My name is Lillian and I´m currently studying Spanish and Geography in beautiful Salamanca, Spain. This is my first time travelling abroad and although I´m not too far into my trip as of yet, it has been an extremely rewarding and eye-opening experience and I hope to return to the states with a new worldview.

Back at home in Seattle, Washington, I go to full-time community college and work as a teller in a bank. Some hobbies of mine include photography, cooking/culinary arts, writing, and tennis, as well as going out with friends. I hope to go to Eastern Washington University in the fall of 2008 for a Bachelor´s degree in International Relations/Business.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pcmaW9prRvodKFitUWa7QLA Country Information Spreadsheet. :]

Spreadsheet Reflection (Revised):

For my spreadsheet of different population facts of six various countries, I decided to focus on four countries aside from the United States and Spain. When I decided on which ones to focus on, I chose four that were smaller and three that were quite undeveloped; Bangladesh, Bermuda, Lebanon, and the more developed country, Luxembourg.

By looking at the numbers, it is easy for me to see which countries are less developed. Simply by looking at the GNI PPP per capita, I could see that Luxembourg and the US were much higher than the others and therefore wealthier. I took into account that cost of living of each country, but clearly the countries with higher average incomes are well off. The 2050 projected population numbers were astounding. While I was looking over the facts, I thought about the tie between population increase and average income, and noticed that it seemed that the countries with lower NIR had higher incomes, with little relevance to the actual population size. For example, the US had a higher population than anyone else but also had the second-highest GNI PPP and also only a 0.6 percent NIR.

As I expected, the crude death rate and infant mortality rates were higher in the lesser developed countries than the first world countries. However, I was surprised by just how much the numbers varied. In Bangladesh and Lebanon, the numbers were quite a bit higher than the other four countries, with Lebanon holding a CDR of 19 and IMR of 17. Bangladesh beat every other country by far, with a CDR of 27 and an IMR of 65, compared to the US with only 6.8 as their IMR. Luxembourg and Bermuda had even lower IMR´s, and very similar CDR numbers. Something else that surprised me was the positive statistics for Luxembourg, and the very low statistics for Bangladesh. The US was a close second, but the other countries floated in between and these two countries seemed to mark the high and low for the spreadsheet. I wish there had been data available for the last category, because I would have liked to see how much of each population lived under $1 a day.

In conclusion, I have learned that a country´s supposed wealth or lack thereof is not sufficient in learning about what the statistics actually are. Originally, I thought that Lebanon, Bangladesh and Bermuda would be about the same in each category and that the US and Spain would be the best off. I had no preconceived notions about Luxembourg because I have very limited knowledge about it, but I did not expect it to exceed the US for average income. One thing I am now curious to learn is the collective statistics for a certain region, such as Southern Africa compared to Northern Africa, or different regions of Europe, to see if there is a pattern for each category. Otherwise, I felt creating the spreadsheet was very informative for learning basic facts about each of the selected countries.

World Development Assignment 2-21-08 :

Human Development Trends Presentation 2005 

When I reviewed the UN Development Trends animation slideshow, I learned many more interesting and eye-opening facts about the progress of development in different countries. Most notably, I learned about the division of incomes of world population, and was rather shocked to see that the top 20% of the population holds 74% of the total income, and the lowest 20% holds only 2% of it. I knew the rich-poor gap was large, but I had no idea it was so substantial. However, later in the slide I learned that we are coming closer to closing the gap, and now 19% of the population lives below the poverty line; still a big percentage, but improving nonetheless. Later on, my optimism was once again dashed by the fact that differences on a regional scale are much more significant; an entire 66% of Africa´s population is under the poverty line, which was a stupefying number, and that its percentage exceeds the second poorest, South Asia, by more than twice as much of its 23% total. In the chart that documented each country´s poverty rate and predicted its rate until 2015, Africa´s poverty rate drastically increased while the rest of the world´s countries were rising further and further above it, which seemed strange to me because I would have hypothesized that poverty in Africa would at least level off because of MDC´s coming to its aid with medical supplies and other means of assistance.

            As individuals, I think there are many things that we can do to help other countries develop. Although the efforts may seem miniscule in relation to the world´s problems, small actions do lead to bigger and bigger results. I decided to look up some websites to see what collective efforts are currently being made to assist in these matters. One very interesting article I came across was published in the New York Times and had three simple responses to this question: Educate Yourself, Educate Others, and Take Action. In order to take action, the author suggested aiding existing groups that are working towards eliminating world hunger and other problems, lobbying politicians to help make a change and begin expressing interest in these issues, therefore bringing them more attention in the public eye, and not just working to improve conditions in third world countries, but also working within one´s own community. I thought these were excellent points to starting off the worldwide effort of changing global problems, because when most people imagine solutions, they think that there is nothing they can do besides donating money or joining the Peace Corps. In reality, each of us as individuals can make a difference when it comes to these matters.

            As a nation, I think that the United States can do a tremendous amount to help other less developed nations. For starters, I think that the public should get involved unanimously on such matters, and especially bring it to the government´s attention so that a change can be made higher up on the ladder and therefore make a bigger impact. Beginning specific programs to assist other countries is a first step, as well as making it a point to teach in school the importance of working interdependently with other nations. Funding and lending support is also a great means to an end. Mostly, I believe that the main cause of change will be in changing the way our government handles such matters and making room in our national budget for medical aid, food, and other means of helping less developed countries.

 Websites Used: 

http://www.internationaled.org/howcan.htm#title11)

http://twofortheroad.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/06/27/what-you-can-do-to-help/

 Lillian and Kate´s Final Geography Project