*{How Can Globalization Deliver the Goods: The View from the South [http://www.weforum.org/site/knowledgenavigator.nsf/Content/How%20Can%20Globalization%20Deliver%20the%20Goods%3A%20The%20View%20from%20the%20South?open&topic_id=300250000&theme_id=300]

            25.01.2001

            Annual Meeting 2001}

            Leaders of governments from the South told business leaders that globalization remains desirable and indeed inevitable, but greater cooperation is essential to make the process more equitable and to reverse a widening gap between rich and poor nations. The blue-ribbon panel from the developing world condemned policies that foster trade and economic integration at the expense of poorer nations.

            "The evidence points to exclusion rather than integration, deprivation rather than benefit," said President Benjamin William Mkapa of Tanzania.

            In the opening session, the panellists decried a tendency for wealthier nations to pursue their own interests in the name of globalization and called for a closer partnership in setting a global agenda that can help cushion the shock of globalization on emerging economies.

            "We need to have global coordination of economic policies," said Supachai Panitchpakdi, Deputy Prime Minister of Thailand and the next head of the World Trade Organization.

            Forum Managing Director Claude Smadja opened the panel discussion by recognizing that globalization has thus far failed to "deliver the goods." "Globalization cannot be a one-way street," he said. "We need a much more balanced process in managing globalization."

            President Mkapa said countries like Tanzania can play a part in the global economy so long as governments and corporations in the industrialized world give them the chance to build the right environment to do so. But he questioned whether the wealthy North was sincere in its desire to share globalization’s dividends. Despite the promise of increasing trade, economic growth and the eradication of "dehumanizing poverty," he said, the world’s poorer countries are growing relatively poorer and the digital divide is widening.

            Mkapa also warned of a new, more worrisome divide. While AIDS is becoming a somewhat manageable disease in the North, it rages unchecked in the South. A gap is emerging in the very value placed on human life, he said.

            Globalization will only win support in Africa when it can demonstrate results. In particular, he pointed to Africa’s poor infrastructure, its shrinking share of global trade and its growing foreign debt. Greater investment and debt relief must accompany globalization.

            "The challenge is to be able to translate into real benefits these theoretical benefits which are supposed to flow from globalization," added Yashwant Sinha, India’s Minister of Finance. In India, for instance, the global economy has reached the remotest provinces in the form of satellite television. His own constituents, he noted, followed with amusement the recent US election controversy. And globalization, manifested in India’s own liberalization of investment and trade, has helped boost economic growth, Sinha said.

            But a double standard endures when it comes to creating sustainable growth. While the West may deliver sermons to the developing world on the dangers of untrammelled expansion, it is the West’s affluent lifestyles that pose the greatest threat to the environment.

            Sinha also condemned immigration policies that rob developing nations of the best and brightest. Citing statistics from a German magazine, he noted that 38% of all US doctors and 12% of its scientists are Indian. Indians also comprise a significant portion of the workforce at such companies as Microsoft, International Business Machines and Intel, he said.

            "The time has come when the North must realize that there are strengths in the South," he declared. "The South is not looking for charity. We are looking for equal opportunities."

            Marcus Vinicius Pratini de Moraes, Minister of Agriculture and Food Supply of Brazil, used agricultural subsidies to illustrate what he described as the same double standard. The rich countries of the world hand out US$ 1 billion in agricultural subsidies a day, depressing commodity prices and discouraging new agricultural investment in developing countries. Regulations on sanitary quality, moreover, are being used unjustly to protect domestic growers. "If we want to ensure that developing countries benefit from the results of globalization, we must ensure that their products remain competitive in terms of exports to international markets," he said.

            Referring to failed trade talks last year in Seattle, Supachai noted that most of the countries that came to talk were not ready to negotiate. It may take time, he said, before countries are ready to be flexible. But future trade talks would also need to include greater consideration of the demands of developing countries. Supachai said: "The development agenda needs to be incorporated into the new round."

            Asia’s financial crisis underscores the risks of globalization. The situation in financial markets exacerbated what might otherwise have been a mild reaction to a corporate sector that was over-leveraged, he said. What emerges as the central lesson of the crisis, he said, is the danger of calamity in one market spreading to others. Greater international cooperation is needed to forestall future crises.                  

                  *{Contributors:       Mkapa Benjamin William
                  Moraes Marcus Vinicius
                  Panitchpakdi Supachai
                  Sinha Yashwant
                  Smadja Claude}