Purpose:

"Peace requires the simple but powerful recognition that what we have in common as human beings is more important and crucial than what divides us."
-Sargent Shriver


Development

"People are the real wealth of a nation." -UN

Once I'm on site, and a majority of my first year, I'll be observing and deciding what development projects are feasible, desired, affordable and sustainable.  Most likely this will not be updated until a year into service as I plan to observe and learn from the people I am with and to gather information about what they need most.

Development has always been a fascinating topic to me.  It encompasses not only economic structures as it relates to GDP or GNI, but sustainability, environment, poverty, gender, security, health, education, and income.  In my opinion, it can help a community thrive or obstruct the cultural society they have maintained (sometimes for hundreds of years).  To that end I've always emphasized caution in the line between development and modern day colonization.  One of the reasons I like the Peace Corps is that it is a longer commitment that focuses on volunteers immersing themselves and learning from the setting they plan to help.  This helps aid development centered on observed communal and individual needs, rather than 'first-world' ideas and theories of development.

I've always been primarily interested in education and health development.  It's my belief those components of life are essential to improving human life, human capabilities, and human development; thus creating a form of development that can economically advance a community without hindering it's individual cultural uniqueness.

The Human Development Index (HDI) was introduced as an alternative measure of national development.  Instead of focusing on development measured by GDP (Gross Domestic Product) or GNI (Gross National Income), the measure is a composite of three basic dimensions of human development: health, education and income.  According to the United Nations, the United Republic of Tanzania ranks 151 out of 172 countries with an HDI of 0.398.  To put this in perspective, Tanzania ranks below Haiti (148) and Angola (149), and above Cote d'Ivoire (152).

A summary of the list includes:

1.  Norway (0.938)
2.  Australia (0.937)
3.  New Zealand (0.907)
4.  United States of America (0.902)
58.  Mexico (0.750)
70.  Bosnia and Herzegovina (0.710)
104.  Egypt (0.620)
122.  India (0.519)
135.  Burma (0.451)
148.  Haiti (0.404)
149.  Angola (0.403)
150.  Djibouti (0.402)
151.  Tanzania (0.398)
152.  Cote d'Ivoire (0.397)
153.  Zambia (0.395)
157.  Sudan (0.379)
158.  Afghanistan (0.349)
171.  Democratic Republic of Congo (0.239)
172.  Zimbabwe (0.140)

Numbers are indicative of only part of the story.  There are discrepancies with this measure because data is often not clear nor accurate, difficult to collect-particularly in areas of civil unrest, and doesn't always fit the specific index guidelines.  Nevertheless, extreme poverty, lack of clean water resources, HIV/AIDS and Malaria epidemics, poor road infrastructure, and a lack of quality education is present in Tanzania.  Of interest to health development is the number of doctors per inhabitants (as seen in the map below) and how it relates to the HDI.






Obviously, this is a topic that deals with numerous factors, measures and observations.  To learn more about the country, particularly education and health (which concerns me most as a volunteer), please reference the links on this blog.  Furthermore, if you are interested in learning more about the HDI, please see the link below.

 http://hdr.undp.org/en/