The Rising Expectations and Development for Third World Nation

For the common goal in the Third World Nation (developing countries), are expects a higher standard of living for themselves, their family, their community and their regions and nation. The particular expectations are difference from person to person and from region to region, but the life is general throughout the world. People want and expect to have a better shelter, cloths, education, better health, secure life and freedom from servitude. This is the revolution of expectations that has swept over the Third World Nation countries.

There are many explanations for this phenomenon:

First: the demonstration effect of the rural elite, urban rich and foreign tourists engaging in ostentatious consumption of exotic and modern equipment/goods, has distorted the consumption and utility functions of the poor.

Second: Films, radio, television and advertising have exposed the masses to modern gadgets and life styles and have thus aroused their expectations.

Third: Local and national politicians have assured the rural poor of the modern amenities of life if they would vote for them.

Fourth: The national governments have declared time and again that the eradication of poverty is their major policy goal or they should put it in their national strategy as a priority sector. Through these media, the humanities has first learned about the new products, gadgets and services, then come to want them and now they become to expect to have them. The economic of the developing countries cannot possibly fulfill these expectations in the immediate future and there is bound to be a collision between rising expectations and economic reality. The outcome will vary from country to country but it will certainly involve disillusionment, demoralization, agitation and political upheaval. It is this that makes rapid agricultural and economic development a national imperative.

Extracted from Rural Development Book "Katar Singh"