Domestic Factors and Economic Development
Part 2 Section 1
The Provision of Education and Health Care
Health care in Chad, while slowly (extremely slowly) improving, remains quite inadequate for the majority of the population, especially those 55% who live under the poverty line who can't afford to pay for health care. One of the problems that Chad faces is that there aren't enough doctors in the country. Chad has 0.04 physicians per every 1,000 people (nationmaster). This is probably due to the fact that doctors can get work elsewhere that pays actual money and they can have safe working conditions and a safe peace of mind. Because doctors leave Chad to work in developed nations, Chad is in dire need to doctors to provide adequate health care to its citizens. While Chad is currently recruiting, training and hiring citizens as paid health workers, they lack the knowledge that a fully qualified physician would know. Also, Chad faces numerous health problems such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, meningitis, many other STIs and other diseases. This greatly prohibits economic growth because a sick worker in Chad has a hard time receiving health care and healing, and they have to take time off of work, which they would be lucky to have in the first place. This decreases productivity, which lowers output and then GDP and total economic growth. This also prohibits development because it hurts the life expectancy of Chadians, since they are at a higher risk to get one of these harmful diseases. This also decreases development because the Chadians are experiencing a low standard of living and the children may not be able to go to school due to taking care of their sick parent or working themselves.
Chad has made some improvements in education over the years, increasing primary school enrollment from 62.5% in 2003 to 70.9% in 2012 (World Bank). The Chadian government and various Non-Government Organizations (NGO's) are working to increase teacher training and the supply of educational materials in Chad (World Bank). This should increase economic growth because educated workers can increase productivity, which would increase output and GDP as well as development. Development would increase because more children would be receiving an education, which will help them to obtain a job, or a job that is somewhat higher paying, and to enable them to value education and send their own children to school to continue this education cycle. However, Chad does not have a large enough relative wealth to allow for the equal, widespread provision of education, and there are large amounts of income inequality that keeps many of the poorer families from sending their children to school, and high poverty levels, which keep the children from going to school because the kids are busy making money to help out their families. Chad has a 60.4% of their children ages 7-14 working jobs, which means that they are unable to attend school full time (World Bank). This prohibits the economic growth and development of Chad by decreasing output and decreasing living conditions.
The Extent and Quality of Infrastructure
A major barrier in Chad's development is its lack of infrastructure. Chad has 26.01 km of road per 1000 square kilometers in the whole country, well below the world average of 246.22 km per 1000 square kilometers (listofcountriesoftheworld). Chad depends greatly on primary product exports, which makes adequate roadways essential, especially because Chad is landlocked in Central Africa and cannot ship exports out of the country. This lack of suitable roadways prohibits potential profits of exports due to the fact that Chad is not exporting at its full capacity because the roads available for transporting goods out of the country are lacking. Not only does this prevent goods from reaching potential customers, but it also prohibits public transportation that would allow adults to make it easier to jobs and markets, and children to schools. This hinders economic growth and development because producers are not receiving the profits they could be making and children are not receiving the education they could be receiving, making the country's total development suffer.
Chad's other problem in terms of infrastructure lies in its electricity and power supply. Less than 2% of all of Chadians have access to electricity (energyrecipes) and those other 98% rely on wood for fuel, which contributes greatly to deforestation. In terms of electricity production, Chad is ranked 192 out of 212 countries at 100,000,000 kilo-watts per hour per year (World Factbook), almost the bottom of the list. The availability of electricity is extremely important for preserving food and cooking, as well as providing ways for sanitation, and communication. All of these things are important in maintaining the health of Chad's citizens. This factor greatly hinders economic development because the public utilities are not at an acceptable level to maintain health and well being of Chadians.
Financial Services/Banking System
Chad's banking system is highly vulnerable to risks stemming from the large exposure to government and government contractors, bank portfolios are extremely concentrated with all banks breaching the single large exposure limit, and they need to raise capital to participate in financing of large projects, and the government's heavy presence in banks has resulted in management inefficiencies and has caused the resolution of troubled institutions to become protracted (IMF). Since their banking system is terrible and extremely corrupt, Chadians are not willing (or able) to invest money or save money in the banks. The country has a very low savings rate, with saving only 12% of its GDP in 1994, and all other figures dropping off the map completely after that (World Bank). Compared to Namibia's savings rate of 36%, this is quite low (World Bank). This emphasizes how little Chad saves. The central bank wants individual savers to help raise the low savings rate and put their money and confidence into the banking system. However, Chadians are not convinced that it is safe to do so. This is due to the fact that most Chadians have low paying jobs, if they have a job, and must use their income to provide for their families, leaving them little, if any, money to save and invest in the banking system. This keeps Chad trapped in the poverty cycle and forces children to stay home from school to work in order to provide additional income for their families, prohibiting Chad's economic development from growing. This also prohibits growth because no one has extra money to boost the consumer spending portion of GDP, and instead are taking money out of the system by saving it in their own special ways.
Legal System
Chad's legal system has been one of the most chaotic legal systems in all of Africa, if not the world. The legal system has caused Chadians to lose confidence in the system and their rights guaranteed to them by their constitution due to extremely long delays in the system and lack of enforcement (nationsencyclopedia). The legal system started off as a traditional French style court with criminal courts, courts of appeal, and a national court. However, there was a coup in 1990 which greatly disrupted the judicial system and as a result the judiciary was unable to handle criminal cases any more. The fact that Chad basically has no judicial system is a serious problem, especially because the legal system it does have is directly influenced by the corrupt leaders (nationsencyclopedia). This prohibits development because people are worried about their property rights, since their property can be taken from them at any time due to the non-existent law enforcement. Since people are worried about protecting their rights, they will not go out and work and leave their property sitting there for anyone to take, hurting economic growth since output is not as high as it could be.
Political Stability
Chad has no political stability, really. The country has been politically unstable since 1965, when a tax protest led northern Islamic tribes to rebel against the Christian-dominated government in the south. Years of authoritarian rule and civil war followed. Chad's current president, Idriss Deby Itno, a former general took power by force and is accused of violating many human rights laws. Deby won the first multi-party presidential elections in 1996, but is suspected of extreme fraud. Deby has appointed nine women to his 'cabinet', showing growing gender equality in Chad. Deby is extremely corrupt and makes deals with people to benefit himself. The official ruling party of Chad is The Patriotic Salvation Movement (fas.org) and is largely authoritarian. The party has consolidated its power across every level of society and government, getting rid of inside opposition. However, there are over 100 political factions that challenge Deby's rule (fas.org). In the long term, the corruptness of the government is likely to decrease foreign direct investment, since there is high political instability within the government and there is such a high risk of even entering the country, with one party that has so much power in the first place. This would prohibit economic growth and development in the long run, because Chad would be receiving less money, which would lessen growth and lessen the amount of money that could be used towards essential services such as infrastructure or education that would increase development.
Extent of Corruption
As stated above, Chad has an extremely corrupt political and legal system. Corruption is seen in most aspects of Chad, from business to the education and religious views. Technically, there are elections, but the ruling party, The Patriotic Salvation Movement, has tight control over the elections and has committed fraud in the election in the past. This exploitation of power for personal gain hurts economic growth and development by reducing trust in the economy. Both the citizens in Chad and foreign investors do not want to take that risk, so foreign direct investment is given to less corrupt countries that are considered safer investments. This decreases Chad's economic growth because they are receiving less money and hurts development because a smaller amount of funds can be diverted to essential services that would benefit Ethiopian citizens, such as the provision of sanitation and health care.
Projects and Initiatives
Chad Promoting Education Project
The main objective of Chad's domestic policies is increasing education in the country (infodev). Chad and its partners in development have adopted a 10-year strategy called Education and Training in Liaison with Employment (EFE), and the process for setting up a national information and communication technologies in education policy is underway (infodev). The main obstacle to overcome is financial need. Distance and training is difficult, but it is not impossible and new goals and initiatives are currently being explored by the national Ministry of Education to set up programs to help benefit both teachers and students. The components of the strategy are to improve curriculum, textbooks, teacher education, teacher availability, coordination and a social development strategy. This program is financed by Chad and its other partners in education.
An increase in the quality and provision of education in Had will improve the overall society of Chad, especially the overall role of women because education is an empowerment tool, and a factor that increases health due to more accessible knowledge. In general, this initiative will increase standards of living and economic development in Chad will rise.
Chad Infrastructure Project
Add link here: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/survey/so/2011/car111011a.htm
Another hot-ticket project in Chad is its work in the infrastructure of its country. One popular project is the Rural, Pastoral, and Transhumance Infrastructure Project (afdb). It aims to enhance the living conditions of the transhumant and sedentary population of the target area by improving access to pastoral infrastructure and resources (wells, ponds, livestock schemes), basic social services, education for nomadic children, and maternal and child health. The project is a five year project and will be financed from the African Development Bank as well as Chad (afdb). The project will result in improved living conditions for the population through better access to pastoral facilities and resources, and basic social services.
This program goes a long way towards helping increase economic development. This will increase infrastructure to mainly water resources and will also improve education. Improved access to water can yield better crop harvests and a greater output, increasing total country GDP. This would increase total economic growth in Chad and increase GDP. This would help development because people can have better access to clean and safe water, which would increase their standard of living.
The Provision of Education and Health Care
Health care in Chad, while slowly (extremely slowly) improving, remains quite inadequate for the majority of the population, especially those 55% who live under the poverty line who can't afford to pay for health care. One of the problems that Chad faces is that there aren't enough doctors in the country. Chad has 0.04 physicians per every 1,000 people (nationmaster). This is probably due to the fact that doctors can get work elsewhere that pays actual money and they can have safe working conditions and a safe peace of mind. Because doctors leave Chad to work in developed nations, Chad is in dire need to doctors to provide adequate health care to its citizens. While Chad is currently recruiting, training and hiring citizens as paid health workers, they lack the knowledge that a fully qualified physician would know. Also, Chad faces numerous health problems such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, meningitis, many other STIs and other diseases. This greatly prohibits economic growth because a sick worker in Chad has a hard time receiving health care and healing, and they have to take time off of work, which they would be lucky to have in the first place. This decreases productivity, which lowers output and then GDP and total economic growth. This also prohibits development because it hurts the life expectancy of Chadians, since they are at a higher risk to get one of these harmful diseases. This also decreases development because the Chadians are experiencing a low standard of living and the children may not be able to go to school due to taking care of their sick parent or working themselves.
Chad has made some improvements in education over the years, increasing primary school enrollment from 62.5% in 2003 to 70.9% in 2012 (World Bank). The Chadian government and various Non-Government Organizations (NGO's) are working to increase teacher training and the supply of educational materials in Chad (World Bank). This should increase economic growth because educated workers can increase productivity, which would increase output and GDP as well as development. Development would increase because more children would be receiving an education, which will help them to obtain a job, or a job that is somewhat higher paying, and to enable them to value education and send their own children to school to continue this education cycle. However, Chad does not have a large enough relative wealth to allow for the equal, widespread provision of education, and there are large amounts of income inequality that keeps many of the poorer families from sending their children to school, and high poverty levels, which keep the children from going to school because the kids are busy making money to help out their families. Chad has a 60.4% of their children ages 7-14 working jobs, which means that they are unable to attend school full time (World Bank). This prohibits the economic growth and development of Chad by decreasing output and decreasing living conditions.
The Extent and Quality of Infrastructure
A major barrier in Chad's development is its lack of infrastructure. Chad has 26.01 km of road per 1000 square kilometers in the whole country, well below the world average of 246.22 km per 1000 square kilometers (listofcountriesoftheworld). Chad depends greatly on primary product exports, which makes adequate roadways essential, especially because Chad is landlocked in Central Africa and cannot ship exports out of the country. This lack of suitable roadways prohibits potential profits of exports due to the fact that Chad is not exporting at its full capacity because the roads available for transporting goods out of the country are lacking. Not only does this prevent goods from reaching potential customers, but it also prohibits public transportation that would allow adults to make it easier to jobs and markets, and children to schools. This hinders economic growth and development because producers are not receiving the profits they could be making and children are not receiving the education they could be receiving, making the country's total development suffer.
Chad's other problem in terms of infrastructure lies in its electricity and power supply. Less than 2% of all of Chadians have access to electricity (energyrecipes) and those other 98% rely on wood for fuel, which contributes greatly to deforestation. In terms of electricity production, Chad is ranked 192 out of 212 countries at 100,000,000 kilo-watts per hour per year (World Factbook), almost the bottom of the list. The availability of electricity is extremely important for preserving food and cooking, as well as providing ways for sanitation, and communication. All of these things are important in maintaining the health of Chad's citizens. This factor greatly hinders economic development because the public utilities are not at an acceptable level to maintain health and well being of Chadians.
Financial Services/Banking System
Chad's banking system is highly vulnerable to risks stemming from the large exposure to government and government contractors, bank portfolios are extremely concentrated with all banks breaching the single large exposure limit, and they need to raise capital to participate in financing of large projects, and the government's heavy presence in banks has resulted in management inefficiencies and has caused the resolution of troubled institutions to become protracted (IMF). Since their banking system is terrible and extremely corrupt, Chadians are not willing (or able) to invest money or save money in the banks. The country has a very low savings rate, with saving only 12% of its GDP in 1994, and all other figures dropping off the map completely after that (World Bank). Compared to Namibia's savings rate of 36%, this is quite low (World Bank). This emphasizes how little Chad saves. The central bank wants individual savers to help raise the low savings rate and put their money and confidence into the banking system. However, Chadians are not convinced that it is safe to do so. This is due to the fact that most Chadians have low paying jobs, if they have a job, and must use their income to provide for their families, leaving them little, if any, money to save and invest in the banking system. This keeps Chad trapped in the poverty cycle and forces children to stay home from school to work in order to provide additional income for their families, prohibiting Chad's economic development from growing. This also prohibits growth because no one has extra money to boost the consumer spending portion of GDP, and instead are taking money out of the system by saving it in their own special ways.
Legal System
Chad's legal system has been one of the most chaotic legal systems in all of Africa, if not the world. The legal system has caused Chadians to lose confidence in the system and their rights guaranteed to them by their constitution due to extremely long delays in the system and lack of enforcement (nationsencyclopedia). The legal system started off as a traditional French style court with criminal courts, courts of appeal, and a national court. However, there was a coup in 1990 which greatly disrupted the judicial system and as a result the judiciary was unable to handle criminal cases any more. The fact that Chad basically has no judicial system is a serious problem, especially because the legal system it does have is directly influenced by the corrupt leaders (nationsencyclopedia). This prohibits development because people are worried about their property rights, since their property can be taken from them at any time due to the non-existent law enforcement. Since people are worried about protecting their rights, they will not go out and work and leave their property sitting there for anyone to take, hurting economic growth since output is not as high as it could be.
Political Stability
Chad has no political stability, really. The country has been politically unstable since 1965, when a tax protest led northern Islamic tribes to rebel against the Christian-dominated government in the south. Years of authoritarian rule and civil war followed. Chad's current president, Idriss Deby Itno, a former general took power by force and is accused of violating many human rights laws. Deby won the first multi-party presidential elections in 1996, but is suspected of extreme fraud. Deby has appointed nine women to his 'cabinet', showing growing gender equality in Chad. Deby is extremely corrupt and makes deals with people to benefit himself. The official ruling party of Chad is The Patriotic Salvation Movement (fas.org) and is largely authoritarian. The party has consolidated its power across every level of society and government, getting rid of inside opposition. However, there are over 100 political factions that challenge Deby's rule (fas.org). In the long term, the corruptness of the government is likely to decrease foreign direct investment, since there is high political instability within the government and there is such a high risk of even entering the country, with one party that has so much power in the first place. This would prohibit economic growth and development in the long run, because Chad would be receiving less money, which would lessen growth and lessen the amount of money that could be used towards essential services such as infrastructure or education that would increase development.
Extent of Corruption
As stated above, Chad has an extremely corrupt political and legal system. Corruption is seen in most aspects of Chad, from business to the education and religious views. Technically, there are elections, but the ruling party, The Patriotic Salvation Movement, has tight control over the elections and has committed fraud in the election in the past. This exploitation of power for personal gain hurts economic growth and development by reducing trust in the economy. Both the citizens in Chad and foreign investors do not want to take that risk, so foreign direct investment is given to less corrupt countries that are considered safer investments. This decreases Chad's economic growth because they are receiving less money and hurts development because a smaller amount of funds can be diverted to essential services that would benefit Ethiopian citizens, such as the provision of sanitation and health care.
Projects and Initiatives
Chad Promoting Education Project
The main objective of Chad's domestic policies is increasing education in the country (infodev). Chad and its partners in development have adopted a 10-year strategy called Education and Training in Liaison with Employment (EFE), and the process for setting up a national information and communication technologies in education policy is underway (infodev). The main obstacle to overcome is financial need. Distance and training is difficult, but it is not impossible and new goals and initiatives are currently being explored by the national Ministry of Education to set up programs to help benefit both teachers and students. The components of the strategy are to improve curriculum, textbooks, teacher education, teacher availability, coordination and a social development strategy. This program is financed by Chad and its other partners in education.
An increase in the quality and provision of education in Had will improve the overall society of Chad, especially the overall role of women because education is an empowerment tool, and a factor that increases health due to more accessible knowledge. In general, this initiative will increase standards of living and economic development in Chad will rise.
Chad Infrastructure Project
Add link here: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/survey/so/2011/car111011a.htm
Another hot-ticket project in Chad is its work in the infrastructure of its country. One popular project is the Rural, Pastoral, and Transhumance Infrastructure Project (afdb). It aims to enhance the living conditions of the transhumant and sedentary population of the target area by improving access to pastoral infrastructure and resources (wells, ponds, livestock schemes), basic social services, education for nomadic children, and maternal and child health. The project is a five year project and will be financed from the African Development Bank as well as Chad (afdb). The project will result in improved living conditions for the population through better access to pastoral facilities and resources, and basic social services.
This program goes a long way towards helping increase economic development. This will increase infrastructure to mainly water resources and will also improve education. Improved access to water can yield better crop harvests and a greater output, increasing total country GDP. This would increase total economic growth in Chad and increase GDP. This would help development because people can have better access to clean and safe water, which would increase their standard of living.