Development gap

DEFINITION: Inequalities of wealth, health, and educational opportunities between rich—developed countries—and developing countries

The development gap highlights the interdependence of developed and developing countries. When billions of people in developing nations suffer from socioeconomic deprivation and environmental degradation, developed countries are affected by massive cross-border migration, political instability, and terrorism. The existence of the development gap makes clear the need for global cooperation and swift action to address issues that affect the environment, such as living in poverty and climate change.

The United Nations uses the Human Development Index (HDI) to measure the progress of the development of each country annually in terms of gross domestic product, educational attainment, health outcomes, and gender equality. The findings of this measurement in 2023–24 indicated that the global HDI value fell for the first time ever in both 2020 and 2021, largely because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Developed countries have since rebounded. However, 51 percent of the least developed countries had not recovered as of 2024. According to the World Bank Group, in 2022, about 700 million people lived in extreme poverty. They resided mainly in Sub-Saharan Africa, conflict-afflicted areas, and rural areas. Because of the setbacks caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, achieving the Sustainable Development Goal of ending extreme poverty by 2030 became unlikely. UNESCO reported in 2024 that about 263 million of the world's children were out of school. This included 61 million children ages 5 to 11; 60 million children ages 11 to 14; and 142 million children ages 15 to 19. Many of these children did not have access to a school in their region, but others either did not enroll or enrolled later than they should have.

Living in poverty in developing countries is often perceived to be the result of an inadequacy of resources, but in reality the opposite is the case. Many developing countries actually possess abundant natural resources, such as dense forest in Congo, rich oil reserves in Nigeria, and gold mines in Ghana. The concept of the “resource curse” has been used to explain how resource-rich regions can nevertheless experience living in persistent poverty. Scholars suggest that the abundant reserves of minerals in developing regions of the South resulted in colonialism in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, during which powerful Northern states exploited the Indigenous populations and extracted wealth from their lands. These and other abundant resources also led to armed conflicts and corruption within developing countries in the post-independence era. Other factors, such as high population growth rates, weak governments, and inadequate infrastructure, also explain the fragile state of many developing nations.

High rates of people living in poverty can have substantial environmental impacts. Developing countries are prone to crop failure and famine because of deforestation, land degradation, desertification, and loss of biodiversity. They are less prepared than developed nations to handle the aftermath of natural disasters and are particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change.

The lack of economic advancement in developing countries has reciprocally affected developed countries. Wars and other conflicts lead to regional instability, which often triggers massive cross-border migration; an example is the flight of Haitian refugees to the United States during the 1980s and the 6.5 million Ukrainian refugees to Poland, Hungary, and Moldova. Rapid environmental degradation in developing countries has also been linked to the acceleration of global warming.

Bridging the Gap

A wide gap between developed and developing countries is not inevitable, however. The so-called economic miracle that took place in the Far East during the 1980s and the emergence of BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) during the 1990s have shown that high economic growth in a nation helps to alleviate poverty among that nation’s citizens. Between 1981 and 2004, for example, some 500 million people in China transitioned out of living in poverty thanks to an influx of direct foreign investment, massive job opportunities, and the resulting growth in foreign reserves.

Since the end of the twentieth century, developed countries have increased their role in addressing the number of people living in poverty worldwide. The abolition of external debt by some of the developed countries has helped to lessen the financial burdens of developing countries. Developed nations have also increased the amount of foreign aid they provide to assist developing countries in buying food and medicines and in building basic infrastructure. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development's (OECD) Development Assistance Committee, donor countries collectively disbursed large amounts of development assistance in the first decades of the twenty-first century. In 2021, for example, major donors such as the United States, Germany, Japan, and France reported significant net official development assistance (ODA) contributions supporting developing countries across multiple sectors. In 2022, the United Kingdom (UK) provided £12.8 billion (about US$17 billion) in ODA—an increase of 11.9 percent from 2021—according to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO). Much of this funding supported developing countries through bilateral ODA in the sectors "refugees in donor countries," "humanitarian aid," and "health." Africa remained the largest recipient of region-specific ODA—though the amount decreased from the previous year—accounting for 42.2 percent. The countries that received the most country-specific ODA were Afghanistan, Ukraine, and Nigeria. The European Union's (EU) Global Europe instrument committed billions annually to development cooperation; in 2023 alone, the EU reported substantial allocations for humanitarian aid, climate resilience, and poverty-reduction programs in partner countries.

Efforts to reach the goal of environmental sustainability have included the investment of increased resources in conservation, reforestation, projects to ensure clean water supplies, and improved sanitation. Technology transfers from developed nations have helped developing countries to adapt to environmental changes associated with climate change. Drought-resistant crops, for example, have been introduced in developing nations to help farmers cope with increasingly long dry seasons.

Obstacles and Controversies

The narrow focus on the gap between developed and developing countries—the so-called North-South divide—has been criticized as playing down the socioeconomic disparities found even within developed countries. In the UK, for example, 4.3 million children were living in poverty during 2022–23. The number of children living in poverty in the United States was much higher, 11 million in 2023. Other forms of disparities, such as urban-rural differences and gender gaps, in both developed and developing countries also deserve attention.

The politics surrounding development is highly complex. Many scholars and nongovernmental organizations argue that the persistence of the development gap is related to the unequal global structures of agricultural and trading policies. Heavy farming subsidies in the United States and France have placed poor farmers at a disadvantage. Fluctuating commodity price levels also interfere with farmers’ ability to make long-term investments and plans. Scholars have pointed out that the unsuccessful outcomes of the United Nations Climate Change Conferences, demonstrate a strong sense of skepticism on the part of both developed countries—led by the United States—and developing countries—led by China—regarding the “right” path to a low-carbon economy.

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