Indicators of Under Development

Sometimes poverty is obvious. We see it in our countries, wherever we live. Sometimes poverty is abject and crushing. Children in dirty ragged clothes playing on a rubbish heap is obvious. A tarpaulin strung up between trees on the median strip of a highway with a family of 6 living beneath it is obvious. Etc. Other times it is relative, a lack of choices and opportunities and basic comforts that are normal and essential for some but unattainable for others. Sometimes it is a little harder to spot, especially in a different culture where everything looks different anyway. This post has some of the things that I see more of when I travel in less developed countries and less of when I travel in more developed countries.

Now, as you all know, life is complicated (despite my attempts to bring a simple narrative to what I see around me). I understand the complexity, nothing is black and white. I’m going to talk about several things here that I see, that I think are indicators of under development in a country / region / town / etc. However, it is perfectly possible for one person to experience several of these and to still be wealthy (relatively or absolutely, by any measure of wealth). None of these is absolute and none, on its own is sufficient. In some cases, some of these things are active choices. But I think that seeing these in the context of development is helpful for people from a developed world context (WEIRD – Western, educated, industrialised, rich, democratic) to understand some of the underlying reality of what’s going on. I guess, for those who haven’t thought this way before, I’d like to you to see something slightly different when you see the world around you, or at least ask yourself whether you think it is there to be seen.

Here goes:

• Rebar on the columns waiting for the next floor (either because there are tax advantages to living in a house that is incomplete or because people will build the first storey and then just cover over the top of the staircase leaving the slab as the roof until they save up enough money or buy enough bricks etc to build the next storey, and the same again)
• Holes in the pavement (by which I mean missing manhole covers, or drains with concrete blocks over them with some missing blocks), the sort of hole you can lose a small child in (rather than the sort of hole you can drop a wallet into)
• Unpaved roads
• Sweeping all the time because of the dust (it’s dusty because of the unsealed roads and because there is no lawn grass)
• People sitting outside doing their hair, preparing vegetables for dinner, doing schoolwork, etc because inside is the wrong temperature, has no lights, is too smoky, etc
• Motorbikes because people can’t afford cars (this is interesting because often, the motorbike is the sign of wealth and development within the local context, it’s just in the bigger picture that it tells a different story)
• Lots of public transport (including three wheelers, bicycle taxis, motorbike taxis, etc) because private vehicle ownership rates are low and in some cases the roads are so poor that cars can’t easily traverse them
• Carts (hand, donkey, horse, buffalo, etc)
• Overcrowded transport (4 people plus a chicken on a motorbike) again because private transport is prohibitive and why hire a three wheeler if you can all fit on a bike, or why hire a taxi if you can all fit in a three wheeler, etc
• Wood fuel for cooking / heating (this can look quaint and cute and nostalgic, but solid fuel stoves are unpleasant and dangerous – they are a risk from fire, the particulates are really bad for respiratory health, collecting the firewood often takes girls out of school and sometimes puts women and girls in vulnerable positions)
• No electricity in homes or shops
• Intermittent electricity or generators because of the power supply interruptions (though usually only the fancy, wealthy places have generators – so again, a local sign of prosperity but a bigger picture sign of underdevelopment)
• Tiny little local shops that are someone’s front room that only sell 10 things (rice, small packets of oil, small packets of milk, potatoes, onions, single sachets of shampoo, soap, single cigarettes, packets of crisps, individual sweets from a big jar) because you need a lot more income / savings to bulk buy and because you don’t want your wealth sitting in a jar in your kitchen in the form of litres of cooking oil, when you can have it in your wallet in case you need it, and because these tiny businesses are a relatively accessible way of earning some income
• Rubbish being burnt on the streets because the local council doesn’t have rubbish disposal infrastructure
• Milk powder or small packs of milk because there is no reliable cold chain to the village, and certainly not into the home (there might be a fridge in the shop, but power interruptions might make it difficult to keep food reliably cold)
• Ads for visa centres and foreign education institutions because the country relies on foreign remittances, because there are more opportunities abroad, because an education in English and from a foreign institute is higher quality and higher value than the local government education
• Signs in English and not in the local language because only tourists use those shops
• Farm animals in and around the home
• Vegetables drying on the street / outside the home
• Gardens that have produce and no flowers because why waste land and water growing something you can’t eat
• Water standpipes or wells on the street because there is no water infrastructure into the homes
• Shops with few words in the local language (none in English) but pictures of fish, meat, etc because illiteracy rates are significant
• Using the buses as unaccompanied cargo transport because private couriers / mail don’t exist and buses go everywhere and quite regularly
• Ill fitting, dirty, damaged school uniforms because they are worn and used and worn and used and handed down
• Use of shared public toilets, or open defecation because houses have no sanitation
• Multiple houses in one compound because the family land gets split between the children and the extended family live together
• Tailors and seamstresses that make clothes and perform alterations because it is cheaper than buying off the rack
• Long distance buses that stop for fuel immediately after setting off (full of passengers) from the starting point because then the conductor actually has the cash to pay for the fuel
• Shops that repair anything (shoes, electronics, etc)
• Internet cafes (this is becoming less prevalent as mobile phone usage becomes even more ubiquitous)
• Adults drinking on the street during the day
• Children picking through rubbish and playing with fireworks or old car tyres
• Children engaged in income-generation activities (selling food on the streets, tending livestock, washing car windows on street corners, helping in the family restaurant / hotel etc)

And here are some other things that might not be quite so obvious (the average tourist walking down the street might not see them):

• Husbands working abroad for years at a time (sending back money for their family)
• Extended families living next to each other because there is no social care network so the family has to provide care
• Private tuition centres because the government schools aren’t enough and because the teachers in government schools don’t earn enough so they earn extra money working in tuition centres
• A very nice, fancy, clean front room that is tiled and painted and has photos, trophies, plastic flowers, etc on display (but no one outside the family sees the other rooms in the house that are unfinished concrete walls, no decoration, not so clean, no non-essential furniture, etc)
• The wide screen tv in the front room, but no door on the toilet
• Girls in primary school who are missing school due to pregnancy or child marriage
• People who are obviously quite poor but who are wearing relatively expensive trainers because spending money on the trainers is a status symbol and a way of taking pride in appearance and a treat for oneself and cheaper than getting a full wardrobe of nice new clothes etc

One of the things I think is curious about many of these things, is that a shallow first impression of these might lead the observer to think that things are quaint or cute or rustic or simple in a noble way. And I certainly don’t want to say that these indicators mean that life is tragic and miserable and unbearable. But poverty isn’t noble. Lack of opportunity isn’t quaint. Cooking over a wood fire when you are having a campfire with friends once a year as a special occasion is rustic and fun, cooking over a wood fire every day because you have no other choice is very different indeed.