I’m not actually doing the unit 4B re-sit but I thought it’d be helpful if I went through some of it. I’ve picked something that everyone should have looked into; if you haven’t then I’ve done it for you.
What does the Department for International Development do for Bangladesh?
Well according to their website the aims are to:
- Encourage private sector investment
- Ensuring the government is capable of financing and delivering social services
- Getting more children into better schools
- Improving family planning and reducing maternal deaths
These aims can be interpreted as showing that the DfID want to improve equality throughout the country to create a more stable nation. Improving equality has many positive impacts; the biggest being that it empowers women thus giving them a voice. The increased choices in life women get once empowered can lead to a reduced birth rate, which reduces the dependency ratio and creates a more manageable population. This can be seen to be working as from 2008 to 2011 the birth rate has dropped by 6 from 29 to 23 (CIA world factbook). A more manageable population is useful when trying to deal with the preparation and aftermath of a cyclone.
The DfID are also investing a lot of money into education. 25% of the £148.8 million spent in Bangladesh in 2009-2010 was spent on education. That’s £37.2 million; the amount of money spent can be linked to the development module and to South Korea who also improved education to encourage high-tech TNCs into the country. TNCs have both positive and negative (as you should have written in the exam on Tuesday!) impacts and these will also apply if TNCs move into Bangladesh.
The general aim is to create a stable developed country that can look after itself without having to rely on aid from other nations.
There are also some useful links from the website that you should probably at:
- http://www.dfid.gov.uk/Media-Room/Case-Studies/2011/Letting-girls-decide-Tackling-child-marriage-and-early-pregnancy-in-Bangladesh/ Illustrates how the DfID are helping to empower women.
- http://www.dfid.gov.uk/Media-Room/Case-Studies/2010/Sowing-the-seeds-of-scuba-rice/ This shows what can be done to reduce the agricultural impacts of cyclones and flooding.
- http://www.dfid.gov.uk/Media-Room/Case-Studies/2009/Bangladeshs-women-learn-the-art-of-flood-survival/ Shows how empowering and educating women can help to reduce the impacts of flooding.
Because I haven't been to the Unit 4B workshops I don't know what you have or haven't done, if this has been helpful then let me know and I'll do more of things like this. If it hasn't, let me know what would be helpful and I'll see if I can get round to doing it.
