerial personnel and above all
embezzlement and corruption which has ranked the
country among the first ten corrupt nations of the
world after wearing the yellow jersey for two to three
straight years.
6)Politics: In almost every country in the world,
governments have an unquestionable responsibility for
stimulating progress in most spheres of economic,
social and political development. Government has a
number of functions which include building of public
services, influencing attitudes, shaping the economic
institutions which influence resource utilisation,
ensuring full employment and influencing the level and
areas of investment.
Very important in Cameroon and most developing
countries and Africa in particular is the way
political changes occur which in turn has a profound
effect upon the direction and scope of economic
development and future prosperity. What ever the
amount of natural resources and what ever theories
developed by economists, sociologists and geographers
at a particular time; in the final analysis, it is
governmental action that will determine the direction
and scope of economic policy. The building of roads,
railways, the motivation of national cooperation and
the maintenance of a calm political atmosphere depends
essentially on the governmental ability to act justly
and wisely without bias and favouritism.
7) Environmental Conservation and pollution: The earth
is finite with mostly non-renewable resources. As the
population of the world continues to increase, there
will be ever greater demands by man on his
environment, which is also his home. The uncontrolled
exploitation of the natural environment and its
resources for energy has created more problems which
have seriously affected and at the same time
threatening our very existence. In some cases, natural
resources such as soil and forest have been destroyed
and fresh water supplies heavily polluted.
The major problem in the world today and Cameroon in
particular is how best to utilize and sustain the
natural environment for future generations and ours.
As the worlds population continues to grow,
increasing demand will be made on land that has not
been touched. Also, there will be increased demand on
natural resources such as minerals, wood and sea
products. It is essential that the methods to be used
to exploit these resources do not cause an imbalance
in the already fragile ecosystem as we are already
witnessing global warming (increase in temperature) in
some parts of the world. The utilisation of all these
resources must be accompanied by their conservation.
Natural resources like oil and natural gas, coal and
metallic minerals are finite and their exploitation
must be carefully controlled by states.
As mature trees are felled, young trees should be
planted to ensure that the forest reserves do not
diminish. Governments all over the world should
encourage tree farming as it is being done in the east
province of Cameroon. This tree Farming should be done
on large areas of land for posterity.
Marine animals are also irreplaceable. The seas,
oceans and rivers can continue to provide man with
energy. Most countries with large fishing industries
have solve the problem of over fishing and marine
pollution by passing legislatures that guarantees all
small fish which are caught must be return to the sea
immediately to enable them reproduce themselves.
But in Africa and Cameroon where the economic
realities are different, it is difficult to implement
such policies.
Mans attempt to survive and improve his living
conditions has unfortunately lead to the pollution of
his environment. This has upset natures delicate
ecological balance and unwittingly brought about a
threat to his very survival.
The most important health hazard faced by Cameroon and
most developing countries is the indiscriminate
dumping of garbage into the surrounding land. This has
lead to land pollution. This dumping has not only the
unsightly and foul-smelling, but are also breading
places for vectors of disease like mosquitoes which
causes malaria.
In Cameroon, the government has gone a mile in solving
this problem by hiring HYSACAM (Sanitation Company)
for the collection of garbage and subsidizes the cost
for all local councils to keep their municipalities
clean.
Another major problem is air pollution.
Industrialization in many countries is creating a
grave problem for man and his future is at stake. Air
pollution which is as a result of the combustion of
fossil fuels and the discharge of toxic gases like
carbon dioxide from chemical plants into the
surrounding atmosphere has serious health hazards
(cancer and liver impairment) besides destroying
plants foliage, reduce crop yield. Also, the more than
extra Ozone discharge from these plants has upset the
Ozone layer in the atmosphere which serves as a
protective blanket against cosmic rays from the sun.
The effects of the ozone depletion are increase in
temperature (global warming) in the North Pole which
has seen the breaking and subsequent melting of large
masses of ice from the Polar Regions. If measures are
not taken to control the emission of these toxic
gases, most coastal cities are in danger of flooding.
I want to believe that the effect of the global
warming is causing more than enough havoc in Asia and
Indonesia, and the Americas.
It is time for us Cameroonian to join this fight and
improve our economy and conserve our resources and our
natural environment for real development. Development
base on conscience and the respect of human values..
Ntamack john Billong
secretary General
Prolife Aids League
Tel:+237 791 65 77
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