1. Should wealthy nations be required to share their wealth among poorer nations by providing such things as food and education? Or is it the responsibility of the governments of poorer nations to look after their citizens themselves?
Sample Answer
I think wealthy nations should be required to share their wealth among poorer nations. But their helping should only stop at providing such things as food and education
because of three following reasons.
Firstly, citizens of both wealthy nations and poorer nations are human beings. Therefore, we can not look at, hear of, and talk about people who lack food, education, etc… without compassion and sympathy. Sharing wealth among poorer nations is not only a good deed but also a task itself.
Secondly, many nations in Africa and Asia are very very poor. Famine, diseases, crime and illiteracy are killing their citizens. In the contrary, a lot of nations in Europe and America are too rich. If there are no actions taken, this inequality will increase dramatically. Poor countries will become more and more poorer while rich countries will become more and more richer. As a result, poorest countries will be slaves of richest countries. So, sharing wealth is an useful way to prevent people from that bad future.
Thirdly, although sharing wealth among poorer nations is very necessary but this helping should only stop at providing such things as food, medicine and education. Or else, poor nations may depend on aid. They won’t have enthusiasm to build their countries by themselves. Moreover, rich nations can take advantage of sharing wealth to interfere deeply in poor nations‟ governments. This can’t be considered humane action and should be prevented.
In my opinion, sharing wealth among poorer nations has both bad side and good side. What we have to do is avoiding its bad side and practicing its good side.
(268 words)
2. Improvements in health, education and trade are essential for the development of poorer nations. However, the governments of richer nations should take more responsibility for helping the poorer nations in such areas.
Sample Answer
Today’s world has been divided into developing and industrialised countries which the main difference between them is the amount of money that governments apply in important sectors such as education, health and commerce. Most of the poorer nations are buried in debts as a result of their unbalanced finances which are reflect in a failed health care, an unstructured education system and a weak international trade. This vicious cycle will continue indefinitely unless wealthier nations show interest in minimizing the worldwide economic differences, as well as taking more responsibility for assisting unfortunate countries.
Most of the African countries live in sub-human conditions because of the extreme poverty, upheaval, hunger, disease, unemployment, lack of education and both inexperienced and corrupt administrations. The devastating consequences of the AIDS epidemic in those countries could improve if the infected populations receive free drugs to control the disease, have access to health professionals and get information on how to prevent its spread. But this can only be achieved through international help programs in which leaders of the world’s richest countries donate medicine and also send doctors and nurses to treat and educate those in need.
Moreover, most of the poor countries rely on selling agricultural products and raw material to rich nations and buying industrialized products from them resulting in a huge financial deficit. Consequently, they borrow a significant amount of money from the World Bank to try to improve their broken economies, but sometimes the money disappears with no significant changes and they cannot even pay the interest to the bank. Regarding this issue, last year the G8, which is comprised of leaders of the eight richest nations, decided to forgive billions of dollars worth of debt owed by the world’s poorest nations. In addition, they developed adequate loan programs to financially assist those countries.
In conclusion, leaders of the industrialised countries play an indispensable role in assisting developing nations deal with essential areas such as health, education and trade. Also, their aid is the key to breaking the vicious cycle, which results in poverty and death.
(343 words)
3. The wealth gap between 1st world countries and 3rd world countries seems to be increasing. How can we reduce this gap? Do you think that developed countries have a duty to assist developing countries in every way?
Sample Answer
Every day the rich countries in the world get richer and the poor countries get poorer. Can we reduce this gap? Of course we can. The question is whether the people in power want to do it?
Reducing the wealth gap can be achieved by cancelling third world debt, cancelling trade and farming subsidies so that third world countries can compete, getting rid of third world corruption and investing and building in third world countries using local people and skills and allowing them ownership of businesses. There are other things as well. Unfortunately there is no profit in business for first world countries to do these things. Some will do them but most will not. The ordinary man on the street wants things to be better for poorer countries and the politicians say that they will help but the politicians will in the end do what business tells them to do. Politicians also rightly feel they have a duty to protect their own countries and keeping economically dominant is part of this duty. Creating effective competition for their own country‛s businesses is not part of what they are expected to do.
This then leads on to whether I believe that developed countries have a duty to help the developing countries. Yes, I do. As an individual I believe that we have a duty to assist the poorer countries with their development in all aspects. We can provide teachers and education and doctors on the small scale and on the larger scale the things that I have talked about in the previous paragraph. Can we do this? Yes. Will we do this? See the previous paragraph again.
In conclusion you can see that I believe that there is a split between what would happen in a perfect world and what actually happens. We have a duty to reduce the wealth gap between developed and developing countries and we can do it, but it is unlikely that this will happen quickly.
(329 words)
4. Should rich countries help poorer ones?
Or does it only help the rich country by keeping the poorer country dependent?
Sample Answer
Today, the world is becoming more and more closely linked. Trade has increased and the movement of people between countries is greater than ever before. However, billions of people still live in poverty, and in many places, the gap between rich and poor is widening. This essay will look at the arguments for and against helping poor countries.
There are many reasons for helping poor countries. First of all, there are humanitarian reasons. Like individuals who give to charity, many countries feel it is their religious, social, or moral duty to help people in other countries who are suffering from famine, drought, war, or disease. However, many rich countries also donate money for political or diplomatic reasons. They want to maintain a relationship of dependency with the recipient, or simply to influence the government and direction of the country. A further reason why many countries help poorer ones is for economic reasons. The donors may want to control the supply of commodities such as oil, water, or wheat. Alternatively, the richer country may want to ensure markets for their own products, whether these are planes, computers or shoes.
However, aid is not necessarily the best way to help a country. For one thing, billions of dollars of aid often goes missing, into corrupt governments or inefficient administration. A second point is that many foreign aid projects are unsuitable for the target country. Many agencies build huge dams or industrial projects that fail after a few years or that do not involve the local people. Furthermore, much aid returns to the donor. This can be in the form of expensive specialized equipment and experts from the donor country.
There are many other ways we can help poor countries. Opening up trade barriers, so that poor countries can sell their goods is one way. Another is to remove subsidies so that imported goods from poorer countries can compete fairly. A third method is to forgive debts. Many poor countries have huge interest repayments on old loans.
The needs of the poorer countries may seem obvious. However, although our humanity makes us want to help eliminate poverty and suffering, we must examine the real needs of poor countries and implement solutions that will benefit both them and us.
(375 words)
