Editing Third World (section)

=== Development aid ===
{{Main|Development aid}}
[[File:Least Developed Countries Map New.svg|thumb|A map of the world with [[Least Developed Countries|Least Developed Countries]], as designated by the [[United Nations]], highlighted in red and countries formerly considered least developed highlighted in yellow]]
During the Cold War, unaligned countries of the Third World<ref name="Tomlinson">{{cite journal |last=Tomlinson |first=B.R. |date=2003 |title=What was the Third World |journal=[[Journal of Contemporary History]] |volume=38 |number=2 |pages=307–321|doi=10.1177/0022009403038002135 |s2cid=162982648 }}</ref> were seen as potential allies by both the First and Second World. Therefore, the United States and the Soviet Union went to great lengths to establish connections in these countries by offering economic and military support to gain strategically located alliances (e.g., the Soviet Union in Cuba).<ref name="Tomlinson" /> By the end of the Cold War, many Third World countries had adopted capitalist or communist economic models and continued to receive support from the side they had chosen. Throughout the Cold War and beyond, the countries of the Third World have been the priority recipients of Western [[foreign aid]] and the focus of [[economic development]] through mainstream theories such as [[modernization theory]] and [[dependency theory]].<ref name="Tomlinson" />

By the end of the 1960s, the idea of the Third World came to represent countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America that were considered underdeveloped by the West based on several characteristics: low economic development, low [[life expectancy]], high rates of poverty and disease, and others.<ref name="Gregory" /> These countries became the targets for aid and support from governments, [[non-governmental organization]]s (NGOs), and individuals from wealthier nations. One popular model, known as [[Rostow's stages of growth]], argued that development took place in five stages: traditional society, pre-conditions for take-off, take-off, drive to maturity, and age of high mass consumption.<ref name="reference">Westernizing the Third World (Ch 2), Routledge</ref> [[W. W. Rostow]] argued that "take-off" was the critical stage with which the Third World was struggling, which some argued could be facilitated through foreign aid.<ref name="reference"/>