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The late Mahbubul Haq had very aptly summarized the debate on globalization by observing that ‘Globalisation is no longer an option, it is a fact. Developing countries have either to learn to manage it far more skillfully or simply drown in the global cross currents’. The anti-capitalist sentiment, protests and rhetoric in the past few years have helped focus the attention on the negative aspects of globalization. But the potential gains from globalization have either been deliberately understated or mired in the notion that these gains will only make rich countries and multinational corporations better off. No attempt is even made to explaining the differences between South Korea and North Korea, Malaysia and Myanmar, and East Asia and Africa in terms of their relative differentiated linkages with global economy. It is hardly mentioned that India and China, the two most populous countries in the world with almost one half of the world’s poor have demonstrated that integration in the global economy is indeed the way out of poverty through the mechanism of high rates of economic growth. There is strong evidence that free trade does not put poor countries at a disadvantage; it helps them. A World Bank study shows that 24 developing countries that increased their integration into the world economy over two decades ending in the late 1990s achieved higher growth in incomes, longer life expectancy and better schooling. These countries home to some 3 billion people, enjoyed an average 5 percent growth in income per capita in the 1990s compared to 2 percent in rich countries. These countries have been catching up with the rich ones – their annual growth rates increased from 1 percent in the 1960s to 5 percent in the 1990s. People in these integrating countries saw their wages rise and the number of people in poverty declined.

Publication Source

Human Development Centre

Publication Date

10-29-2001

Pages

15

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