Journal of Developing Societies

Two specters are haunting the Third World—the specter of massive poverty and the specter of vast income inequality. All the forces of the unjust social (dis)order—First World capitalists and their Third World partners, reactionary landlords, media moguls, undemocratic politicians—have entered into an unholy alliance to let these specters remain unchanged. Guided by Marxism and dependency theory, this article will provide evidence on the existence of the specter of Third World poverty and income inequality, and hence prove that Karl Marx was right in calling for the transformation of the global economic system. Ideas from manifestos of social movements to literary texts, news reports and researches, United Nations (UN) Human Development Report data, and papal encyclicals will be utilized and synthesized to present out-of-the-box approaches to resolve poverty and income inequality. Taking cue from Terry Eagleton’s eloquent defense of Marxism, this article asserts that a new world order is necessary and only a Marxistic critique and action plan can genuinely save the Third World from the current global crises of poverty and income inequality.

The rise of economic liberalism in Sri Lanka in the latter half of the twentieth century has generated a continuous, powerful, and controversial debate about women in the workforce. Local politicians and powerful societal forces have used discourse to display power in the media and wider society. Gender issues were used as a platform to engage in unrelated political agendas and criticize export processing zones (EPZs), female workers, and female sexuality. Our research in Sri Lanka sampled more than 4,000 women over 14 years. The article uses data from two research studies from 2008–2011 (Study 1) and from 2013–2014 (Study 2) in Sri Lanka. The studies are interrelated. Each analyse the levels of empowerment and disempowerment experienced by women, due specifically to the negative discourse they faced on a daily basis – both as part of their life as EPZ workers (study 1) and after returning to their villages (Study 2). Serious pieces of negative discourse stand out as examples of misleading speech and attempt to subjugate women through power. Our interviews with Sri Lankan EPZ workers show that young women are described as Juki girls, a pejorative term used with a negative connotation. Moreover, EPZs are often referred to as whore zones or love zones due to the stigma created by society and pushed by a political agenda in national political discourse, such as: “Our innocent girls are sewing underwear for white women” (Lynch, 2002, p. 82). The questions in both studies were designed to assess the respondents’ experiences of power (or powerlessness) and empowerment. Study 1 shows that nearly all of the women surveyed (95.3 percent) reported feeling empowered as a result of their work in EPZs. The respondents also indicated empowerment across their home as well. However, societal level disempowerment was significant, much of it emanating in the public arena and in societal and political resistance to EPZ workers. Concurrently, results of Study 2 demonstrated lower but significant negative experiences as a result of work in formal manufacturing. Less than 10 percent (7.2 percent) experienced humiliation in public, their community or society while working in the manufacturing industry, and only 12 percent reported experiencing negative societal attitudes upon first returning home from their work in EPZs.

This article aims to evaluate PAANEEAC (Projet d’appui au développement des associations nationales pour l’évaluation environnementale en Afrique Centrale), the program to support the development of national associations (NAs) for environmental impact assessment (EIA) in Central Africa. PAANEEAC’s objective is to improve the governance of investment decisions through strengthening capacities for EIA. From the literature explaining the failure of donor-induced capacity development programs, the article deduces conditions for success. The empirical assessment of PAANEEAC is based on document review, extensive interviews, and observations. It concludes that PAANEEAC managed to create platforms in which stakeholders meet with the common objective of improving EIA systems, and that this led to measurable, albeit modest improvements in EIA systems. Furthermore, PAANEEAC met most of the success conditions, which was instrumental for its performance.

The changing volume and content of municipal waste has overwhelmed the containment capacities of city authorities to remediate the problem. This elusive enterprise has sparked as much dissatisfaction with the mad rush for foreign-based models as with the new conceptual interventions. Many have questioned why a monumental challenge still lingers on in spite of the “much-acclaimed” potentials of the new interventions. Our article extends the debate by focusing on the politics of solid waste management, and how it shapes environmental safety. Based on content analysis of earlier studies, complemented with key informant interviews, the article raises issues with emerging models, which overemphasize the role of foreign-based approaches against indigenously derived practices. Using our study outcomes, we argue that the development trajectories of most Ghanaian cities create specific contestations, which configure the informal sector and the built environment in unique ways. We demonstrate that the new models have hardly had visible success stories after two decades of experimentation because they are incompatible with the local development trajectories. Concluding, we caution that the problem will persist and potentiate a cyclical state of dissolution, unless those who eke out livelihood from the sector informally are recognized, valued, and taken into account in local economic development.

From being the second most industrialized country in Sub-Saharan Africa at independence in 1980, Zimbabwe’s economy has declined rapidly to a point where the country ranks among the poorest economic performers in the region. The three pillars which had underpinned the country’s vibrant economy, namely, agriculture, mining and manufacturing, have suffered greatly from poor government policy choices, resulting in the near collapse of each of the sectors and massive unemployment. As a result, an estimated 90% of the Zimbabwean population was unemployed at 2015 and was forced to eke out a living in the informal sector, mostly through vending of second-hand clothes and other basic items. With regard to the manufacturing sector specifically, the sector had all but collapsed by 2015, as companies either folded or relocated to escape the country’s harsh economic climate. This article traces the decline of the Zimbabwean manufacturing sector from 1990 to 2015 and seeks to explain the factors contributing to this decline.

This article explores the challenges of elementary education in India in view of its linguistic-cultural heterogeneity. The historical context leading to mother tongue as the ideal medium of instruction is presented, followed by a discussion on why a large number of mother tongues still remain outside the school system creating problems for the “No Child Left Behind” policy. The paradox faced by a heterogenous country that also needs language standardization or homogenization is raised to highlight the mismatch between school and home languages. Sapir-Whorf’s linguistic relativity hypothesis and Paulo Freire’s critical pedagogy framework are discussed to outline a model of present and alternate education pathways of Universal Primary Education.

Poverty, inequality, unemployment, and unsustainable resource consumption are prevalent in Africa due to a lack of inclusive growth. The impacts of climate change are also considered to have hindered progress on achieving the Millennium Development Goals. Through literature reviews and policy analyses, this article presents suggestions on how inclusive growth can be attained in the post-2015 development agenda, and also presents a framework to enable microfinance institutions to promote both inclusive growth, and climate change mitigation and adaptation. The article shows that microfinance can support the mobilization of resources for climate change programs; hence, financial inclusion should be incorporated in climate change policies.