Are the places in the world that are low in development ever going to improve significantly?

It just seems like the places that have been bad are always going to be bad. How long has Eastern Europe been in the “2nd world”? Are they ever going to improve? What about Africa? Most of it has been poor in development for so long…do you think these countries are ever going to significantly improve? What would make it happen?

This was inspired by looking at the map of human development: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/88/2006nian_Renlei_Fazhan_Zhishu.svg

The countries in green are the highest developed and the countries in red are the lowest. It measures things like wealth, literacy rates, life expectancy, standard of living, etc.