Difference between underdevelopment and poverty, how the mass media can promote the development

This is a common scene in the undeveloped countries. You can observe the different kind of cars; it reveals that that is not a poor community.

The poverty is the material scarcity; essentially, the lack of money, infrastructure, employment and natural resources.

The underdevelopment is other thing. The underdevelopment is the lack of basic education, but not of scholarly or academic education, no. It is the absence of the education that come from the family, the moral and the religion; the ignorance of the basic norms of life.

The development is an attitude toward the life. A poor nation is not necessarily an undeveloped nation. The poverty does not mean underdevelopment. There are poor but developed nations. In change, there are rich ---in terms of money-- but undeveloped countries. The difference between both is the concepts previously expressed.

In all the nations coexists developed and undeveloped sectors of the population. But in the undeveloped countries the last one is the majority. I would like to illustrate with some concrete examples the difference between one and other.

The main characteristic of the undeveloped societies is the ignorance or disdain for the basic rules of life.

For example, they do not respect the environment. It is common to see how the people walk and lead its dogs by the streets without chains, muzzles and the worse is that they do not pick up the excrement of its pets. You can appreciate this type of situations in many streets in many undeveloped nations.

Neither, they do not know or do not respect the essentials norms of health. It is also often to observe how the people sneeze or cough and do not cover its mouth; spite in any place; do not wash its hands with regularity, do not maintain the restrooms clean and do not follow the rules of food hygiene. The consequence is a high level o infectious illness.

The aggression to the environment is ever present. For example, in the undeveloped societies the peasants cut down the trees and burn the agricultural lands because they think that in this form they can obtain best harvests. The outcome is the contrary.

In the cities the controls regarding the autos and trucks contamination are very weak and the authorities do not make serious efforts to impose it.

The garbage is the other great problem. Usually you can appreciate it in the streets because the people throw the waste and, moreover, the systems of recollection are not effective. The garbage is not selected in plastics, glass or organic.

The industries throw their pollutants to the atmosphere or direct to the rivers, lakes and seas.

The deforestation is something ordinary and the people cut the trees without restrictions.

These situations happen exclusively not only in the undeveloped nations. Some of them also occur in the developed countries. For example, the industrial countries are the main generators of the dioxide of carbon emissions, principal cause of the climatic change. Other nations as China have the world record of the waters contamination.

The concepts previously mentioned reveals two aspects:

a) That the underdevelopment is not only an economic problem but essentially a cultural and educative challenge.

b) That for tackle the underdevelopment problem it is necessary to carry out a deep process of change in some negative custom that survive in the countries population. The mass media, and especially the radio and television, are the adequate channels for reaching the objectives of the development. They may be used for promoting a new culture of respect to the environment and in the promotion of habits of health, among other priorities. This is a form of creating a best world.

The responsibility in the creation of this kind of projects is essentially of the international agencies of development, as United Nations and the World Bank. Of course the governments of the countries has too a responsibility but it is necessary that an international institution assume the responsibility of coordinating the initiative.

In the next article I will explain what type of campaigns might be realized through the world mass media for promoting the development, protect the environment and create new habits of health.