What is development

Development can mean different things to different people. a person living in poverty in an informal settlement will see development as easy access to clean running water (potable water), elctricity, propper roads, propper save housing. For a person living in Silver Lakes it might be getting a more expensive car, faster internet connections, new smartphone, new technology in the kitchen or TV lounge, etc.

People usually measure the level of development by comparing countries economic status. Why do we see USA, Australia, UK, Germany, France as developed and countries such as Mozambique, Ghana, Zimbabwe South Africa as less developed. Is it becuase there are more poor people maybe?

There are different indicators which can be used to measure the level of development of a country. Economy is only ONE indicator which is not necessarily an acurate indicator. USA's economy is growing slower than Angola! A combination of indicators must thus be used.

Figure 1

Devlopment has many facets with many areas of potential development as seen in Figure 1. Some countries devlop more in certain aspects and less in others. USA might develop more in social and economics, but maybe not in terms of the environment.

To conclude, when we try to rank countries according to its level of development we need to take many factors or indicators into account to get a realistic ranking.