Least industrialized Countries and the Fourth World

The French Revolution etymological origins of Sauvy's Third World coinage were wholly shorn off when the term Fourth World came into currency in the 1970s, though the former usage did stay consistent with his use of Third World. As originally coined, the Fourth World consists of stateless nations: those nations, peoples, and ethnic groups that have no autonomy but exist under the thumb of other nations. Native Americans were the celebrated example in the 1970s, a time when the success of the civil rights movement had led to activism for improved rights and living conditions for the Indian reservations in the United States, and other reforms in the government's dealings with native tribes.

Indigenous and aboriginal peoples in other countries may also be included, as well as the Palestinians displaced by the creation of Israel, and the Roma. In time, the Fourth World usage was extended by some to consist of the Least advanced Countries, a United Nations designation for those countries that suffer from significantly low earnings (0 per capita), profound economic vulnerability in the form of instability or other problems, and weak human resources as indicated by poor median health, nutrition, and education. Only two countries classified as Least advanced have ever graduated from the list-Botswana in 1994 and Cape Verde in 2007-a testament to the difficulty of escaping pronounced poverty with insufficient resources. A decision on the graduation of Samoa has, as of 2009, been pending for several years.

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The Least advanced Countries often have some extra vulnerability that has been keeping them back and prevents or slows what those in advanced countries would think the normal pace of development. Political corruption can have broad consequences in this area, for instance, and no ifs ands or buts becomes an custom that the "man on the street" is so accustomed to that he no longer objects to it to a degree proportionate with the real harm it causes. The type of government may be hostile to development, particularly in the case of dictatorships or rule by warlords, a condition that still persists in much of sub-Saharan Africa. Unresolved civil wars and prolonged ethnic fighting are similarly destabilizing.

Often many of these conditions are simultaneously true, in addition to extreme poverty, extra challenges because of the corporeal conditions of the country, and a poverty of natural resources. Currently the 49 Least advanced Countries are: Afghanistan, Angola, Bangladesh, Benin, Bhutan, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodia, the Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Haiti, Kiribati, the Lao People's Democratic Republic, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Maldives, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Myanmar, Nepal, Niger, Rwanda, Samoa, Sao Tome and Príncipe, Senegal, Sierra Leone, the Solomon Islands, Somalia, the Sudan, Tanzania, Timor-Leste, Togo, Tuvalu, Uganda, Vanuatu, Yemen, and Zambia.

Least industrialized Countries and the Fourth World

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