Skillshare International: Bridging the gap between North and South?

Essay from the year 2006 in the subject Politics - International Politics - Topic: Development Politics, grade: 1.7, The Australian National University, language: English, abstract: The gap between rich and poor has never been so wide. The income of the richest fifty million people (a mere one percent of world population) is at par with the combined income of 2.7 billion people sharing a life of extreme poverty.1 Moreover the unequal distribution of wealth and social wellbeing measured in levels of education or literacy, life expectancy, child mortality and economic performance are geographically skewed. The people in the north of the globe are living a good life, while the people living south of the tropic of cancer often struggle for survival. Especially on the African continent, 'development' has failed. The statistics for Sub-Saharan Africa's development are particularly alarming. Here real per-capita incomes have dropped significantly over the last decades leaving half of the population with less than One Dollar ($1) per day.2 HIV/AIDS and other communicable diseases continue to cripple the region like nowhere else on the planet, not only challenging ongoing development efforts, but also by filling orphanages and cemeteries in a disturbing pace.3

Dr. Lüdert is Assistant Professor and Associate Program Director in the School of Applied Leadership at City University of Seattle. Jan holds a PhD in International Relations from the department of Political Science at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver. He is a Liu Institute for Global Issues scholar alumnus and recipient of the Killam Graduate Teaching Award. Jan holds a First Class Honors Masters of Arts in International Relations from the Australian National University and a Bachelor of Business Administration and Public Policy from Hamburg University for Economics and Politics. Jan studied at the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania focusing on sociology and economics. He coordinated grassroots' community programs in Botswana for Skillshare International. His research includes Leadership Theory, International Relations, Political Theory, Intergovernmental Organizations, Non-State Actors, Transnational and Cyberspace Politics, Global Norms, Human Rights. Jan is deeply involved in Scholarship of Teaching and Learning research projects. Jan writes for the Ivory Tower, an E-International relations blog.