DEVELOPMENT-LATAM: An Agenda for Overcoming Disparities – ECLAC

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

BRASILIA, May 10 2002 (IPS) - A positive agenda aimed at building a new world order and surmounting the sharp inequalities evident in the current phase of globalisation is at the centre of debate at the 29the biennial sessions of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) this week in the Brazilian capital.

According to ECLAC, globalisation’s initial phase began in 1870 and was interrupted by World War I in 1914.

The process started up again after World War II in 1945, but did not repeat the great global mobility of capital and labour of the first phase. However, to some extent it was able to slow down the growing disparities between regions and countries, says the United Nations regional agency.

The third phase of globalisation, begun in 1973, saw inequalities accelerate along with the flow of capital and trade, but maintained the restrictions on the migration of people – and work forces. These phenomena were most intense in the 1990s.

“The only reasonable response” to these asymmetries is to modify globalisation itself, given that “mere resistance to such deeply-rooted processes is always defeated in the end,” said ECLAC executive secretary José Antonio Ocampo in his address inaugurating the ministerial phase of the agency’s biennial meeting Thursday in Brasilia.

ECLAC proposes improving global institutions in order to attend to three objectives: ensuring the appropriate management and distribution of the world’s public goods, overcoming the asymmetries plaguing the global economic order, and building an international social agenda based on rights.

Examples of global public goods and services include democracy – encompassing political and civil rights -, peace, security, disarmament, the fight against crime and corruption, environmental sustainability, cultural diversity and global financial stability.

The Santiago-based agency seeks an international effort to reduce economic instability and the threat posed by financial turbulence, to protect biodiversity and prevent global warming, which – like the other “goods” – represent benefits for all humanity.

Ocampo stressed that to correct existing asymmetries it is essential to adopt the principle of “shared but differentiated responsibilities,” as stipulated at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. Equal treatment for parties that are unequal can perpetuate and aggravate inequalities, he said.

ECLAC identifies three asymmetries that leave poor and developing countries in a comparatively inferior situation that is seemingly insurmountable.

The first is the high concentration of technological progress in industrialised countries and its slow and irregular dissemination throughout the rest of the world. Another is the greater macroeconomic vulnerability of developing countries, which have very limited resources for confronting crises.

The third inequality, which stands out in the current phase of globalisation, is the maintenance of barriers against the circulation of labour, while capital and trade enjoy great mobility. The ones who suffer the consequences of this are the lesser-skilled workers in poor countries.

The positive agenda that ECLAC is championing requires a “greater institutionality”, in other words, said Ocampo, a “network of institutions” that complement each other at the global, regional and national levels and which respect diversity.

The existing institutional structure, with few organisations of global scope, limit the balance of international relations, especially considering the differences in power among nations.

The operating rules and mechanisms of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and the international finance system are the areas where the need for change is greatest, Norman Girvan, secretary general of the Association of Caribbean States, told IPS, underscoring the specific vulnerabilities that small economies suffer today.

ECLAC’s proposals are based on a 396-page study, “Globalisation and Development”, that served as the central document for debate at the agency’s 29th sessions, its highest-level meeting.

The report covers the economic, financial, social, environmental, technological, commercial and population-related dimensions of development in Latin America and the Caribbean during the current globalisation process.

“The greatest paradox (of this process) is the absence of the internationalisation of politics,” commented Ocampo. Problems are increasingly globalised, but the political decisions continue to be made at the national level, which causes “a deficit of global governability.”

The ECLAC chief stressed that globalisation is “a multidimensional phenomenon that is not guided by economic determinism alone.”

There is also a “globalisation of values”, he said, such as respect for human rights and for the principles established at UN conferences on women’s equality, environmental protection and development.