HookTwo babies, forty years apart in life expectancy
Two babies are born on the same morning. One arrives in a hospital in Surrey; the other in a village in northern Nigeria. On average, the first can expect to live past 80, learn to read, see a doctor whenever needed and grow up in a household earning tens of thousands of pounds a year. The second faces a life expectancy in the fifties, a one-in-fourteen chance of dying before their fifth birthday, and a family income a fraction of the first child's. Neither child chose where they were born. The difference between their two lives — measured in years, in pounds, in access to a doctor — is what geographers call the development gap, and this section is about how we measure it, why it exists, and what can be done to close it.
But development is never frozen. Nigeria itself is a study in change: the same country with that rural poverty is also Africa's largest economy, home to Lagos's skyscrapers, a film industry that rivals Hollywood for output, and a fast-growing manufacturing base. Meanwhile the UK, which industrialised first, has spent fifty years dismantling its coal mines and steelworks and rebuilding itself around finance, science and services. The economic world is not divided neatly into 'rich' and 'poor' countries — it is a moving picture, and every question in this section asks you to read that movement: who is developing, how fast, by what means, and at what cost?
ModelMeasuring development — beyond a single number
The classic economic measure is Gross National Income (GNI) per head: the total income of a country divided by its population, usually given in US dollars and adjusted for what money actually buys (purchasing power). It is useful but blunt — it is an average, so it hides the gap between rich and poor within a country, and it says nothing about health or education.
That is why geographers use development indicators that capture quality of life: birth rate, death rate, infant mortality (deaths under age one per 1,000 births), life expectancy, literacy rate, and the number of people per doctor. Each tells part of the story, and each has a weakness on its own — which is why the UN combines three of them into the Human Development Index (HDI). HDI blends life expectancy, education (years of schooling) and GNI per head into a single score between 0 and 1, so a country that is fairly wealthy but has poor schooling cannot hide behind its income figure.
The change in these indicators over time is captured by the Demographic Transition Model (DTM), which tracks how birth and death rates shift as a country develops through five stages — from high birth and death rates (Stage 1), through a population boom as death rates fall first (Stages 2 and 3), to low, stable rates in developed economies (Stage 4), and finally decline (Stage 5). Nigeria sits around Stage 3; the UK is in Stage 4 moving towards 5. Reading a country's stage tells you where it is on the development journey.
DataPutting the gap into figures
Examiners routinely hand you a table of indicators and ask you to compare two countries or calculate the size of the gap. The skill is to turn raw figures into a ratio or a difference and then explain what it means for people's lives. The worked example below does exactly that, and shows why one number is never enough on its own.
A data table gives: UK — GNI per head around US$45,000, infant mortality about 4 per 1,000, HDI 0.93. Nigeria — GNI per head around US$2,000, infant mortality about 72 per 1,000, HDI 0.54. Work the gaps: the UK's GNI per head is 45,000 ÷ 2,000 ≈ 22 times Nigeria's, and Nigeria's infant mortality is 72 ÷ 4 = 18 times the UK's. The HDI gap is 0.93 − 0.54 = 0.39. The full-mark move is to interpret, not just calculate: the enormous GNI ratio shows how far incomes diverge, but the HDI figure adds that the gap is about health and schooling too, not only money — and even Nigeria's national average hides a further gap between wealthy Lagos and the poorer rural north. One figure describes; three figures, read together, explain.
MechanismWhy the gap exists — and how to close it
Uneven development has three families of causes. Physical: a harsh climate, frequent natural hazards, being landlocked with no coast for trade, or a lack of clean water all hold a country back. Economic: countries dependent on exporting a few low-value raw materials (primary products) earn little and are exposed to price crashes, while richer nations capture the profit from manufacturing. Historical: colonialism stripped resources from many countries and left them with economies built to serve someone else, a disadvantage that outlasts independence. The consequences are disparities in wealth and health, and international migration as people move in search of a better life.
Closing the gap is the second key idea, and AQA wants named strategies. Investment by transnational corporations builds industry and jobs. Industrial development and tourism can transform an economy — tourism earns valuable foreign income for countries like Jamaica and Tunisia. Aid ranges from emergency relief to long-term development projects, though it can create dependency. Intermediate (appropriate) technology — simple, affordable tools that local people can maintain, like a hand-powered water pump — often does more lasting good than a high-tech mega-project. Fairtrade guarantees farmers of cocoa, coffee and bananas a fair minimum price plus a community premium. Microfinance lends tiny sums to people the banks ignore, and debt relief frees governments to spend on schools and clinics instead of interest. The evaluation examiners reward: top-down mega-projects deliver scale but can bypass the poorest, while bottom-up schemes like microfinance and intermediate technology reach ordinary people but work slowly.
CaseNigeria — rapid development in an NEE
AQA requires a detailed case study of one LIC or NEE, and Nigeria is the standard choice. It is a newly emerging economy: Africa's most populous country at over 200 million people and, at times, its largest economy. Its importance is regional and global — a major oil exporter, a growing manufacturing base, and home to Nollywood, one of the world's largest film industries by number of releases.
Nigeria's growth has been shaped by its links to the wider world. Transnational corporations (TNCs) such as Shell have invested heavily in Nigerian oil, bringing jobs, tax revenue and infrastructure — but also profits that flow abroad and serious environmental damage. Nigeria receives aid and has built trading and political relationships across Africa, Europe and China. Its industrial structure is shifting: as manufacturing and services grow, the share of workers in low-productivity farming falls, which is exactly what development looks like.
The impact on quality of life has been real but uneven — rising incomes, better schools and healthcare in the cities, yet persistent poverty in the rural north. And the environmental cost is severe: decades of oil extraction in the Niger Delta have caused thousands of oil spills, polluting farmland, fishing grounds and drinking water, while gas flaring pumps out greenhouse gases. Nigeria is the examiner's favourite because it holds both halves of the development story at once — genuine progress and a real price paid for it.
CaseThe changing UK economy
The final idea flips the lens onto the UK's own economic change. Three forces reshaped it. De-industrialisation: from the 1970s the coal, steel and textile industries collapsed, as it became cheaper to manufacture abroad. Globalisation: goods, money and companies now move freely across borders, so production shifted to lower-cost countries. And government policy encouraged the switch, from privatisation to investment in new industries.
The result is a post-industrial economy. Today under 2% of UK workers are in the primary sector and only around a fifth in manufacturing; the great majority are in the tertiary (services) and fast-growing quaternary sector — research, information technology and knowledge industries. Clusters of high-tech firms gather in science parks such as Cambridge Science Park, opened by Trinity College in 1970 and now home to hundreds of companies, and along the M4 'corridor' west of London. This change is not spread evenly: a north–south divide leaves parts of the north and old industrial areas poorer than the booming south-east.
AQA also expects the knock-on effects. Improving transport underpins growth — high-speed rail (HS2), expanded ports and airports. Rural areas change too: commuter villages near thriving cities (South Cambridgeshire) grow, while remote regions (the Outer Hebrides) lose young people. And the UK's place in the wider world — trade links through the Commonwealth, Europe and beyond — keeps shifting. The environmental cost of all this economic activity, from quarrying to emissions, is the thread that ties this section to the sustainability questions elsewhere in the paper.
VocabularyKey terms the mark scheme pays for
TrapsMisconceptions that cost marks
ExamWhat examiners want
This section rewards AO1 (knowing real places and figures), AO2 (explaining why development is uneven and how strategies work), and AO3 (evaluating strategies and reaching a judgement). The 6 and 9-mark extended questions are marked in levels — reach the top level by developing points in a chain of reasoning rather than listing them, and remember the 3 SPaG marks on one 9-marker per paper.
The case study is compulsory and specific: AQA names 'a case study of one LIC or NEE', so learn Nigeria in depth — its importance, its TNC links (Shell), the Niger Delta oil pollution, the shift in its industrial structure. Vague answers about 'a developing country' cannot reach Level 2. For the UK, be ready to explain de-industrialisation, globalisation and the move to a post-industrial economy with a named example such as Cambridge Science Park.
Data skills carry easy marks here. When given a table of indicators, calculate a difference, a ratio or a percentage change and then interpret it — and always note that a single average hides internal variation. On 'To what extent' and 'Evaluate' questions about closing the development gap, weigh top-down strategies (large-scale investment, mega-dams) against bottom-up ones (microfinance, intermediate technology, Fairtrade), then commit to a judgement about which does more for the poorest. A conclusion that actually decides, with a reason, is what separates a Level 3 answer from a Level 2 one.