Development and Development Cooperation

DEVELOPMENT AND DEVELOPMENT COOPERATION

/ For the course “The EU and development cooperation”/

What is development?

Development is a process of something being developed, changed in a positive way. It is an act of developing, using some techniques and tools to make the things better, advanced, to improve something. In other words, development means progress and growth and is opposite to stoppage and decrease.

If we refer this term to the economic development it means an increase of economic wealth of some countries or regions in order to improve the standard of living of people of this particular area, to change technologies into the modern ones, to fight poverty, to increase incomes of the population etc.

As it has always been on Earth, there are developed and less developed countries or territories (“developing countries” is another commonly used term). Basically, there are 3 main groups of countries with different economies: economically advanced countries with developed markets and high income, developing countries and the least developed countries with low income. Nowadays, developed countries are Australia, the U.S., Canada, Japan and countries of Western Europe. The least developed countries, so-called “third world” countries, are most countries of Africa and some countries in Asia. The more free and independent the country is, the more developed it is.

There are several indicators used to measure development, for example, per capita GDP, volume of production and consumption, Human Development Index, human rights and other. This data is collected and later used for statistics to make a clearer vision on development of a particular area.

In my opinion, development is striving for excellence. Factors as efficient economy, advanced technologies, high-level education and positive changes in the social structure are important in this process.

The term cooperation means the act of working together; it can be called collaboration or partnership as well. Cooperation is teamwork; it is sort of a unit working together towards common goals, getting involved in one and the same process.