There is evidence of underdevelopment in third world countries. Indeed such indicators are significant. Several characteristics of underdevelopment are common LDCs.

Poverty and deprivation. People in LDCs are unable to meet their basic needs; the prevalent inaccessibility to food, health, education, housing, sanitation. When people are poor, they are weak. They cannot save and invest. This lowers the rate of economic development. It also lowers people's capacity to productive.

Debt crisis. The debts in poor countries are so big, which cannot be paid back e.g in Uganda, the external debts are externally financed.

Population and food disharmony. There is a negative correlation between food supply and population growth. As population increase is higher than food supply, the result could be starvation and misery.

Homelessness. Most people in developing countries do not have adequate shelter e.g. in Ethiopia, the Sudan and even Uganda, where refugees have no where to stay.

Health deficiencies. Health deficiencies are rampant in LDCs. There are many diseases and yet the health services cannot match with these diseases.

Unemployment and underemployment these tend to breed confusion and frustration among the people in the third world countries. Many people can be employed, though not fully utilized.

Economic stagnation. Poor nations have often been characterized by continuous decline in economic activity and low production.

Environmental destruction. Poverty in LDCs leads to over-exploitation of national resources, which may consequently, lead to environmental degradation. High population encourages people to encroach on the environment.

Persistent state of ruralness. There is no capacity to build towns. Most people are stuck in rural areas characterized by poverty.

Political Instability. Political instability dominates most of the third world countries, especially sub-saharan Africa. This has led to the destruction, loss of life and property. Where there is political instability, planning is hindered, which lowers the level of organizational capacity. Only inconsistent polices are likely to be made.

High rates of illiteracy. Irrelevant education and high illiteracy coupled with hurried educational reforms has led to several difficulties in financing such programmes. Ignorance has still, continued to prevail.

Human suffering. Misery and economic, political, and social hardship have tended to prevail in most developing countries.

A predominant agricultural sector. Poor nations are characterized with the dominant agricultural sector, which hardly generates output and employment.

Export oriented economy. Most of the exports for developing nations tend to concentrate on a few processed primary products.

Low incomes. Low incomes and income per capita are common in LDCs. This is mainly due to poor income distribution among individuals, regions, rural and urban areas, etc.

Low life expectancy. The average life expectancy in poor countries is below 50 years. This could be attributed to poor medical facilities, malnutrition and a widespread of diseases.

Limited market. Developing nations are also characterized by a limited domestic consumer market.

High population growth. Most of the poor countries experience a high rate population growth (3-4% per annum). This has consequently led to a large number of dependants.

Unskilled labour. Poor nations are characterized with abundant supply unskilled labour, inadequate entrepreneural and managerial abilities.

Lack of industrialization. There is a weak industrial sector with limited linkages, with other productive sectors of the national economy.

Limited levels of technology. Poor nations are further characterized with inadequate technology and lack of appropriate levels of technological progress.

Dependence. There is prevalent economic dependence and inter-dependence among the third world countries.

Insufficient capital. There is the obvious problem of deficiency in capital and capital accumulation.

Dualism. Poor countries are dominated by sectors at different levels of development, whereby one sector is superior and the other inferior.

Resource misallocation. Mis allocation of resources is a common feature of under-development. Quite often, economic resources are misappropriated by both the private and state sectors.

Income inequality. The economic gap between the poor and the rich is still large. Therefore, uneven distribution of incomes prevails and it is rampant.

Rural urban migration. Developing countries have high rates of rural urban migration i.e the movement of people from rural to urban areas is high.

Inflation. Inflation is common in most developing countries i.e the situation of increasing prices is always the order of the day.

Brain drain. There is a high influx of learned professionals fleeing from LDCs to most developed countries.

Balance of Payment deficits. Most developing nations are faced with severe balance of payments problems. Their foreign expenditure often exceeds their foreign exchange earnings in a year.

Traditionalism and conservatism. People in developing countries always fail to change from their traditional attitudes to modernity.

Limited levels of specialization. Poor countries have not tended to specialise to increase their scale of output. In addition, their levels of diversification are still limited.