Intro Quiz: How can bottom-up projects promote development?

Video: How can bottom-up projects promote development?

﻿Hi, I'm Miss Earthrowl and welcome to lesson six in this unit of work on development. Today, we're going to be looking at development projects. And we're going to specifically focus on how bottom-up development projects can help promote development within a country. For today's lesson you will need a pen or a pencil and a piece of paper or an exercise book to write on. I suggest you try and find yourself a nice quiet space away from any distractions so that you can focus on your learning. So gather those items and get yourself ready. And then I'll see you back here when you're all set to go. Welcome back to lesson six, where we're going to be answering the question, how can bottom-up projects promote development? Development is often simply a measure of how rich or poor a country is compared to other countries. However, development should consider standard of living in a country in terms of economic, social, environmental and political factors. Aid is money, goods and services given by an individual government, a non-government organisation often referred to as an NGO or an organisation such as the World Bank to help promote development within a country. If you want to get these two key terms written down, I suggest you pause the video now and copy them into your notes. Great, let's see what you remember of these two. Which of these is the definition for aid? Is it option one, simply a measure of how rich or poor a country is compared to other countries or is money, goods and services given by an individual government, an NGO or an organisation such as the World Bank to help promote development within a country? It is indeed option two. Well done if you managed to remember that. Now, aid and development projects. Aid is often used in development projects. These are projects that help promote development within a particular country or community. Two examples of development projects could be building schools within the local community to help improve literacy rates and education facilities, or it could be building dams with the government to help generate hydroelectric power for the whole country. These two examples are very different. One is what we call a bottom-up project and the other would be a top-down project. So what are bottom-up and top-down? Well, a bottom-up project means that it's a project that's relatively small scale and it's planned with the local community. A top-down project means that it's often really led by the government. So it's planned with the government. These are two key differences between both bottom-up and top-down projects, but there are some more differences as well. Which statement is true for bottom-up, it's overseen by the government or it's planed with the local community? A bottom-up project would be planned with the local community. Well done if you managed to remember that. Now there's lots more to bottom-up and top-down projects rather than just who leads them. We know that bottom-up is planned with the local community. But in general, they do tend to be less expensive projects. They're often funded by donations from people and non-government organisations from more developed countries. They're generally quite small scale, so they reach relatively few people. And the lack of coordination can sometimes lead to kind of some issues because of limited funding. So there's lots of positives and negatives there. If you want to, it's worth pausing the video to get a little bit more information written down about bottom-up projects. Let's find out about top-down. So we know that top-down projects are planned and led by the government. They tend to be much more expensive projects, which means they attract donations from governments in developed countries or institutions such as the World Bank. They're large scale so they can achieve improvements for a large number of people in the country. But they can ignore the community needs. And it doesn't always have the best support from individual communities and people. Again, there's some positives and negatives to top-down projects as well. If you want to pause the video to get some more information down about top-down, then do have a go now. Great, so let's see what you remember. Planned with the local community. I want you to try and remember if this is a top-down project or a bottom-up project. Which one's planned with the local community, bottom-up or top-down? It is, bottom-up. Well done if you managed to identify that. Funded by governments in developed countries and institutions such as the World Bank, bottom-up or top-down? It is, top-down. Well done. Can ignore the needs of the local community, so it may not benefit those who need most support, bottom-up or top-down? This would be a top-down statement. And it's often seen as a disadvantage of top-down projects. Small-scale so reaches relatively few people, bottom-up or top-down? It would be bottom-up. And again, this is seen as another disadvantage. But although it can be very effective in smaller areas, it doesn't reach a huge amount of people. Next one, bottom-up or top-down? Funded by donations from people and non-government organisations in more developed countries, bottom-up, top-down? What we reckon is bottom-up. Large scale so can achieve improvements for large number of people. This would be a top-down project. And it's seen as an advantage of a top-down project because it's a good thing or a benefit. Building a large dam to generate hydroelectric power to provide energy to homes across the country. Now this is slightly different it's an example of a project. Do you think it's top-down or bottom-up? It is top-down. And we know that because it's a big project. It's providing energy to homes across the country, suggesting it's large scale. Well done if you managed to work that out. And finally, building a school with local teachers and parents to improve literacy rates in their community. This would be a bottom-up project. And it's a bottom-up project, it's an example of where the local community have been involved in the development of the project. Again, well done if you had managed to identify what type of project that example is. So I kind of hinted at it throughout the activity, but there are advantages and disadvantages to bottom-up and top-down projects. Advantages would be all of the benefits or the good outcomes of the project. And the disadvantages would be the bad things that happen because of the project. Now, what I would like you to do is draw the table that I've drawn at the bottom and categorise these statements into advantages and disadvantages of top-down and bottom-up projects. You've got four statements on the screen, two of the top-down projects and two of the bottom-up projects. And you need to decide if they are good or bad. So, pause the video now to complete your task and press resume when you finished. Let's see what you've got right. So top-down projects, an advantage would be it's large scale so it can achieve improvements for large number of people. A disadvantage would be that it can ignore local community needs as it doesn't always accurately benefit individual areas. And for bottom-up, our advantage was that it consults the local community so meets the needs of the local people. Whereas for disadvantage, it's small scale so it impacts fewer people. Really well done if you managed to get those right. But where is the Democratic Republic of Congo? We're going to be looking at a bottom-up project in this country. You can see on the map it's located in Africa, and it's marked here in red. The DRC is considered to be a developing country. Every year the DRC receives billions of dollars in aid, which has its advantages and disadvantages. Some of that aid is spent on bottom-up projects. Comic Relief is a major UK charity that aims to raise money to provide aid to support development projects around the world. Comic Relief set up a bottom-up project in the DRC to improve rural schools. Let's see what you remember. The support in the DRC from Comic Relief is an example of aid provided by, is it a government or a non-government organisation? Comic Relief is a non-government organisation. It's a UK based charity. What was the main aim of Comic Relief's project in the DRC? Was it to improve rural schools or to improve local hospitals? This particular project that we were talking about is to improve rural schools. Well done if you've got that. Comic Relief's project spent £390,000 on improving school facilities in rural areas in the Democratic Republic of Congo. There were both advantages and disadvantages to the project. Now remember, advantages are the positive outcomes of a project and the disadvantages would be the negative outcomes. We're going to look at some statements and try work out if overall that particular statement is an advantage or disadvantage. Here's the first one. It was amazing to have Comic Relief come to our village school because they worked with the teachers and our students to help improve education. We felt involved in the process, and Comic Relief listened to our ideas to make sure the school met our needs. Would this be an advantage or disadvantage of the project? I'd say it's an advantage because got a smiley face there. Now the next part of this activity, I want to think about which feature of bottom-up is this particular statement. We've got four options down on the right hand side of the screen. We've got working with the local community, small scale due to funding limitations, improved education provision which enables people to get better jobs in the future or difficult for everyone from the community to access as some children need to earn a living, which one of those four do you think this statement refers to? I'd say it's working with local community. Well done if you got that right. And now our next statement, a parent, our children have to help us earn a living. We cannot afford to give them the time to go to school during the day. Now, would this be a positive or a negative outcome of this particular bottom-up project? It would be negative. Now, what kind of feature of bottom-up would this be? Remember you've got options one to four. Have a read and decide which one you think it is. Did you get it? It is number four. It's difficult for everyone in the community to access as some children need to earn a living. Next one, the literacy rate in the Democratic Republic of Congo is 60% and people only spend an average of 9.7 years at school. So improving the school is key to allowing the next generation to get a better education, and better paid jobs. Is this an advantage of a project like this or disadvantage? It is an advantage. Well done if you managed to get that right. Now onto the feature of bottom-up. Remember we've got options one to four, which one do you think this is? I'd say it's three. Improving education provision, which will enable people to get better jobs in the future. Well done if you've got that right. Neighbouring village. The project didn't make it to our village. Now the people in the next village get an improved education and will have a better chance of getting a good, well paid job in the future. Whilst we don't. Is that an advantage or a disadvantage? I'd say it was a disadvantage. Now to think about which type of bottom-up is it. This would be that it's small scale due to funding limitations. It's an amazing project for the areas that it gets to, but unfortunately it can't cover the whole country. Well done if you've got that right. So for this task, what I would like you to do is copy and complete the following statements. So we've got, it is important to involve the local people, teachers, students, and parents, in the process of improving the school because. It is important for the future generation to get better schooling because. And some children cannot attend the school because. Say for what you've learned today, I want you to have a really good go at completing those sentences in as much detail as possible. Right, pause the video now to complete your task. And press resume when you're all good to go. Right, let's see. Did you get it? It's is important to involve the local people, teachers, students and parents in the process of improving the school because it means that local people feel involved and part of the process. That would get you a tick. It also means that the local ideas are listened to. Another tick. And so the local people's needs are met. A final tick. So there's the potential of getting three ticks there. Well done if you managed to get them all. It is important for the future generation to get better schooling because they can get a better education. Tick. If they have a better education, they will be able to get better paid jobs in the future. Really well done if you managed to not only get the main explanation, but if you developed your reasoning as well. Some children cannot attend the school because they need to support their parents to earn a living. Tick. Therefore, their parents cannot afford to let them go to school. Well done if you managed to get both of those points. So how sustainable is bottom-up. Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. It's a really important consideration. Now you can already see one reason at the bottom because I left it on that. But I want you to try and think how sustainable do you think a bottom-up project is? Well, as I've already given you one answer, we'll do that one first. People feel involved, so they continue to support and maintain the project after the charity has left. That's really important because it's helping not just the current children at school, but also the future generations to help support them in their education too. The other point would be that planning with the local community allows their needs to be considered and met. This is really important for sustainable development. Anyone can go into an area and put a project in place, but if it's not agreed, and if it doesn't work for providing the best opportunity for the local community, then it's not going to be the best way to spend the aid or the money in the area. So it's really important to work alongside the local community so that they feel involved, so that their needs are considered and met and with the long run, so that they look after the project in the future. So how can bottom-up projects promote development? They can be a really good way of promoting development within a country. But as much as they're amazing, there are some disadvantages as well. And we've looked at both sides in today's lesson by looking at a bottom-up project in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Next lesson, we're going to be looking at, you guessed it, at top-down project. And again, we're going to be based in the Democratic Republic of Congo. I look forward to seeing you then.

Exit Quiz: How can bottom-up projects promote development?

Completed: How can bottom-up projects promote development?

In this lesson we will learn about the difference between bottom-up and top-down projects and the opportunities and challenges associated with bottom-up projects in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Geography

How can bottom-up projects promote development?

Introductory Quiz

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Final Quiz

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