Assess the Roles and Relative Importance of Trade and Aid as Pathways for Development

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Assess the Roles and Relative Importance of Trade and Aid as Pathways for Development Whether trade and aid can be used as pathways for development relies on several factors and will vary from situation to situation, no case will be the same and thus both have varying roles and levels of importance depending on how well, where and why they are used. Ultimately both trade and aid are used to close the development gap, the difference between the more developed nations, typically in the West/North and the poorer nations typically in the South. These nations tend to have little technological or industrial advances and rely on agriculture as the main contributor to their economies thus they’re frequently associated with disease, famine and violence. Trade and aid rely on the belief that economic growth is essential to the economic development of a country and seek to provide the means for a country to move up the development pathway. Both trade and aid can be successful if used correctly and efficiently; however they cannot be used alone, rather a combination as part of a greater framework of international development must be created to allow these countries to develop. Aid is split into 3 main sub sections, bilateral, directly from government to government or multilateral, which involve a middleman or international governmental organisation such as UNICEF or the World Bank. Finally charities or NGO’s which; acting on a more local scale, give money to a cause of their choosing. Aid, simply, aims to enable developing nations to expand their productive capacity and grow by providing the nation with transfers of finance, goods or assistance. In 2010 aid flows to developing nations were around $128.5 billion. Aid is essential for providing methods of bottom up development, allowing local communities to benefit from foreign money with grassroots initiatives such as the
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