DEVELOPMENT: Globalisation Needs a Human Face, Says U.N.Report

By Thalif Deen Reprint | | Print |

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Jul 9 1999 (IPS) - The globalisation of the world economy has benefited some but marginalised more, according to the latest annual Human Development Report released Monday.

As the dominant force in the last decade of the 20th century, globalisation is shaping a new era of interaction among nations, economies and people.

“But it is also fragmenting production processes, labour markets, political entities and societies,” the report says.

“So, while globalisation has positive, innovative, dynamic aspects – it also has negative, disruptive and maginalising aspects,” the report warns.

The 262-page study, commissioned by the UN Development Programme (UNDP), argues that the advantages of global markets and competition can be preserved only by ensuring that “globalisation has a human face.”

“As long as globalisation is dominated by economic aspects and by the spread of markets, it will put a squeeze on human development,” says Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, director of the Human Development Report Office.

“We need a new approach to governance, one that preserves the advantages offered by global markets and competition while allowing for human, community and environmental resources that will ensure globalisation works for people and not just for profits,” she points out.

The study says that today’s interaction between nations and people are deeper than ever.

For example, world exports, now amounting to about 7.0 trillion dollars, averaged 21 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in the 1990s, compared with 17 percent of a much smaller GDP in the 1970s.

In 1997, foreign direct investment totaled 400 billion dollars, seven times the level in real terms in the 1970s.

At the same time, the daily turnover in foreign exchange markets increased from around 10 to 20 billion dollars in the 1970s to 1.5 trillion dollars in 1998.

People travel more – with tourism more than doubling between 1980 and 1996, from 260 million to 590 million travellers per year.

And despite tight restrictions, international migration continues to grow, with workers’ remittances reaching 58 billion dollars in 1996 alone.

“Travel, the Internet and the media have stimulated exponential growth in the exchange of ideas and information, and people today engage more than ever in associations that span national borders – from informal networks to formal organisation,” the study notes.

The report also says that the world is more prosperous now, with average per capita incomes having more than tripled as global GDP increased nine-fold, from 3.0 trillion dollars to 30 trillion dollars in the past 50 years.

The share of people enjoying medium human development rose from 55 percent in 1975 to 66 percent in 1997, and the share in low human development fell from 20 percent to 10 percent.

“But these trends mask great uneveness – in the advances and the new setbacks,” the report says.

Despite the tremendous progress in the 20th century, the world today faces huge backlogs of deprivation and inequality that leave huge disparities between countries and regions.

Measured by a human poverty index, more than a quarter of the 4.5 billion people living in developing countries still do not have some of life’s most basic choices – survival beyond 40, access to knowledge and minimum private and public services.

Richard Jolly, principal coordinator of the Report, says that it is necessary to put human concerns at the centre of the globalisation debate.

This will bring about an end to the polarisation between the connected and the unconnected and also help focus on the global interdependence of people – not just financial flows.

In short, he explains, “the aim is to make globalisation work for people, not just for profits.”

Among the proposed new initiatives, the study calls for a new Global Forum that will include multinational corporations, trade unions and non-governmental organisations in a dialogue that broadens global governance and gives rich and poor peple a louder voice in global decision-making.

Additionally, it calls for the establishment of an Independent Legal Aid Centre and Ombudsman to help poorer countries in their international negotiations at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and an extended mandate for the WTO to include anti-trust provisions and a code of conduct for multinational corporations.

Other proposals include the establishment of high-level units in each developing country to deal with globalisation policy issues and better manage and coordinate national responses to the diverse opportunities and challenges of globalisation; and an international public programme to fund the development of biotechnology, information and communications technologies to meet the main technological needs of poor people.