North-South divide
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The North-South divide is the socio-economic and political division that exists between the wealthy developed countries, known collectively as "the North", and the poorer developing countries (least developed countries), or "the South." Although most nations comprising the "North" are in fact located in the Northern Hemisphere, the divide is not primarily defined by geography. The North is home to four out of five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and all members of the G8. "The North" mostly covers the West and the First World, with much of the Second World. The expression "North-South divide" is still in common use, but the terms "North" and "South" are already somewhat outdated. As nations become economically developed, they may become part of the "North", regardless of geographical location, while any other nations which do not qualify for "developed" status are in effect deemed to be part of the "South."
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[edit] Problems with the divide
The fall of the Soviet Bloc countries and its further poverty weakened down the expression "North-South Divide" since many Soviet Bloc nations now falls into developing status, and the term "Second World" are now presently out of use. On ther other hand, many past developing nations like East Asian Tigers are now developed and are part of the modern "First World," however in some of the North-South Divide maps, they are ignored and referred as part of the "South" which violates the definition. The dependencies of the developed nations are also referred as "South" as well, although they are part of the developed world.
[edit] The north: developed nations
Organisations such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), generally agree that the group of developed countries includes the following countries/regions (in alphabetical order):
[edit] Americas
[edit] Asia
Hong Kong (
People's Republic of China)
Israel
Philippines
Japan
Macau ( People's Republic of China)
Singapore
South Korea
Republic of China (Taiwan)
[edit] Europe
[edit] Oceania
[edit] The rest of "the north"
[edit] Other G8 Members
[edit] Eastern Europe
[edit] Brandt Line
The Brandt Line is a visual depiction of the North-South divide, proposed by German Chancellor Willy Brandt in the 1970's. It approximately encircles the world at a latitude of 30° N, passing between North and Central America, north of Africa and India, but dipping south so as to include Australia and New Zealand in the "Rich North".
[edit] Digital divide
The global digital divide is often characterised as corresponding to the North-South divide, however it is interesting to note that Internet use, and especially broadband access, is now soaring in Asia compared with other continents. This phenomenon is partially explained by the ability of many countries in Asia to bypass older Internet technology and infrastructure, coupled with booming economies which allow vastly more people to get on-line.
[edit] Development gap
| high (0.800–1) | medium (0.500–0.799) | low (0.300–0.499) | n/a |
The North-South divide has more recently been named the development gap. This places greater emphasis on closing the evident gap between rich (more economically developed) countries and poor (less economically developed countries) countries. A good measure of on which side of the gap a country is located is the Human Development Index (HDI). The nearer this is to 1.0, the greater is the country's level of development and the further the country is on its development pathway (closer towards being well developed), exemplified well by Rostow's model of development and the Clark Fisher model.
