Country Experience in Meeting Basic Needs

Abstract

There is a very great variety of experience in meeting BN among developing countries^l. This variety encompasses differences in political framework, ideals and objectives, in strategy of development and in the way in which each strategy is carried out in practice. Alongside these major differences in how countries go about meeting BN, there are also very big differences in achievements with respect to BN. Taking life expectancy as a measure, performance varies from forty (Ethiopia, 1979) to seventy-two (Cuba, 1979). This chapter is devoted to exploring these differences to see how far it is possible to arrive at general conclusions about country strategy towards meeting BN, in order to identify the type of political and economic strategies that tend to be successful in achieving it and the type that tend to be unsuccessful.