Lesson video

Hello, geographers.

My name is Mrs. Griffiths and today's lesson is all about bottom-up strategies to reduce the global inequalities that we find in the world today.

So we're gonna be thinking about grassroots approaches involving non-governmental organisations and thinking about the advantages and the disadvantages.

So shall we get started? Our outcome for today is I can describe the advantages and disadvantages of bottom-up strategies used to reduce global inequality.

So that's what I want you to be able to say by the end of the lesson.

We have some keywords today, which we're gonna be using throughout the lesson.

Those are non-governmental organisations, otherwise known as NGOs.

They work to achieve social or political aims that are not controlled by government.

For example, we have the UK example of Practical Action.

You might have heard of Oxfam.

That will be another NGO.

And then we have the keyword intermediate technology.

This is technology suited to the needs, skills, knowledge, and wealth of local people in the environment in which they live.

So those are our key words for today, and we're gonna be using those throughout the lesson.

How does our lesson shape up? Well, we've got two parts to it with two key questions.

How can non-governmental organisations help? And then what difference does intermediate technology make? So let's make a start on that first question.

How can non-governmental organisations help? First, a selection of images here of homes from around the world.

These images of homes really illustrate the stark inequalities that exist between the richest and the poorest people in the 21st century.

I'm sure you agree.

And we've taken these images from a really interesting website called Dollar Street.

How can we help the poorest? That's a key question, isn't it? We need to look at strategies that work.

There are different approaches to development that contrast in their scale, aims, funding, and technology used.

So let's think about what those different approaches might be.

Okay, so we've got top-down strategies.

These involve decisions taken by governments or large companies, often large scale, expensive and high-tech solutions.

The players and the processes involved then.

So we've got the players as being government, so national government, transnational corporations, those global companies, and intergovernmental organisations.

So we're thinking about organisations like the United Nations or the World Bank or the World Health Organisation.

And the processes involved here are aid, foreign direct investment, and loans.

But in contrast to that, we also have bottom-up strategies involving local people and communities.

And this is when non-governmental organisations work at the grassroots level.

Usually these are small-scale projects and they might involve intermediate technology.

The players, as I said, are non-governmental organisations.

We might also have community groups.

We might have workers that gather together around a common aim.

And if you look at the processes there, we've got aid, microfinance, and unionisation.

So we've got two very contrasting approaches to development.

Remember this lesson today is focused on the advantages and disadvantages of the work of those NGOs.

And we're gonna focus in on aid.

Check for you here.

True or false? Bottom-up strategies involve governments, transnational corporations, TNCs, or intergovernmental organisations, IGOs.

Is that true or false? And if you said false, you'd be absolutely right.

But can you explain why? That's right.

These three players are involved in top-down strategies to reduce global inequality.

It's NGOs, community groups, and workers who are involved in bottom-up strategies to promote developments.

They're starting with the people at the bottom who, I'm thinking about what their lived experience would be.

So we might call that grassroots-based development.

Another check for you here.

Which the following apply to bottom up-strategies to promote development? You have to read through the options and then when you think you know the answer, restart the video.

That's right.

A is the correct answer.

These bottom-up strategies involve local people in decision-making.

So it's not a decision taken solely by the national government.

It's not a decision that's solely guided by intergovernmental treaties.

It's something that involves local people in the decision-making process throughout.

Now, what is aid? Aid is the support given to improve the quality of life of a recipient.

So it's a gift.

It might take the form of money, goods, or services.

Perhaps you've studied aid before, lower down the school.

But here, we've got a map of foreign aid received per capita, so that means per head of population, in 2023.

And this is a choropleth map.

Have a look at it.

What sort of pattern is it showing us? Remember that with a choropleth map, the darker the colour, the more, in this case, aid received per head of population.

Well, I'm sure you've spotted that the countries that received more aid per head of population were mostly developing countries, with some exceptions, of course, if we look at Ukraine.

And then they're also located in, if we think about key regions, Polynesia and Micronesia are key regions in terms of the amount of aid they're receiving per head of population.

Now it's not really obvious from the map, is it? This bit perhaps you didn't spot, but because I've seen the figures, I can tell you that they're receiving huge amounts of aid per head of population.

We might think about what that might be to do with in terms of perhaps environmental change.

But other areas, key areas receiving a lot of aid are in Central Africa and Eastern Europe and Southwest Asia.

Okay, so I said you might have looked at aid before, so maybe you have some answers on this one.

How many different types of aid can you name if we think about international aid? The types of aid I have are short-term aid.

So instantly when I talk about international aid, you might think about humanitarian aid, the sort of food, water supplies, shelter, perhaps temporary tents that are provided after a natural disaster.

Long-term aid.

This is different to short-term aid in the sense that it might be promoting sustainable development.

So it might be more focused on what's life going to be like in the coming years, even decades.

Multilateral aid involves multiple governments, perhaps via an IGO, such as the UN's World Food Programme.

So we're thinking about you could have multilateral humanitarian aid here, couldn't you? So I'm diving now into thinking about different groups of funders.

Here, we have bilateral aid, which is government to government.

So two governments involved.

And then tide aid is slightly different.

It's not so much about where it's coming from, but actually perhaps what the motivation is for the aid.

So tide aid is linked to the self-interests of the donor.

So I might give you money to develop your agriculture and you might need to buy my tractors to do that work, and my tractors might not be the most cost-effective solution.

So that's what tide aid is.

It's quite controversial.

And then voluntary aid, this is made by civil society, you and I, via an NGO, such as Oxfam.

So that's another international NGO that you perhaps heard of.

So when we look at different types of aid, it's given over different timescales, it's given from different funding sources, and perhaps it has different motivations or aims and principles around it.

True or false then? International aid is a gift to help people out in an emergency.

Is that true or false? And remember, I'm gonna want you to explain in a moment, why? And if you said false, can you explain why? The answer we had was: It's not always provided in the event of an emergency.

Aid may be given to support the sustainable development of a community, for example, improving health or education services in an area, to benefit local people.

So remember that sustainable development is about the development of a community, of people, a society that actually prioritises the environment and the quality of life for the society as well as growth in the economy.

So it's balancing all of those three things.

Practise task for you here.

Can you suggest how short-term aid from intergovernmental organisation and long-term aid provided by a non-governmental organisation might differ? So grab a pen and some paper.

Have a go answering this question and let's pause the video now, and then restart it when you want to check your answer.

Okay, how did you get on? Our answer was as follows.

I'll read it through for you.

Short-term aid is likely to be humanitarian aid, such as food or water supplies provided after a disaster.

So we might think about an environmental disaster.

Perhaps it's an earthquake.

It might be provided to thousands of people by the UN's World Food Programme but would only be for the first few months.

By contrast, long-term aid from an NGO might focus on sustainable development over years.

A charity might fund training for farmers to adapt what they can do to cope with the change in climate, for example, and provide new seeds or tools if that's what the community wanted.

So the aims would differ as well as the timescale.

So hopefully your answer where you're suggesting those differences, you are picking up perhaps difference in timescale, the difference in aims, and the difference in the, how those link to different types of players in this particular strategy linked to reducing global inequalities.

Well done if your answer looks like that.

Okay, second part of our lesson then, we've got a second key question.

What difference does intermediate technology make? What difference does intermediate technology make? So let's use the example of Practical Action's work to have a think about this question.

Practical Action is a charity, a British charity that works all over the world, but we're gonna focus in on its work with rural communities in Nepal, which is an emerging country in South Asia.

Now, if we look at the UN's Human Development Index data, we can see the difference in life expectancy between Nepal and the UK.

It's actually about a decade, isn't it? Or more.

Mean years of schooling.

Here, we can see in Nepal, 4.

5 years, compared to 13.

4 in the UK.

So Nepal, that mean years of schooling is about a third of those in the UK.

And the gross national income per capita per head of population is about a 10th in Nepal of that in the UK.

So we're looking at a low-income country in need of development.

Another bit of information for you for context.

Here's a topographical map of Nepal, where we've used colour to show elevation.

Now, if you know anything about Nepal, you know that it sits on the Himalayas.

So that area that is coloured white on our map is indicating the area of the Himalayas, so the highest mountainous areas, but also the brown and the reds are quite high areas and you can imagine how steep and mountainous this country really is.

So that maybe gives you a little bit of information about how it might be to try and travel around this country.

Now I've used the geography visualizer to zoom in to the area where Practical Action works in the west of Nepal.

The far west of Nepal has very challenging terrain.

So narrow, narrow trails, steep hills, and mountainous ridges.

So this is where Practical Action is working.

And if I zoom in a little bit further, so you can see a river valley there, can't you? You can see in our 3D view, you can see the hills and the mountains.

If I zoom in a little bit further, we can actually start to see some of the individual fields that have been carved out or terrace on the mountain side and the hillsides there.

So very dramatic relief, perhaps having an impact on the farmers and how they get their produce to market.

The area is very fertile and suitable for farming, but produce must be walked to market, which is an arduous journey carrying a heavy load, taking two to three hours.

Now, Practical Action has funded and set up a gravity ropeway.

This is an intermediate technology that benefits local producers and the community.

So it's called an intermediate technology because it's an appropriate level of technology for the local economy and for what producers are doing there.

And as we know, they're farmers.

So the gravity ropeway operates on gravitational force.

So it doesn't require costly fossil fuels.

It's associated with, in that sense, sustainable development.

It consists of two trolleys rolling over steel wire ropes suspended between two stations.

And in the photograph, we can see a basket whizzing down a wire there.

And it takes two minutes to transport goods.

So 90 kilogrammes can move from up to down whilst 30 kilogrammes move from down to up.

So you can imagine they're happening at the same time.

Let me add those arrows to the photograph so you can picture that.

So quite a clever device there.

Clever bit of engineering.

The gravity ropeway is operated and maintained by local people.

Now, this is a major bonus because it means that local people are involved in this from the very start and on an ongoing basis.

They can actually keep this ropeway working when the charity leaves.

The workers that are involved in this ropeway are paid by charging the community for its use.

So we can see how it will be self-sustaining going forward.

What's been the impact of this intermediate technology? Well, there've been several different impacts.

One benefit has been that it's helped farmers get their produce to the nearby market.

And secondly, it is also used to transport essential items from the market back to home.

Remember this dramatic relief.

And thirdly, it leaves more time for people in the local community to do household chores and maintenance of their home.

Where they would've been trying to transport their materials to and from the market, they've got more time to do other tasks.

Fourthly, there's increased interest in farming within the community because I guess people can see that you can get this produce to market.

So subsistence farmers can see how they might benefit from creating a surplus.

Practical Action has set up a group to educate local farmers to help them upgrade their agricultural practises, expanding the produce they harvest.

So a whole big range of benefits from what seems like quite a simple, but ingenious technology.

Now Jun says, "I'm worried that the impact of this project is small when you think about the whole of Nepal." And he adds, "What can be done to bring about big change in the economy and quality of life?" Now this is an interesting view, isn't it? While we might celebrate the benefits of an NGO working with a local rural community, can that be scaled up to really have a big impact on people across the country? Perhaps we might need to take a different approach, and that different approach might be going on at the same time as this work of the NGOs.

Now in 2024, Nepal agreed a 100 million dollars deal with the World Bank to improve provincial and local roads.

The loan has the potential to have a huge impact on Nepal.

So we're talking about a road building scheme that would bring real benefits to rural areas across the country.

So a different approach there involving an IGO.

Check for you here.

Benefits of the gravity ropeway in rural Nepal include: We've got A, B, C, and D.

They can't all be right.

So have a read through those.

Pause the video and then restart it when you think you know the answer.

Okay.

And if you said B, C, and D are all correct.

It gives easier access to markets for farmers, boosting their income, more time for household chores and farm work, and paid employment and training in ropeways for locals.

They're all benefits, then well done.

Right.

Practise task for you here.

So grab that pen and paper again.

Firstly, state two ways that aid provided by UK NGO Practical Action has helped people living in rural Nepal.

So two ways.

Secondly, I'd like you to explain why the gravity ropeway is termed an intermediate technology.

So explaining what we mean by intermediate technology.

I have a third task for you here.

Jun's view is, "I'm not sure bottom-up is always the best approach to reducing global inequalities." Can you discuss this view with a partner? You might want to think about what the advantages and disadvantages are of a bottom-up approach and what alternatives there are to it.

So you've got three tasks to complete.

Pause the video now and then restart it when you're ready to check your answers.

Right.

How do we get on? So first question, you were asked to state two ways that aid provided by this UK charity has helped people living in rural Nepal.

Now what did you have? We had, firstly, aid provided by this UK charity benefits farmers in Nepal who can get their surplus produce to market more easily via the new ropeway, boosting their income.

Secondly, time saved by transporting goods up and down the valley via the ropeway way can be invested in household work instead, meaning families have better maintained homes, and farms, providing them with a better quality of life.

So that's perhaps a lengthy way of stating two benefits, but at least we've given some detail and we've explained what we mean there.

Right.

Secondly, explain why the gravity ropeway is an intermediate technology.

Your answer might include the following.

So what did we have? Intermediate technology, thinking about that definition, suits the needs, skills, knowledge, and wealth of local people in the environment in which they live.

The community living in the west of Nepal struggle to get their goods to market because of the difficult relief and lack of infrastructure.

The ropeway directly addresses this challenge related to the environment in which they live.

So that's why it's kind of specific to them.

And because it's fairly low tech, it can be maintained by members of the community.

How does your answer compare to that one? And then we had this third task, which was to discuss Jun's view.

He says, "I'm not sure bottom-up is always the best approach to reducing global inequalities." So your discussion might've included things like this.

Well, because NGOs work with community groups, they can support the poorest in developing countries or emerging countries, but their impact is much smaller than top-down strategies by governments, IGOs, or TNCs.

Bottom-up strategies may be more sustainable than other strategies, partly because communities are invested in development projects they have been involved in from the outset and have the skills to maintain.

So there are some benefits.

But all development strategies have advantages and disadvantages.

And I'm sure you noticed that when you were having your discussion.

So in summary, what have we been looking at today? Top-down and bottom-up strategies to reduce global inequalities differ in scale, aims, funding, and technology.

Aid takes different forms from NGO-supported, small-scale projects to larger IGO-led donations and bilateral aid between governments.

NGOs can help communities to develop and maintain essential infrastructure using intermediate technology.

Support from an NGO is often provided at the scale of a community, so the impact on people and the economy is more limited than the potential benefits of a large infrastructure project funded by an IGO.

So that's what we've been looking at when we think about different approaches to development.

Thank you for your time today and all your hard work, and I will see you again soon.