In the Development and Health unit of the course you have recently been studying indicators of economic development and, in particular, you have been looking at contrasts of development within and between LEDCs. Unfortunately, textbooks (even new ones!), frequently carry development data which is out of date. It is, however, possible to access fairly accurate and up-to-date figures by looking at the World Bank's annual Development Indicators resource.
This is a very weighty publication but if you click on the image above, you will link to a facility which allows you to find abstracted development information based on 50 indicators for almost every country in the world. It is a 'data query' service which allows you to select the countries and years you want to look at and the indictors you wish to obtain data for. You can then opt to view the results as an Excel spreadsheet.
A quick and easy exercise would be to choose a range of LEDCs including some of the NICs which you have been studying with Mrs W and then to draw up a table of data for selected indicators. Which indictors best reveal the differences in economic development? However, are these necessarily the 'best' indicators of development? Which NICs are the current front runners in economic development? Where are most of the world's least economically developed countries?
