Inequality and Development

This past week talking about inequality and development was a learning experience. Learning about Vietnam and their struggles with deforestation, and also Egypt, and their water problems brought up lots of information for discussion. Starting off i'd like to talk about Egypt and their water problem. Egypt is in a unique situation where there is so much uncertainty it is hard to tell which direction to move in towards a solution.With a 70% percent change of water reduction or a 30% chance of water increase it is impossible to determine which direction to go. With this being said, I think the first step that they need to take is to do more research. They need to broaden their research and implement new way to gather information in order to narrow the uncertainty that is limiting their ability to take action against climate change. This is a necessary first step because without it they are unable to take a second step. I think our in class discussion about Egypt brought a deeper understanding about my understanding of the situation occurring in Egypt. Our in class discussion about Vietnam also greatly helped my understanding of the material. I got a better perspective about the idea of "old wine in a new bottle." I think that this is the most prominent problem Vietnam is facing right now. I think that they need a new and unique solution to their deforestation. They need to implement a system which better includes both local citizens and the government. If this is possible it will enable Vietnam to be more proficient in gathering local support as well as a gather a higher percentage of it's citizens to jump on board a plan to stop deforestation. Equality among locals and government systems is extremely important in both cases which we looked at in class. It is also an obvious problem occurring all around the world that needs to be better taken care of.