This week, the lectures and the homework made me think on what causes the disparities between developed and undeveloped countries. Everyone knows that the United States has a lower malnutrition rates than the impoverished countries in Africa, but for most people including me the thinking stops there. We can acknowledge these facts, but we never dive deeper into why these difference exist. We feel bad momentarily, but then soon think about something else.

The lectures and homework made me grapple with the statistics of the disparities between Sierra Leone and the United States. The lecture explained the reasons some of these disparities, but I got to personally grapple with causes of some of these disparities in the homework. On a high level, I learned that many of these differences come from lack of infrastructure (hospitals, grocery stores, etc) and political indifference. What usually is taken for granted in the U.S. (going to a doctor, having healthy food nearby, government taxing harmful products), is often not present in developing countries.

I think what I will take from this week is that it is really important to develop stable infrastructure and governments in the developing world. As these two things impact many other factors and their stability can trickle down and create changes on many micro-level problems.