TERM 1
Limited resources to satisfy needs and wants
Unlimited wants is one of the basic problems of shortages faced by communities everywhere in the world. Because human wants are unlimited, there will never be enough resources to satisfy everyone’s wants.
Limited resources means that there are fixed amounts of raw materials, labour, money, land, and work opportunities available to produce the goods and services that people want. South Africa has many different kinds of minerals and plants, but does not have enough good drinking water to meet the needs of its population. There is a lot of land, but much of it is not suitable for agriculture, to grow food crops and raise livestock. These shortages means that many people struggle to meet their basic needs.
Lack of job opportunities means that many people cannot find permanent work – they do not have a regular income and struggle to meet even their basic needs. This means that individuals have to make choices and go without some of their wants.
Most of our basic needs are satisfied by natural resources, goods and services that are provided by businesses.
Government also supplies some of our needs, such as basic housing, clean water, sanitation, electricity and health care. They do this by building water storage dams, coal and nuclear power stations for electricity, and paying for public works programmes to build schools, hospitals, roads and other expensive infrastructure. Government uses taxes it collects from working individuals and from profitable businesses to pay for these things. But the more the population grows and unemployment increases, the more the government struggles to find enough money to pay for all these needs.
Activity 5 Identify limited resources
Work in small groups. 1 Discuss which resources are plentiful and which are limited in your area and community.
2 List the resources you get from businesses and those which are supplied by government or the local municipality.
3 Discuss what people in your community do to overcome the difficulties of limited resources.
4 Present your findings as a poster for display in the classroom. Think of interesting ways to illustrate your poster.
(4) (4) (2) (30) Total: 40 marks Exam word present: give
information in a well- prepared way
New word
minerals: a solid substance that occurs naturally and that comes from the earth
Unit 2 Needs and wants 23
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