The United Nations’ Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) Educational Development Index (EDI) tends to attract most attention for the countries that perform at the very top. First-world and OECD countries are lauded for the strength of their education systems, the level at which their populations are developing, and much is made of who may have moved up or down within the top 10. Unsurprisingly, these top countries consist mostly of Scandinavian and Nordic countries – Norway is currently ranked number 1 under the Human Development Index (HDI) while the bottom half of the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) report is heavily populated by countries from the developing world.
One factor studied in the HDI is the Education Index. The UNDP ranks countries through a series of parameters that lets us know just how good – or bad – a country’s education system really is. All the way at the very bottom you’ll find that the entries are almost invariably African; a stark reminder, if any were needed, of the abysmal social conditions and living standards within the continent.
Rentier states are countries wherein the government’s lucrative sales of national resources mean they forego tax revenue – revenue that would normally fund national social programs and policies. Many familiar with this phenomenon know it as the ‘Resource Curse, ’ and are aware that it’s a problem that tends to afflict – but is not limited to – former-colonial, developing countries. These resources can be anything from coffee, minerals, and crops, to diamonds, gold, or the big resource on campus – oil. This type of state rentierism is a hallmark of governments in South America, Africa, and the Middle East, that tend to be up to their ears in natural resources with very little regulation.
