Geo Core 5: Human Dev and Diversity

Development Indicators - HDI

0 (worst) - 1 (best)

• Composite indicator

1. Life expectancy (HEALTH) → indirectly suggests healthcare/diet

2. GNI per capita PPP (WEALTH)

3. Number of Years of Schooling (EDUCATION)

4. Literacy Rate (EDUCATION)

TOP 3:

1. Iceland 0.972

2. Switzerland 0.970

3. Norway 0.970
   

BOTTOM 3:

1. South Sudan 0.388 (world’s newest country)

2. Somalia 0.404

3. Central African Republic 0.414

PROS

• Multiple variables (holistic)

• Can be compared - quantitative number 

• PPP → allows GDP comparison across countries

CONS

• Data may be unreliable/unavail from LICs

• Doesn’t measure disparities within countries

• Doesn’t consider environmental

Development Indicators - HPI

0 (worst) - 100 (best)

• Composite indicator

1. Wellbeing

2. Life expectancy

3. Inequality

4. Ecofootprint

TOP 3:

1. Vanuatu 57.9

2. Sweden 55.9

3. El Salvador 54.7 

BOTTOM 3:

1. Central African Republic 13.7

2. Botswana 14.7

3. Lesotho 15.6

PROS

• Multiple variables (holistic)

• Can be compared - quantitative number 

• Only dev. Indicator looking at environmental impact

CONS

• Wellbeing is VERY subjective

Affirmative Action - Rwanda Female Empowerment

1994 genocide left 70% of population as female

EDUCATION

• 2000 EFA (Education Free For All) policy means required education, targeting to send girls to school as well

• 2022 equal girls and boys enrolment rate - 98%

LABOUR

• Microfinance lessons ($100-1000) for women to start up businesses

• 48% workforce is women

POWER

• 2003 constitutional gender quota - 30% women in parliament seats REQUIRED

• 2008 - 64% women - first country in world to have majority female parliament

CHALLENGES

• Rural urban divide → 70% pop. in rural → limited education

Affirmative Action - NZ Maori

• Makes up 17.4% of NZ pop.

• Historically, colonisation led to cultural marginalisation, land dispossession

LAND POSSESSION

• (made possible through the UN officially declaring them an indigenous group) 1995 Office of Treaty Settlements - reimburses for settlements, totalling to $1.3 bil  → included cash, returning of land, land mgmt rights

• 14,000 hectares of land returned

EDUCATION

• 10,000 scholarships awarded annually for Maori students

• 10% uni spots reserved for Maori (in competitive programmes)

EMPLOYMENT QUOTAS

2020 Public Service Act - 17% Maori employees

2025 - only reached 16%

UNDRIP (declaration for rights of indigenous people) heritage convention - 2003 promoting their culture and language around 14% of school offering Maori language

CHALLENGES

• Economic disparity between rural and urban, rural often has higher (20%) poverty rates than avg. national (10%)

Social Enterprises (Microfinancing) - KIVA

: approach to develop, fund, and implement solutions to existing global issues

• Allows people to lend money via the internet

• 70 countries

• $1.27 bil in loans funded

• Money is then REPAID and can be REINVESTED (96.9% repayment rate)

PROJECTS

1. Env. Resilience 

Solar Sisters - Tanzania 

• Aims to bring clean affordable energy

• Wants $200,000 to sell solar powered products

• Aids productivity (providing electricity for people to access the internet) and development (can earn money, invest in community, reduce poverty)

• Allowed group to develop, now employing over 6,000 people 

2. Agriculture

Woman in Vietnam

• Asking for $1,550 to buy organic fertilisers for crop growth

• Wants to sell more crops for stable income and send children to school - breaks cycle of deprivation

ISSUES

• Disparity - KIVA accessed through internet, people who don’t have access in LICs cannot use this directly

• Long term sustainability: borrowers may struggle to sustain business without support from lenders

Social Enterprise (ATN) - FairTrade

• Aims to improve living and working conditions for farmers

• Rebalance distribution of profit by setting a consistent minimum wage for farmers

• Over 30,000 FairTrade products (chocolate, coffee, bananas)

• 1.5 mil workers worldwide

• FairTrade products sold in 125 countries

MINIMUM WAGE:

• Allows for a stable income

• Can send kids to school

• Premium is invested into community (eg. healthcare, education, improving sanitation) to aid development and break the cycle of deprivation

SIRET TEA COMPANY

• Based in Kenya, been with FairTrade since 2007

• Small scale tea farm

• After working with FairTrade, farmers now own 12.8% of company shares

• Ensures a healthy labour force

• AFFIRMATIVE ACTION - TEACHING WOMEN TO KNOW THEIR RIGHTS

Corporate Social Responsibility - The Body Shop

• UK based skincare/beauty products 

• Started in 1976

• Big focus on female empowerment 

COMMUNITY FAIRTRADE PROGRAMME

• Their version of fairtrade, launched in 1987

• Ensures constant wages (stable income)

• Working with women led cooperatives, prioritising female empowerment, like their shea butter suppliers run by a Ghana based female company

• Reinvests profit into local communities 

GENDER EQUALITY

• Over 60% of suppliers from women led groups

• 2019 ‘Dream Big’ campaign - 18 month programme to give girls in LICs education to start up businesses 

  • Worked with 1500 girls

OUTCOMES

• Reduced UK branch’s gender pay gap to 1.5%

• 60% female beneficiaries

Cultural Diaspora - Chinese in US

• Over 5 mil Chinese people in the US, 3rd biggest immigrant pop.

• Moved for better QOL, economic and job ops, better education

• first wave in 1850 for mining, current for job ops and better QOL

PRESERVING CULTURE

• Chinatown: goods, food, culture, celebration of festivals - over 50 chinatowns in US - NYC, San Francisco, Chicago

• Martial Arts: spread of traditional activities and hobbies

• Language: Saturday School to ensure language is preserved with younger generation

• Media/Entertainment: Chinese TV stations, growing popularity of Chinese movies

EFFECTS

• Multiculturalism

• Widening cultural diversity (cultural integration, sharing of traditions and beliefs)

• Preservation of culture for younger generations 

LOCAL IMPACTS

Economic:

• Drive local economic development

• Contribute $300bil to US GDP in 2019 via consumer spending

Social:

• Mandarin learning has surged in US by 216% on Duolingo in 2025

GLOBAL IMPACTS

Economic: Immigrants hold 25% of new Silicon Valley startups, highlighting how Chinese population contributes to the global economy

Cultural: global spread of Chinese practices like Chinese medicine adopted in 183 countries

Cultural Imperialism - Disney

• Established in the US in 1923

• (re)telling of stories, promoting a homogenised worldview and promoting Americanisation

• Representation of global cultures through an American lens → unrealistic portrayal - soft power

• Movies are then dubbed in different (or original) languages of the culture, making it seem more credible as if it were created by that culture, when they are in fact Americanised versions (Tarzan movie)
  

Inaccurate portrayals of culture:

• Chinese culture in Aristocats

• Native Americans (and use of derogatory/racist terms) in Peter Pan

Disney’s response:

• As a response to this, Disney has now put a disclaimer at the start of their movies warning about inaccurate portrayals and description

HOWEVER, they continue to make money off these films

Homogenisation and Built Landscape - HK

• Known as ‘Asia’s World City’

• Built landscape (espc financescape), developed by globalisation and rapid urbanisation is becoming homogenised, leading to increasingly uniform urban forms

• HK as a cross between traditional Chinese and British colonial architecture, to a switch to a homogenised CBD skyline/landscape

Eg.

• CBD: developed with many retail/shopping opportunities

• Financescape: HSBC building developed by Norman Foster, that was also the architect for London City Hall and The Gherkin (NYC), showing architectural similarities, HK intl airport also designed by them, looks similar to Beijing, London Stansted

• Transport: MTR and similar underground metro railways

• TNCs such as McDonalds, Starbucks, Disney, making their way into the HK landscape

LOCAL IMPACTS

• Replacing traditional HK/Chinese culture and traditions, building styles → cultural eradication

• Economic pressures/gains from globalisation and pressure for uniformity of buildings 

GLOBAL IMPACTS

• Homogenisation facilitates global trade and globalisation as places become more interconnected - eg Shenzhen HK FTZ easily connected through MTR for one belt one road initative to connect w Africa and Europe

• Americanisation/westernisation

Cultural Hybridity - India

• Under British colonial rule until 1947

• Where Western education fused with local culture/traditions

• Development of IndoSaracenic culture and architecture

LOCAL IMPACTS

• Promotes creativity by adapting global elements into local cultures

• Bollywood - fusing classic Indian culture with Western entertainment, and creating new genres that can appeal to younger generations - valued at $500mil in 2023b

HOWEVER - can lead to eradication of local cultures and risks cultural appropriation, promoting materialism

GLOBAL IMPACTS

• Bollywood reaching 3bil viewers worldwide - spreading of culture and educating/fostering pride in Indian culture

• Celebration of festivals like Diwali to increase appreciation and diversity

Younger generation especially prefers Western content (media), eroding local culture and heritage

Cultural Hybridity - Belize

in the Caribbean, creole, garifuna, african, mexican, east indian cultures with 410,000 pop

• National dish: rice and beans

  • incorporates Mexican, Garifuna, African, and European traditions by adding beans ingredients cooked with coconut milk and served with potato salad and fried plantain (African)

• Punta music

  • Created by Garifuna community (descendants of West African, Caribbeans) 

  • hybrid of West African drumming patterns and Caribbean rhythms + modern Punta adds electric guitars, blending Western pop and rock elements

CSR - Adidas

Adidas Parley for Oceans initiative, with 11mil shoes made from plastic, collected 7000 tonnes of waste, all recycling switched to paper in 2016

• Outsource labour → create jobs in NICs

  • Employs 450,000 workers in Vietnam in 30 factories

• Sources cotton from 120,000 small holder farmers in India → stable demand improves rural income → reduce urban-rural wealth disparity

• workers voice platform launched, doubled worker satisfaction in 2019, led to a 76% worker satisfaction rate, 81.4% of workers claimed to have relatively fair wage, implemented in all branches by 2022

Anti Immigration Policies - UKIP

• Significant rise in immigration due to globalisation and EU Schengen agreement pre 2020 Brexit

• 16% of pop are migrants as of 2021 with majority being Indian, Pakistani, Chinese

UKIP (UK Independence Party)

• Right wing, run by Nigel Farage

• Linked their EU membership to uncontrolled migration, economic decline and loss of national identity

• Began to rise after 2008 financial crisis 

• Following size peaked in 2015 (45,000) and dropped to 4000 after Brexit 

• Mostly older working class supporter

• Ideas and values spread through media - The Sun, social media and TV channels/radios to spread message (Facebook)

IMMIGRATION STANCE

• Nationalist - sees mass migration as a threat to British culture, economy and security

AIMS TO: 

• Restrict open borders

• Cap net migration at 50,000 yearly

• Ensure foreigners ASSIMILATE

Anti Immigration Policies - Denmark DF

• One of the strictest EU immigration systems with 12.6% of pop as immigrants

• SELECTIVE migration - welcomed 40,000 Ukrainian refugees

DANISH PEOPLE’S PARTY (DF)

• Founded in 1995, populist

• 21% of polls in 2015 but has been shrinking since → old working class, rural population

• Opposes immigration and multiculturalism

IMMIGRATION STANCE

• Seeks 0 non western immigration - particularly targets Muslims as culturally incompatible

• Limits asylum seekers and supports deportation

• anti-EU, trying to gain border control

Resource Nationalism - Venezuela

• Exerting control over natural resources like oil (oil accounts for 95% Venezuela export revenue)

1976-1990: oil first ‘nationalised’ but opened foreign investment and companies to increase production

2001: reversed this through Hydrocarbon law to promote nationalism and increase government/state ownership

SUBSIDIES:

• Oil heavily subsidised, costing as little as $0.01/liter (cheaper than water) to make it widely available domestically 

IMPACTS

• Economic: funded programmes from oil revenues (over 17% GDP), funding healthcare/education

  • Bolivian Mission social programme in 2000s for free healthcare and educational support/scholarships

• Political: strengthened national sovereignty

• Env: ongoing oil spills in Orinoco highlights overconsumption and inefficiency

ISSUES

• Overdependence - 2014 oil price crash by 50% led to decrease in revenues

• Long term sustainability of oil usage and need

Protectionism - US

• Trump 2018 steel and aluminium tariffs

• 25% tariffs on steel, 10% on aluminium

• Led to retaliation from Canada and the EU

CAUSE:

• Done to reduce dependence and protect national industries

IMPACTS:

• Economic: added 8700 jobs in metal sector, boosted US metal production by 8%

• Env: reduced import dependence and encouraged steel recycling (rose to 5%)

Restricted Freedoms - UK

• Civil society group in UK since 1934 to ensure fairness and human rights

BACKGROUND:

• 2025 UK police forces deploying facial recognition scans in public without consent (over 5mil scans) → Liberty argues this is in breach of human rights

  • Arguably done for national security, crime prevention and done to counter terrorism

LIBERTY:

• Challenging this through the Ed Bridges vs South Wales police case 

• Public campaigns and petitions with 50,000 signature for facial recognition ban

SOCIAL MEDIA PRESENCE
- calls to action, infographics, and sharing protest rights online to foster global awareness and drive participation in campaigns

ISSUES

• Facial recognition scans as breach of privacy

Targeted minority groups especially people of colour (higher error margin) which intensifies discrimination

Restricted Freedoms - North Korea

FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT:

• Cannot leave the country without government permission

• Cannot move to capital (Pyongyang) without permission and can be deported as punishment

FREEDOM OF SPEECH:

• Over 200,000 political prisoners with 40% dying from overwork and malnutrition

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION:

• 25mil without internet access/interactions

• Only 24% have mobile phones

• Access to internet is only through ‘Bright Start Browser’ - their own government controlled browser which targets/can control what content they can watch

Militia Groups - Boko Haram

• Islamist extremist group that aims to establish islamic state under Shariah law → rejects any governance that does not follow their beliefs

• Opposes Western influence and globalisation

• Advocates for restriction of women roles

IMPLEMENTATION:

• Focusing on violence (bombing, kidnapping, terrorist attacks), intimidation, governance

• NE Nigeria under their governance - they conduct policing checks, impose taxes, and aim to suppress behaviour they do not agree with

2014: 276 Christian school girls kidnapped

2018: 2 bombings, 86 killed

2020: 30 killed in armed attack

→ HOWEVER they are unlikely to continue having power due to lack of support and government military pressure to stop them