GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT

by David Nuttle

Many developing nations are often unable to grow their economies fast enough to provide meaningful employment for most of their youth population. This issue has created a "pool" of frustrated and angry youth vulnerable to recruitment by gangs, criminals, terrorists, and/or narco-terrorists. The global population of just over 8-billion has nearly 2-billion people who are highly impoverished with a reported 820 million living on the brink-of-starvation. This is evidence of the global development problem.

Government incompetence and corruption are two of the big problems. A good example is the government of Ngo Dinh Diem of S. Vietnam. Diem allowed all of his administrators to keep 10 percent of everything they could get their hands on. His appointed military officers

were good Catholic friends w/ little or no prior military experience. These commanders were each allowed to fabricate payment to 40 percent "ghost troops," and deposit these funds to their private Swiss bank accounts. Diem's military never had more than a token counter-intelligence capability whereas the Viet Cong communists had good intelligence and usually knew of ARVN's (S. Vietnam's Army) plans in advance to prepare ambushes. This is just one of many examples of why many governments of developing nations fail.

Developing nations typically have poor education and skills development systems. There is a lack of adequate development funding or technological inputs. Infrastructure is usually very poor and there are political as well as vested interests in conflict. Armed conflicts, trade wars and adverse events from climatic change cause problems. In many of these nations, minority groups have been socially, politically, and economically isolated or are victims of genocide/ democide. Natural resources are lacking in many areas, and desertification is expanding with 1/3rd of all land already in desert. Food insecurity is common in many of these areas & food aids are critical. Such food aid is not always available from USAID, the U. N. or others.

It is critical that entrepreneurship training and funds for new business starts be provided for underemployed and unemployed youth, in developing nations, to help them soon become self-employed. These programs are far from adequate.

The combination of all the above problems has resulted in armed conflicts and expansion of gangs, criminals, terrorist, narco-terrorist, and insurgent activities, worldwide. Production and sales of illegal drugs Is being used as an alternative means of income generation when global economic opportunities are so limited. U. S. demand for illegal drugs has contributed to this problem. Poverty on a global basis has caused an estimated 1.4 billion people to have a desire to come to the U. S. if they could find a way to do so. Under the open borders policy of POTUS Joe Biden it is estimated that as many as 18 million illegal migrants have acted to confirm the desire of many poor to come to the U. S. Even this number, far less than 1.4 billion, has overloaded our health, education, assistance, housing, & employment capabilities. This impact has made many Americans realize that we need to all support every creative endeavor to assist developing nations greatly improve social & economic progress!

Let every American be truly grateful not to be a member of tjhensuffering members of our global population.