EPQ

Hi.
I want to go into international development, so would like my EPQ to be about international development. I need help with some ideas :s-smilie:

I was thinking of maybe a study into the efficiency of aiding developing countres, or how to overcome cultural differences etc.

Reply 1

Elisha Rebekah

Original post by Robb Boratheon

Hi.
I want to go into international development, so would like my EPQ to be about international development. I need help with some ideas :s-smilie:

I was thinking of maybe a study into the efficiency of aiding developing countres, or how to overcome cultural differences etc.

Perhaps you could assess how far the legacy of European colonialism impedes an ex-colony's progression, in the pursuit of peace and stability. An obvious choice would be to look at an African country- many were taken advantage of in the 'Scramble for Africa'- and assess how far their current situation is a result of the legacy of colonialism, eg- Democratic Republic of Congo, which used to be under the sovereign power of Leopold II of Belgium. Hope this helps :smile:

Reply 2

Robb Boratheon

Thanks, those are such good topics!!!

Reply 3

chloeap

Or if you want to look economically you could compare and contrast aid programmes which involve 'giving money' to ones which encourage investment from local people. There are some interesting studies which look at whether people give more value to something they have to contribute to versus something they are given, even if the contribution is very small.
There's also a big movement at the moment to make aid sustainable, ie. teach a man to fish and he'll make a living teaching other men to fish (for want of a terrible analogy). which is also interesting.
I did an engineering in developing countries based EPQ but the cost-benefit analysis of aid vs encouraging investment was by far the most interesting bit.

Reply 4

Robb Boratheon

cool. Maybe I could look at, as you said, at how efficient simply building things for them are, etc, in comparison to empowering the people to do it for themselves and investing in education etc. In a recent study I saw that development does have many barriers, and in one case, they built a sewage system in a town in a developing country, but it fell into disrepair because the locals didnt understand on how to use it. Maybe colonisation can be brought up, to look at possible cultural barriers that need to be overcome.