Poorest Country in the World

The recent devastation in Haiti, the poorest country in the western hemisphere, often makes us wonder about mother nature's irony. Why the poorest and the weakest face nature's wrath? Are you even aware of the standard of living there? I guess it would be like a natural disaster everyday! Absence of a stable government, lack of law and order, widespread hunger and abject poverty, are some things which we're noticing in Haiti there are many more nations like Haiti in this world, but does anyone care about those countries, where many generations have lived in similar conditions? Let us try to know more about such places on the planet.

Poorest Country in The World: A Detailed View

Let us first see what parameters are used to determine the wealth or poverty of a country. Various organizations like the United Nations, World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), use almost similar methodologies to rank the countries that are the poorest in the world.

One prerequisite is to consider the countries with annual Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita, below $900. This is also known as Purchasing Power Parity (PPP). Just considering the GDP does not give us a correct picture. For example, if only GDP is considered China ranks second only to the US, but when we consider the GDP - per capita, China ranks in the mid 90s, just because of its huge population. Even US ranks in the 6th position, behind countries like Qatar and Singapore, who have a much smaller, overall GDP.

Amongst the nations, that fall under the above mentioned prerequisite, the first criteria for judging is the standard of living, which includes life expectancy, calorie intake per capita, school enrollment rate and overall literacy rate. The next criteria is, how vulnerable is the nation's economy, which depends mainly on the agricultural production, export and import.

So accordingly, the poorest country of the world is Zimbabwe. This southern African nation is the world's most inadequate country by a long way. Its GDP - per capita is less than $250. Political unrest and a totally collapsed economy are the main reasons for the failing of this one as a well to do nation. Zimbabwe, formerly Rhodesia, was a British colony until, as late as 1980, when it gained independence. Current President Robert Mugabe was the one who pioneered the freedom movement in the 1970s and has held the country's highest office, till date.

At the time of independence, Zimbabwe had a substantial white population. Even though blacks made up more than 90% of the population, whites held more than 80% of the top authoritarian posts and 70% of the country's commercially viable and highly fertile land. Mugabe earned a lot of black support, post independence, when he promised to redistribute the land amongst the majority race. This plan failed to materialize for almost two decades, until in 1999 when a rising unrest against Mugabe's regime forced him to take up the issue of land redistribution seriously. This was the beginning of Zimbabwe's decline.

In 2000, Mugabe began to redistribute land to the blacks, adopting a compulsory land acquisition policy. The legality and legitimacy of this policy has time and again been challenged in the High court and Supreme Court of Zimbabwe. And in spite of several court rulings, the law implementing agencies have seldom acted according to the rulings on these issues. This acquisition of the cultivable land, continuous droughts and void of inputs and financial aid. This led to diminishing agricultural exports, which was traditionally a leading sector of Zimbabwe's exports. This resulted in Zimbabwe experiencing a severe hard-currency shortage, which in turn led to a sharp rise in inflation and continuous shortages of imported oil, coal and consumer goods.

In 2004-05, the Mugabe regime initiated "Operation Murambatsvina", a purposeful effort to bring down the illegal markets and slums that had sprung up, mostly in towns and cities. This action was widely criticized by the opposition and international human rights bodies, who alleged that, this drive left a significant section of urban poor, homeless. The Zimbabwe government countered this allegation by describing it as an attempt to provide decent housing to the poor, although they failed to deliver any new dwelling to those who were forcibly evicted. Allegations of rampant rigging during a general election and the above mentioned operation led to Zimbabwe being suspended from the Commonwealth of Nations on charges of human rights abuses during the land redistribution and creating a non-democratic environment.

Zimbabwe is currently facing deep economic and food crisis, described by UN observers as one of the worst since its independence. It has been widely attributed to the government's price control policies and land confiscations, the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and a persistent drought engulfing the region have also made matters worse. Life expectancy has dramatically declined since the 1990s, for males, it has dropped from 60 to 37, and for females is even lower at 34 years which happens to be the lowest in the world. Consequently, the infant mortality rate has mounted from 53 to 81 deaths per 1,000 live births. According to an estimate, currently there about 1.8 million HIV +ve Zimbabweans.

It would be of less significance if we mention only Zimbabwe. It will surely be more meaningful to take a look at the 10 poorest countries on this planet and their GDP-per capita, as the standard of living of the people in these places is more or less the same as Zimbabwe's.

Rank	Country	GDP - per capita ($)
1	Zimbabwe	less than 250
2	Republic of Congo	300
3	Liberia	500
4	Solomon Islands	600
5	Somalia	600
6	Comoros	650
7	Guinea-Bissau	650
8	Central African Republic	700
9	Niger	800
10	Ethiopia	greater than 800

All nations in this list are African nations, which were colonized and exploited by their European colonizers. These nations are a testimony to the fact that the European colonizers left their colonies in tatters.

But, we in the developed world, need to act fast as time is running out for the people in Zimbabwe, as it stares at a very bleak future. Most countries in the above list have started developmental activities and it is going to take much more than a prayer from our side to secure the future of these underprivileged nations.