The North-South Divide

Globalisation is thought by many to be the leading cause of global inequality; enhancing social and economic disparity between countries. Globalisation requires economies and societies to adapt quickly to change, this does not happen equally as some nations are able to grow faster. MEDCs adapt and exploit LEDCs for resources and workers. LEDCs become dependent on MEDC money to survive in the global market. The process of globalisation therefore favours MEDCs as opposed to LEDCs and this has lead to a strengthening of the North-South divide. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

 

Rich MEDCs tend to be located in the northern-hemisphere and poor LEDCs tend to be located in the southern-hemisphere (although there were exceptions e.g. Australia and New Zealand). The Brandt Report of 1980 set out this difference as a physical divide on the map - the ‘Brandt Line’. Since then however globalisation has lead to the development of some nations geographically located in the south; they are now economically regarded as northern. To many economists this has made the concept of the Brandt Line obsolete. It has been suggested that instead of the Brandt Line there are in fact four groupings of the world’s economies:

 

1.      Affluent countries e.g. USA, most of Europe and Japan. For the past 50 years they have dominated the global economy (other countries are now emerging).

2.     Emerging countries e.g. China and India. With high levels of growth these countries are set to replace/join the first group. They are the ‘engines of the global economy’.

3.     Countries with important natural resources for example oil and gas reserves. They have not been able to translate the wealth from natural resources into sustained economic growth.

4.      World’s poorest economies e.g. much of sub-Saharan Africa. They continue to stagnate and decline economically, are isolated from the global economy and face crucial development challenges.

 

I think this area of globalisation (which also links to development) would be ideally suited to a class debate. Half in favour of the Brandt Line and the other half in favour of a more recent economic divide. Groups could research the different divides and then a debate (steered by the teacher) with arguments based on evidence for and against. The debate would lend itself to an end-of-topic task as there would be more freedom for pupils to talk widely about the knowledge they have gained (at the teacher’s discretion).