This assignment calls for you to select two Less Developed Countries  (LDCs) and assess if there are any factors that are common to both as  far as their development is concerned. Your two countries m

This assignment calls for you to select two Less Developed Countries  (LDCs) and assess if there are any factors that are common to both as  far as their development is concerned. Your two countries must come from the following list:

 Burundi

Benin

Cameroon

Nigeria

 Nicaragua

Guatemala

Central African Republic

North Korea

 Angola

Ghana

Chad

Yemen

 Eritrea

Cuba

Congo

Thailand

 Egypt

Iran 

Equatorial Guinea

Zimbabwe

 Zambia

Oman

Ethiopia

Philippines

 Congo

Liberia

Gabon

Bahrain

Tanzania

India 

Guyana

Mexico

El Salvador

Lebanon

Honduras

Pakistan

Syria

Guinea

Kenya

Sri Lanka

Algeria

Gambia

Mozambique

Senegal

 Malawi

Indonesia

Namibia

Vietnam

 Morocco

Myanmar

Rwanda

Haiti

 Sudan

Bolivia

Somalia

Kuwait

 Mauritania

Mali

South Africa

Iraq

 Botswana

Bangladesh 

Tunisia

Niger

 Libya

 Malaysia

Uganda

Panama

Source: United Nations, 2014

It may help you to be familiar with the concept of poor governance,  because this often plays a significant part in why a country is  underdeveloped. According to the World Bank, governance  is defined as how power is exercised in the management of a country's  economic and social resources for development. Therefore, if good governance is synonymous with sound development management, then poor governance  means a government has failed to deliver desirable outcomes for its  people. This could mean that officials are corrupt, not transparent with  their decisions, unqualified to make decisions in the first place, or  prone to make decisions based on racism, tribalism or ethnicity — all of  which are very common practices in LCDs.

The most common factor used to decide whether countries are  underdeveloped nations is through the Human Development Index. Countries  that are underdeveloped in nature offer poor health care, few  educational opportunities, a low average life expectancy, a low number  of job opportunities, few recreational facilities, poor economic growth,  a low standard of living and a poverty-stricken life.

Instructions: 

Write at least a six-page paper, in which you:

1.  Identify the two LDCs (from the list above), which you will compare and assess. Explain why you chose these two countries. 
2. Analyze the features that the LDCs have in common using at least five of the following nine factors (clearly label the five factors using headings):
   1.  geography 
   2. extractive institutions 
   3. governmental corruption 
   4. internal or external conflicts 
   5. shaky financial systems 
   6. unfair judicial systems 
   7. ethnic, racial or tribal disparities 
   8. lack or misuse of natural resources 
   9. closed (statist) economies 
3. Use at least seven credible sources. Wikipedia,  encyclopedias, dictionaries, blogs and other material that does not  qualify as reputable academic source work at the college level. Do not  use sources that are older than seven years.0p