Questions

Task

You are appointed as a consultant by a non-government aid agency to assess how best to spend US$ 5 million to develop the rural areas surrounding the Valley Trust centre.

Use your observations, experience and insight as geographers to present a budget sheet and rationale (logical reasons) for suggesting how the money should be spent.

Your team must present a budget sheet, indicating the sector to which the money will be spent, the amount and a brief motivation in point form to justify why this amount has been chosen.

For example: (don't take this example seriously, but use a similar format)

Investment sector: 5 new cinema (places where the latest Hollywood films can be shown) complexes at US$ 400 000 each

Budget: $2 000 000

Reasons:

  • People in rural areas need entertainment
  • People can socialize at cinemas
  • People will get education from these films
  • People who go to films are less likely to get AIDS
  • ......and so on......

Assessment of Development exercise criteria

  • Does the development theory make sense? Have they expressed themselves adequately? (5)
  • Are they using known theory? (could they reference their ideas to literature or other know theory) (5)
  • Are they able to put the theory into context, that is, the developing context of South Africa? Did they use data from the atlas, graphs and tables? (5)
  • Have they chosen logical categories (items/sectors) in the matrix that reflect the context and development theory outlined above? (5)
  • Does the result or conclusions from the matrix appear logical and realistic? (5)
  • Does the budget reflect priorities in spending? (5)
  • Does the budget reflect the development theory and the matrix? (5)
  • Are the reasons given for the choice of items in the budget clear and logical? (5)
  • Does their work reflect the thinking and practice of a geographer? (5)

Total points: 45

(Note: The evaluation of this exercise, as with most others, was achieved by team leaders evaluating their own team, following by a review of at least one other team's scripts. Members of the organizing committee gave a final moderated result.)

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