Teaching Comparative Government and Politics

Wednesday, January 23, 2019

Measuring standard of living

It's not just GDP or GDP per capita that measures standard of living.

China pushes for rural "toilet revolution"

Chinese authorities will press ahead with a "toilet revolution" in rural areas to provide standard and regulated facilities and improve rural residents' living quality, according to the latest policy document.

Toilets for rural households in the country's eastern regions and mid-western city outskirts should "basically" go through pollution-free renovations by 2020, with toilet waste to be "effectively" treated or utilized by 2022, according to guidelines released by the office of the central agricultural work leading group, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs and six other departments.

By 2020, around 85 percent of rural households in mid-western areas where conditions permit should have access to sanitary toilets.

The coverage of sanitary toilets in remote and underdeveloped regions should be increased "gradually" by 2020 and "markedly" by 2022, according to the guidelines.

China launched the "toilet revolution" in 2015 to increase the number and sanitation of toilets at tourist sites. The campaign expanded to improve public toilets in cities and build better private toilets in rural areas.

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Labels: China, standard of living, UK

Thursday, August 16, 2018

No respect from the "first world"

Is the evaluation of African cities by "first world" standards legitimate? What does it tell us about the evaluated and the evaluators?

Lagos ranked among 'world's worst cities' to live in

Seven out of the 10 least liveable cities in the world are in Africa, according the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) annual survey.

The league table ranks 140 cities on a range of factors, including political and social stability, crime, education and access to healthcare.

Carefully selected Lagos street scene

Nigeria's largest city, Lagos, was ranked 138 - two slots ahead of the bottom of the league table which is held by Syria's war-torn capital, Damascus (140).

It was closely followed by Zimbabwe's Harare (135), Libya's Tripoli (134), Cameroon's Douala (133), Algiers in Algeria (132) and Senegal's Dakar (131).

Johannesburg gained the rank of 86, making it the most livable of African cities.

The annual report says cities in the Middle East, Africa and Asia account for the ten-lowest scoring cities where "violence, whether through crime, civil insurgency, terrorism or war, has played a strong role".