Бедность как отрицательное последствие глобализации

The progress, though, was uneven across the globe. Growth in East Asia had meant that there were 500 million fewer people living below one dollar a day in 2001 than in 1981. (

http://www.rediff.com/money/2004/sep/30wbank.htm?zcc=ar)

The number of poor people had also fallen in South Asia and in the Middle East and North Africa, though less dramatically than in East Asia.

However, the absolute number of poor people had risen in African, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Europe and Central Asia.

Wolfensohn recalled his statement at the last annual meeting that the world he 'saw today was a world out of balance.' Of the six billion people of the world today, one billion people live in wealthy countries. They accounted for 80 per cent of the world’s gross domestic product, while the other 5 billion have 20 per cent.

While rich countries spent $ 700 billion a year on defence and transferred $ 325 billion to agriculture, they devoted only $ 68 billion as developmental aid. (

http://www.rediff.com/money/2004/sep/30wbank.htm?zcc=ar)

These global imbalances are reflected in the daily lives of poor people around the world. Two billion people have no access to clean water, 115 million children never get the chance to go to school, and some 38 million people — 95 per cent of them in developing countries — are HIV-positive, with little hope of receiving treatment. (

http://www.rediff.com/money/2004/sep/30wbank.htm?zcc=ar)

Most of the global development goals will not be met in most countries by the 2015 deadline, the report said.

«So the world is at a tipping point: either we in the international community recommit to delivering on the goals, or the targets we set in a fanfare of publicity will be missed, the world’s poor will be left even further behind, and our children will be left to face the consequences,» said Wolfensohn. (там же)

During the next 25 years, Wolfensohn pointed out, about 2 billion more people would be added to the global population, but only 50 million of them would be in the richer countries. (там же)

The vast majority will be born with the prospect of growing up in poverty and becoming disillusioned with a world they will inevitably view as inequitable and unjust. Terrorism is often bred in places where a fast-growing youth population has no hope, he said.

«We cannot ignore the rise of this more youthful world, «said Wolfensohn. «We need to face these realities, and we need to act on three issues in particular. «

«First, world trade talks, which can reduce agricultural protectionism and thus poverty in developing nations, must be pushed forward. Developing countries will gain nearly $ 325 billion by 2015 as a result, enough to lift 140 million out of poverty. Second, aid flows need to rise well above current commitments, and they need to be used more effectively. Although some increases have been made in recent years, almost a doubling of current development assistance levels will be required to meet the Millennium Development Goals,» he said. (

http://www.rediff.com/money/2004/sep/30wbank.htm?zcc=ar)

It was essential that donor countries fully replenish the International Development Association, the fund that delivers proven results for the world’s poorest nations.

«Third, we must push forward in relieving the debt burdens of the poorest countries by providing a larger proportion of additional aid in the form of grants rather than loans,» Wolfensohn added. (там же)

How do developing nations contend with poverty

Often, if governments try to improve situations for their people, they may face pressure or even military intervention by the powerful nations. (Ironic then, that the foremost backers of free trade point out that it will help reduce conflicts. It probably would, if there was truly free but fair and possibly managed to avoid problems related to power and undue influence. Today’s international trade is influenced by the wealthy.)

The powerful nations of course claim this is to save the other country, but it is usually to do with protecting «their» national interests; namely a constant supply of cheap resources or some other reason related ultimately to maintaining influence and power.

Dictators and other corrupt rulers have often been placed/supported in power by the wealthier nations to help fulfill those «national interests» in a similar way the old rulers of Europe used the Lords and Knights to control the peripheries and direct resources to the centers of capital. (Although, now, increasingly, «democracies» are supported, but ones where the economic choices are so limited, that the «democracy» provides a similar environment that a dictatorship did, for foreign investors, but without the overt violence and oppression.)

This means that it is hard to break out from poverty, or to reduce dependency from the US/IMF/World Bank etc.

Сonclusion

To sum it up, we can establish a fact, that those who benefit least from economic globalization are those who lack access to communications and capital, and as such are unable to take advantage of economic globalization. People and states that are underdeveloped, who have limited access to technology and capital therefore have limited opportunity to benefit from economic globalization.

Inequality is increasing around the world while the world appears to globalize. Even the wealthiest nation has the largest gap between rich and poor compared to other developed nations. In many cases, international politics and various interests have led to a diversion of available resources from domestic needs to western markets. Historically, politics and power play by the elite leaders and rulers have increased poverty and dependency. These have often manifested themselves in wars, hot and cold, which have often been trade and resource-related.

It’s needless to notice, that globalization often has been a very powerful force for poverty reduction, but too many countries and people have been left out, important reasons for this exclusion are weak governance and policies in the non-integrating countries, tariffs and other barriers that poor countries and poor people face in accessing rich country markets, and declining development assistance. Some anxieties about globalization are well-founded, but reversing globalization would come at an intolerably high price, destroying the prospects of prosperity for many millions of poor people.

C ritics of globalization, in fact, attribute the condition of the poor people of the world to globalization. I n fact, these critics of globalization are none other than the people whose main concern is the fate of the poor in the world. T hey believe that since the advent of globalization, competition has increased, the poor countries have gotten poorer and the poor people have been exposed to harmful and unfair competition. H aving said that, however, it is wrong to pinpoint that globalization is a single cause of the misery and poverty in the world.

I t is an important cause, but it is a combination of factors that determine why people get rich or poor. P overty, like wealth, is a multidimensional phenomenon and can be measured in different ways.

However, it can be concluded that globalization has steadily increased over the years and is now a universal problem.

The list of literature

Challenges and risks of globalization. Martin Wolf, Associate Editor and Chief Economics Commentator// Financial Times. March 24th 2007 year.(Electronic version)

«Widening Gap Between Rich and Poor», China’s Report on US Human Rights Record in 2000, reposted at University of Dayton, School of Law (

http://academic.udayton.edu/race/06hrights/GeoRegions/North)

«For richer, for fairer. Poverty reduction and income distribution», ID21 Insights Issue #31, September 1999 (

http://www.id21.org/insights/insights31/index.html)

http://www.unicef.org/sowc05/english/index.html

http://www.urban.org/publications/407 425.html#taba

http://www.rediff.com/money/2004/sep/30wbank.htm?zcc=ar

http://www.sociology.emory.edu/globalization/issues03.html

http://www.globalissues.org/TradeRelated/PovertyAroundTheWorld.asp

http://www.blurtit.com/q971114.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_disparity

http://www.vlc.ru/congress/en/information/plen_catalinich.htm

http://www.sociology.emory.edu/globalization/issues01.html

Appendix № 1

As for additional material I’d like to show the map of world poverty by country, showing percentage of population living on less than 1 dollar per day.

(

http://www.globalissues.org/TradeRelated/PovertyAroundTheWorld.asp)

Appendix № 2

World Bank data shows that the percentage of the population living in households with consumption or income per person below the poverty line has decreased in each region of the world since 1999:

Region 1990 2002 2004 East Asia and Pacific 15.

40% 12.

33% 9.

07% Europe and Central Asia 3.

60% 1.

28% 0.

95% Latin America and the Caribbean 9.

62% 9.

08% 8.

64% Middle East and North Africa 2.

08% 1.

69% 1.

47% South Asia 35.

04% 33.

44% 30.

84% Sub-Saharan Africa 46.

07% 42.

63% 41.

09% («Widening Gap Between Rich and Poor», China’s Report on US Human Rights Record in 2000, reposted at University of Dayton, School of Law

http://academic.udayton.edu/race/06hrights/GeoRegions/North)

Appendix № 3

I’d like to show different pictures that represent poverty around the world.

Siblings living in extreme poverty near a dump in El Salvador with no access to safe drinking water.

Women living in poverty wash their clothes by a road in Mumbai, India.