Aids and Growth in other countries

     HIV/AIDS pandemic is having a world impact on the health and welfare of everyone. All of the global countries from South African countries, such as in Botswana, in Russia, in China and in the United States have to deal with disease and its economic impact on society. AIDS has swept the areas of Africa due to the pronounced homosexual activity in the sub-Saharan Africa. Due to the extremely poor living conditions and lack of proper medical or education, these areas are more prone to the disease. Areas of Kenya and Nairobi have found entire families to have AIDS. Entire regions of the Sub-Saharan belt are infected with AIDS.  The people in the region have to be isolated from the productive members of society. They people in the region are superstitious and will not trade or interact with the people who have AIDS. Those people become isolated without the ability to work and provide income for their families. The problem is many of the people in the region continue to have sex and spread HIV to other parts of the AIDS belt which encompasses all of South African countries including Botswana. Circumcision in the region has reduced the incidence of AIDS for men and women. Chancroid was found to only be infected with 33 percent of the peoples in Korea that were uncircumcised. (Caldwell, 1996)

Bringing awareness of the extreme dangers of AIDS and its economic impact on society are issues that are becoming evident to many of the South African countries. The financial toll of AIDs has cost billions of dollars every year with extensive medical treatment and care of AIDS patients. It put an incredible economic drain on the resources of the medical establishment.

The spread of AIDS has also been compounded by the sharing of needles for injecting illicit drugs. In more than 50 countries there are documented cases of HIV infection. In Europe and Australia shows an expansion in the AIDS epidemic. Centers for Disease Control track these epidemics and are trying to get the message out of the dangers of sharing needles. Free needle programs have been instituted in many countries to curb the spread of AIDS from shared needles. The economic impact is great in all these areas from a medical standpoint. Billions of dollars are spent on AIDS prevention program across the world. Many people who have AIDS are diagnosed with other ailments due to AIDS suppression of the immune system. As the disease progresses, it allows other diseases to attack the body of the sufferers. AIDS utilizes the nucleus of the white lymphocytes to reproduce, impairing the lymphocytes ability to defend the body. Over a period of years, HIV/AIDS will impair people’s ability to work by allowing infections to ravage the body. This takes people who are valuable potential GNP assets to contribute to society and turn them into a medical liability with reverse income in the form of general assistance, very high medical bills for AIDS maintenance medication, from diseases that manifest themselves due to AIDS lowering the body’s immune response.  Increased education in all countries as to simple prevention programs and birth control will reduce the HIV pandemic. Experimental drug cocktails have had limited success to extending the lives of AIDS sufferers, allowing them some ability to have a relatively normal lives for an additional decade. But, the disease continues to spread in third world countries due to governments are neglecting their responsibility to get the message out to their citizens to the dangers of AIDS. The media has stopped reporting on AIDS, because it is considered old news and not news worthy.  AIDS in Botswana have had the impacts of declining life expectancy, decreases in economic growth and development. The impact has impacted the civil service, police and prison services (Gossett, 2010). This has impacted the workforce greatly along with an increased number of orphans and vulnerable children to a high incidence of adult deaths from HIV.

President Mogae of Botswana announced, in BBC Monitoring Africa in Nov 2007, an increase in government education for their children against HIV-AIDS epidemic. He is quoted as saying, “has continued to enjoy positive economic growth accompanies by reduced poverty and an increase in domestic employment.” He feels that due to “stable economy” the country has maintained “and the general improvement in living standards” that reflected “in the rising income and household expenditure.” The president is conveying his feelings due to help and guidance in relief funds from President Bush’s Emergency Plans for AIDS Relief, PEPFAR in the amount of $601 million. Botswana is getting the word out with the emergence of private newspapers, radio and television stations. This form of media can communicate to the public the need of immunizations for children from measles, polio, tuberculosis and hepatitis B.  When there are a higher percentage of people healthy, there is a higher percentage available to be productive members of society to contribute the nation’s GNP. The productivity of a country can be measured by the health, educational level of its citizens and technological level to compete on the global marketplace.

In developing countries, they need capital to expand as a nation. When a small country is trying to compete with the world market, it must market the resources available to them through exportation or manufacturing. Many countries around the world sell their agricultural resources that are native to that country. Other countries such as China increase their wealth as a manufacturing empire and chief goods exporter of the world, with a GNP excess of trade deficit of over $265 billion this year. The GNP or gross domestic product in a country is measured by the final goods and services produced by that country. There is calculated GNP which can be calculated by the expenditure approach, a method of computing GNP that measures the total amount spent on all final goods and services during a given period (Case,2009). Another method is income approach which measures the income, wages, rents, interest, and profits to determine all factors of production in producing final goods and services, (Case,2009)

In my small country, I would evaluate which goods or natural resources would have the greatest return when sold to other countries. Nondurable goods, such as food, clothing, gasoline and cigarettes are sold and used quickly. Durable goods such as the manufacturing of automobiles, furniture and household appliances would generate great revenue for this developing country. By making contracts with American corporation to manufacture furniture, and household appliances at competitive labor rates would increase the nation’s GNP. Total investment in capital from private sector, or gross private domestic investment could be accomplished by issuance of government bank loans and increasing gross investment from private corporations that the country is making the goods.  Compensation of employees at the factories through higher corporate profits and net interest with go far to increase the quality of life in the small country. Net interest on business loans to startup the manufacturing plants will have to be maintained to pay off the loans. Another method of increasing GNP would be to survey the lands to see what precious minerals and oil are potentially in the grounds of the country to exploit and mine. The land of the country and what type of climate is in the region will determine what types of crops can be grown such as wheat, rice, fruits and vegetables. Investment in modern farming equipment is important to insuring large crops to feed the people with an excess hopeful to export to other countries in need of wheat or rice and similar exported goods. The market place where these goods are traded will grow with time as the diversity and size of the crops increase. An infrastructure of building sophisticated irrigation and watering technology will insure higher crop yields. Expansion of the farm industry in this small country will necessitate the need to build crop processing plants. The next phase of agricultural growth should include livestock such as chickens, goats, sheep, cows, and pigs. These animals along with other will provide milk and meat products for the general population. If an excess number of animals can be produced in large quantities, then the export of frozen pork, beef, and chicken will further increase the balance of trade and the increase of domestic GNP.

Modern mining techniques will reduce the overall cost of mining these precious minerals that can be sold on the international market. The NNP or net national product will increase as the costs of maintaining the industries and paying back the loans to startup the industries decrease over time. As people increase their personal income, they will have monies to spend on the domestic market such as department stores, grocery stores, and capital goods, cars, appliances, and homes. The influx of taxes into the government centers will provide funds to expand and lay roads, build water treatment plants, hospitals, churches, schools, and municipal facilities for the peoples of the country. The complexity of building a society and country takes, time, planning, effort and large investments by corporations and foreign governments interested in profiting by the growth of this small country. Maintaining good international relations is critical to the survival of the country. North Korea is a good example of a country being alienated by other countries due to military narrow mindedness and the people suffering in the long run. International trade brings goods into a country that the country is unable to produce itself. In return the country can provide lower costs goods to large countries that can no longer produce the same goods at low prices to their domestic cost of living and manufacturing.

As third world countries grow and produce more goods, their trade between all countries will increase their inherent cost due to economic growth. The cost of manufacturing goods in China and driven many manufacturers to outsource goods to the Philippines and Vietnam where the labor cost is less than that of China. Eventually the cost of manufacturing goods will balance out and be the same throughout the world. Countries will eventually become specialized in production of specific goods that are shipped to all of their companion nations. One country will make coffee, another bananas, another apples and oranges, etc. Natural disasters throughout the world will occur to impact the prices of goods such as flooding in areas of countries that affect the yield of crops. Having multiple sources of crop production will maintain the balance of trade between nations due to the flexible agricultural output due to changing weather patterns. New technology will help to reduce the cost of production of durable and nondurable goods with the advent of robotics to further reduce the cost of production. The international GNP will increase over this century as technology, working conditions, and education of the working forces increase the productivity of those nations on a global scale. As a green economy comes into focus, many countries that were struggling will prosper due to their involvement in implementation of energy production industries with solar, wind, geothermal, and fuel cell technologies. The countries that can produce a product with the minimal energy use will succeed in the long run. They will be able to provide for the increased energy demands of their countries people, with low cost, reliable, renewable energy. The secrets of a prosperous country is a combined balance of physically and mentally healthy people; a countries’ desire for a higher percentage of the population to be educated with skill sets that make those people contributive to the nation’s GNP, a productive country with a low trade deficit, low unemployment rates due to people trained to work in the fields that demand background in current technology applications; the new developing technologies to develop products for the people, and a medical system that meets the demands for the people. A productive country will reduce the crime rates, murder, violent acts, immoral and unethical behavior such as corruption in the workplace is typically lower in a country where people are productive and enjoy working. If people are happy, needs listened to by the government, and productive in society, the society and its Gross National Product will be higher and country will expand and proper over time.

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