Cambridge IGCSE Geography (0460): Theme 3.1 – Development – Revision Notes

These notes condense the Development study guide. Read the guide first if a point here is unclear.

These notes cover topic 3.1 Development in Theme 3 (Economic development) of the Cambridge IGCSE Geography (0460) syllabus for examination in 2025 and 2026, Version 2 (published November 2022). The syllabus describes Paper 1 (Geographical Themes) as a combination of resource-based tasks and free-response writing requiring place-specific information, and Paper 2 (Geographical Skills) can base knowledge questions on any of the three themes. Your teacher will confirm which Paper 1 section holds Theme 3.

Test yourself with the Development practice questions. The IGCSE Geography hub and the 0460 topic checklist show the whole course. For links between development and birth rates, see the Population and Settlement revision notes. Factory location and the secondary sector continue in Industry.

What the syllabus asks (3.1)

• Use a variety of indicators to assess a country’s level of development: GNP per capita, literacy, life expectancy and composite indices such as the HDI.
• Identify and explain inequalities between and within countries.
• Classify production into primary, secondary, tertiary and quaternary sectors, with illustrations.
• Describe and explain how employment structure varies with level of development, comparing countries and change over time.
• Describe and explain globalisation (technology, TNCs, economic factors) and its impacts at local, national and global scale.
• Case study: a transnational corporation and its global links.

Key terms

Term	Definition
Development	Improvement in people’s quality of life and standard of living, economic and social
Indicator	A measure used to compare levels of development
GNP per capita	Total value of goods and services produced by a country’s people and firms in a year, including income from abroad, divided by population
GNI	The World Bank’s term for a measure very close to GNP
PPP	Purchasing power parity: adjusts income for what money buys locally
Literacy rate	Percentage of adults who can read and write
Life expectancy	Average years a newborn can expect to live
Infant mortality rate	Deaths under age one per 1,000 live births
Composite indicator	One index combining several measures, e.g. HDI
Core-periphery	Pattern of a rich, well-connected core and poorer, remote outer regions
Employment structure	Percentage of workers in each sector
Deindustrialisation	Decline of manufacturing employment in a country or region
Globalisation	Growing connection and interdependence of economies, cultures and people worldwide
TNC	Transnational corporation: a company operating in more than one country
Trade liberalisation	Reducing tariffs and other barriers to trade

The HDI at a glance

Feature	Detail
Who	United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), first published 1990
Health	Life expectancy at birth
Knowledge	Mean years of schooling (adults 25+) and expected years of schooling (children)
Living standard	GNI per capita (PPP)
Scale	0 to 1; very high 0.800+, high 0.700–0.799, medium 0.550–0.699, low below 0.550
Examples (2025 report, 2023 data)	Iceland 0.972 (top), Pakistan 0.544 (low), South Sudan 0.388 (bottom)
One evaluation point	Better than one indicator, but UNDP says it does not reflect inequality, poverty, human security or empowerment

Ideas and models at a glance

Idea	What it says	Use it for	One evaluation point
Brandt Line (1980 Brandt Report)	Divides a richer “North” from a poorer “South”	Inequality between countries	Out of date: many “South” countries such as China have developed fast
Core-periphery	Investment and people concentrate in a core region	Inequality within countries	Government spending on roads and services can narrow the gap
Clark–Fisher model (Fisher, Clark)	Employment moves from primary to secondary to tertiary as countries develop	Employment structure over time	Some countries grow through services without a large factory stage; informal tertiary work can be low-paid
Global shift	Manufacturing moves to lower-cost countries	Globalisation and TNCs	Rising wages and automation can move production again

Sectors in one line each

• Primary: extracting raw materials (farming, fishing, mining, forestry).
• Secondary: making things (factories, food processing, construction).
• Tertiary: services (teachers, nurses, shops, transport, banks, tourism).
• Quaternary: knowledge and research (software, R&D, data, consultancy).

How employment changes: low development = mostly primary; industrialising = secondary and tertiary grow as farms mechanise and people move to towns; high development = tertiary and quaternary dominate, secondary falls through automation and global shift.

Globalisation: causes and impacts

Causes: container shipping and jet travel; internet and mobile communication; TNC investment; lower tariffs and the WTO (set up 1 January 1995); special economic zones (China from 1980); cheap labour; growing markets.

Scale	Good	Bad
Local	Jobs, wages, skills, infrastructure	Low pay, poor conditions, pollution, sudden closures
National	Investment, exports, tax, technology	Profits leave, dependence on TNCs, local firms squeezed
Global	Cheaper goods, more trade	Uneven gains, emissions, job losses in older industrial areas

Case study summary: Nike

From Nike’s annual report for the year ending 31 May 2026:

• Headquarters near Beaverton, Oregon, USA (about 10,600 staff); regional headquarters in Hilversum (Netherlands) and Shanghai (China).
• Products made by independent contract manufacturers: footwear from 95 factories in 11 countries, about 52% Vietnam, 27% Indonesia, 16% China; apparel from 321 factories in 34 countries.
• Air-Sole cushioning made by a Nike subsidiary in Oregon, Missouri and Dong Nai, Vietnam.
• Distribution centres in the USA, Belgium, China, Japan and South Korea; about 56% of revenue from outside the USA; revenue about US$46.4 billion; about 73,000 employees.
• 1990s criticism over wages and conditions in contractor factories and child labour in football stitching in Pakistan; later codes of conduct, audits and a published factory list (Manufacturing Map).

Must-know distinctions

• GNP vs GNP per capita: the total versus the average per person. Only per capita compares living standards.
• Economic vs social indicators: income measures versus health, education and welfare measures.
• Between vs within: gaps between countries versus gaps between regions, rural and urban areas or groups inside one country.
• Secondary vs tertiary: making a product versus providing a service. A baker making bread is secondary; selling it in a shop is tertiary.
• Tertiary vs quaternary: a service delivered to people versus knowledge creation (research, information technology).
• TNC vs globalisation: a TNC is one company; globalisation is the wider process TNCs help drive.
• Describe vs explain: describe = what the pattern or trend is, with figures; explain = why it happens.

Mini essay plan

Question type: “Explain the benefits and problems of globalisation for countries at a low level of development. Justify whether the benefits outweigh the problems.”

1. Define globalisation and set the scale (local, national, global).
2. Benefits with evidence: TNC factory jobs, export earnings and technology. Use Nike’s footwear production in Vietnam and Indonesia.
3. Costs with evidence: low wages and poor conditions (Nike in the 1990s), profits leaving the country, dependence on a few TNCs, footloose investment.
4. Who gains and who loses: factory workers versus small local firms; urban versus rural areas; the poorest countries attract little investment.
5. Judgement: benefits are real but uneven; they depend on government policy, worker protection and the time scale. State and justify your view clearly.

Quick self-test

1. Name the three dimensions of the HDI.
2. What does PPP adjust for?
3. A fictional country has a GNP of US$24 billion and 8 million people. What is its GNP per capita?
4. Give one reason GNP per capita can be misleading.
5. Classify: a coal miner, a car assembly worker, a dentist, a software engineer.
6. What is the core-periphery pattern?
7. Give two reasons the share of primary employment falls as a country develops.
8. Name two technologies that helped globalisation.
9. When was the WTO set up?
10. Which three countries made most of Nike’s footwear in the year to May 2026?
11. Give one local negative impact of a TNC factory.
12. Why do many TNCs keep research and design in their home country?

Answers

1. A long and healthy life (life expectancy), knowledge (years of schooling) and a decent standard of living (GNI per capita, PPP).
2. Differences in the cost of living, so income reflects what money actually buys.
3. US$3,000 per person (24,000,000,000 ÷ 8,000,000).
4. It is an average, so it hides inequality; it also misses informal and unpaid work.
5. Primary, secondary, tertiary, quaternary.
6. A rich, well-connected core region with investment and jobs, and poorer, remote outer regions that people leave.
7. Mechanisation of farming; people move to better-paid urban jobs (also rising demand for services).
8. Container shipping; the internet (also jet aircraft, mobile phones).
9. 1 January 1995.
10. Vietnam, Indonesia and China.
11. Examples: low wages or long hours; pollution; loss of farmland; job losses if the factory moves.
12. Skilled, educated workers and research facilities are there, and these high-value activities bring the most profit.

Where marks are usually lost

• Quoting an indicator without units or without saying whether high or low means more developed (a high infant mortality rate means less developed).
• Saying the HDI is based on literacy; it now uses years of schooling.
• Describing a graph of employment change with no figures, no years and no direction of change.
• Confusing “explain” with “describe”: listing changes when the question asks why they happened.
• Putting construction, food processing or oil refining in the primary sector.
• Answering “inequalities within countries” with examples from different countries.
• Writing “TNCs exploit workers” with no place, no evidence and no balancing point.
• Giving local impacts only when the question asks about national or global scale.
• Using a TNC case study with no named countries, figures or links between headquarters, factories and markets.

Official syllabus

Cambridge IGCSE Geography (0460) syllabus for examination in 2025 and 2026, Version 2 (published November 2022), Theme 3: Economic development, topic 3.1 Development.