Environment, Development and the Developing Countries
A Divided World:
With the collapse of the Soviet Empire and the Soviet Union itself, the cold war, waged relentlessly since the Second World War, had subsided and
there was some respite. But the world is still deeply divided. The “great divide” today is between the rich and the poor. As the former Finance
Minister of Pakistan, Dr. Mehbood ul Haq pointed out: “A poverty curtain has descended right across the face of our world, dividing it materially and philosophically into two different worlds, two separate planets, two unequal humanities – one embarrassingly rich and the other desperately poor. This invisible barrier exists within nations as well as between them, and often provides a unity of thought and purpose to the Third World countries which otherwise have their own economic, political and cultural differences. The struggle to lift this curtain of poverty is certainly the most formidable challenge of our time”. The ever-widening gap between the developed rich countries of the North and the underdeveloped, courteously called “developing”, miserable
