Unreported World

There was an excellent program that I stumbled across on Friday night that would be a useful resource when teaching development economics, especially barriers to economic development.

Unreported World on Channel 4 last Friday was presented by Aidan Hartley who travelled to Haiti. Haiti last year was struck by a devastating hurricane. In this program he looks at the vicious cycle of environmental disaster, hunger, poverty and reliance on international aid. It is an extreme example of what is happening to some of the worlds poorest countries.

There is a very interesting part of the program that considers some of the problems of economic development with regards to opening up of markets to international trade, in Haiti’s case it is the rice market where domestic producers are unable to compete with cheaper American imports. The major reason they cannot compete is due to the large scale of production and economies of scale that American producers are exploiting. An excellent example to put in your written answers. Remember IB examiners love you to have lots of real world examples!

The website has a catch up section, with links to the main clips from the program.