Desarrollo 1

GLOBALIZATION:
A CURSE OR A BLESSING ON
THE ROAD TO
THE MILLENNIUM
DEVELOPMENT GOALS?
Josep Ripoll Borrell

documentos
Serie: Desarrollo y cooperacin

Nmero 1. Globalization: A curse or a blessing on the road to the
Millennium Development Goals?

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GLOBALIZATION: A CURSE OR A BLESSING ON
THE ROAD TO THE MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT
GOALS?
Josep Ripoll Borrell*
October 2006
*Ex United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD)

Ex University of Geneva
Two representative icons come to mind when considering causality
between globalization and the Millennium Development Goals
(MDGs). One is growth, economic growth. The second is power,
political, economic power. Domestic growth is essential for countries
afflicted by extreme poverty and hunger and, more generally, by the
universe of ignorance and dispossession of basic rights and human
entitlements targeted by the MDGs.
The growth emblem underlies, at the same time, the globalization
process the world is going through. Globalization gives rise to the
creation, production, distribution, and consumption of goods and
services on an unprecedented scale. That process is meant to increase
economic activity for people, enterprises and countries through freer
international trade, direct foreign investment, and capital market flows.
The combination of all these factors would provide unambiguous
growth for all.
The power emblem is also behind the dynamics of the globalization
process and the political groundwork that led to the MDGs. Both the
MDGs and globalization are relatively modern brands but in many
respects they have solid precedents and political implications. At the
end of the Second World War the submission to metropolitan powers
by the now independent developing countries was equated with
restrictions to trade and with poverty. Getting rid of poverty and trade
barriers was made an emblem of independence, a major inspiration in
the resistance against colonialism which, among other effects, curtailed
trade outlets with territories other than the metropolitan. Jawaharlal
Nehrus resolve in 1946 (quoted in Bhagwati, 2004: 52) reflects a most
popular mind-set of that time: to insure an adequate standard of living
for the masses; in other words, to get rid of the appalling poverty of the
people [to] insure an irreducible minimum standard for everybody.
In fact, the anti-colonial struggle built into many of the ideals that have
5
now been highlighted by the international community: a wide aspiration

for less poverty, less sickness and more health, culture, education,
integrity development, in short. In a sense, aspirations to independence
were an anticipated cry for the 2000 Goals.
Globalization also has a strong flavour of dominant power.
Globalization: increased international flows of goods, services, and
finance, driven by new information technologies, transportation means
and systems, corporate strategies, financial flows. And with all that goes
new production and distribution systems commanding new rules of the
game in the international economic relations and the emergence of new
hegemonic powers. New rules enlarge the scope of use of new
technologies which, in turn, contribute to the shaping of new rules.
Globalization is for world powers both the result and the instrument of
their hegemony.
This question belongs to a much larger field of complex interactions
between trade, new technologies, information strategies, domination
and development or lack of it. I just wish to contribute to the debate
with some comments on globalization and its contribution, positive,
negative, or neutral, to the resources, financial and otherwise, required
in order to achieve the MDGs. I thus concentrate on the incidence of
domestic economic growth on the Millennium Development Goals
(section 1), and the incidence of globalization on domestic economic
growth (section 2).
How will the world look in 2015 if the Goals are achieved?
More than 500 million people will be lifted out of extreme
poverty. More than 300 million will no longer suffer from
hunger. There will also be dramatic progress in child health.
Rather than die before reaching their fifth birthdays, 30 million
children will be saved. So will the lives of more than 2 million
mothers [Investing in Development. A Practical Plan to Achieve
the MDGs, 2005].
6 Documentos CIDOB, Desarrollo y cooperacin

Globalization: A curse or a blessing on the road to the Millennium Development Goals?
1. Economic Growth and the Millennium Development

Goals
Sub-Saharan Africa, most dramatically, has been in a

downward spiral of AIDS, resurgent malaria, falling food
output per person, deteriorating shelter conditions, and
environmental degradation, so that most countries in Africa are
far off track to achieve most or all of the Goals. Climate change
could worsen the situation by increasing food insecurity,
spreading vector-borne diseases, and increasing the likelihood of
natural disasters, while a prolonged decline in rainfall in parts of
Africa has already wreaked havoc. Meanwhile, for some Goals,
such as reducing maternal mortality and reversing the loss of
environmental resources, most of the world is off track. The
early target for gender parity in primary and secondary
educationwith a deadline of 2005will be missed in many
countries. The Millennium Development Goals are too
important to fail. It is time to put them on the fast-track they
require and deserve. [Investing in Development. A Practical
Plan to Achieve the MDGs, 2005]
Correlations: Growth Rates / Poverty Rates.
Growth is rightly considered at the center of any strategy to achieve

the MDGs (Berg and Qureshi, 2005:21). However broadly the Goals
are defined, there can be little doubt that their realization must be
underpinned by robust growth (United Nations, 2000). This is
particularly valid for some basic Goals, such as those aimed at the
eradication of extreme poverty, the setting up educational institutions,
the ensuring of safe drinking water for all, and others. Programmes set
up for those purposes demand substantial financial resources which
only economic growth can provide.
Nmero 1, 2006 7
Countries with no GDP growth, or negative growth, are those

where poverty rates persist or worsen. Sub-Saharan Africa is the
epicentre of that poverty universe, with continuing food insecurity, a
rise in extreme poverty, stunningly high child and maternal mortality
rates, and large numbers of people living in slums - a widespread
shortfall for most of the Development Goals (Investing in
Development, 2005).
At the other end of the spectrum are most of the East Asian countries,
plus India, which are buoyant when compared with stagnant Africa. As
quoted by Bhagwati (2004: 65): The last three decades saw a reversal
of roles between Africa and Asia: in the 1970s, 11 % of the worlds poor
were in Africa and 76 % in Asia. By 1998, Africa hosted 66 % of the
poor and Asias share had declined to 15 %. Clearly, this reversal was
caused by the very different aggregate growth performance.
Asian performance has been remarkable. And among Asian
countries, China is paradigmatic. According to World Bank estimates,
real income has grown at an annual average rate of 10 percent and,
according to the Asian Development Bank, poverty has declined from
an estimated 28 percent to 9 percent. Other sources practically
concord. According to the United Nations Development Programs
(2005) Chinas Human Development Report 2005, China succeeded
in lifting 250 million people out of poverty over the past 25 years.
A causal relationship between growth and poverty eradication is well
established. Contrary to the opinion that poverty increases
notwithstanding increased growth rates, the world as a whole is
becoming richer and the large group of people close to the poverty line
has been shrinking since 1970, giving rise to a large middle class
according to Sala-i-Martin (2005). The $1/day poverty rate has fallen
from 20 per cent of the worlds population to 5 per cent over the last
25 years and the $2/day poverty rate has fallen from 44 per cent of the
worlds population to 18 per cent. There were between 300 and 500
million fewer poor people in 1988 than there were in the 1970s.

However, average data gloss over dramatic differences within and

among developing countries. For all the recent achievements, poverty
persists in Asia. Even in China and other fast-growing countries of
South-East Asia hundreds of millions of people remain in extreme
poverty, and these countries fail by far to achieve some of the other
Goals, mainly the non-income ones. Mixed records are found, notably
in Latin America, the transition economies, and the Middle East and
North Africa, with slow or no progress on some of the Goals and
persistent inequalities undermining progress on others.
From Growth to Goals: The Uncertain Itinerary
Consideration of the growth effects on MDGs should not overlook, if

only for the record, alternative, makeshift pro-poor measures and
informal income transfers that would complement growth or make it
less essential. The non-working poor, in particular, are expected to
depend in the first place upon intra-family, primary networks and
associative solidarity. Private transfers represent a sensible source of
income for them. Begging is a common crude makeshift for alleviating
hunger and providing a protecting roof. Helping the underclass is seen
as a means for indoctrination. In exchange for their help, radical
religious groups obtain a credibility and popularity that improve their
scope and influence in poor populations. Islamism, Destremau (2001)
points out, is seen as a viable alternative by dissatisfied popular masses
and impoverished middle classes; it is recruiting on university campuses
and developing palliative social services in deprived areas. These
alternatives may pave the way to changes in the social and economic
terrain that call for attention.
Other external private, non-profit charities and NGOs (Non-
Governmental Organizations) are also in the forefront of poverty
alleviation basically, therefore, in line with the MDGs philosophy, and
have recorded significant successes although data on this and other
Nmero 1, 2006 9
related subjects should be taken with caution: it generally is biased

towards reporting success rather than failures.1 However, for all the
significant pro-poor actions and closeness to community of many of
them, in many instances they lack a necessary level of credibility,
programme stability, formal entitlement, and accountability (Joshi and
Moore, 2002: 46). More often than not, their proliferation,2 variety of
purposes, operational methods, cultural contexts, and transparency
patterns (or lack thereof ), do not permit generalizations on their real
contributions and can not be taken as a reliable and steady instrument
to poverty alleviation.
The role of external aid also calls for some caution. For all the efforts
and resources it mobilizes, its efficacy in poverty eradication has been
challenged. In most instances, either the volume of resources does not
correlate with poverty elimination or the correlation is negative (Rajan
and Subramanian, 2005). Without causality being established, it is
often found that more aid coincides with more poverty. Not only that,
1. The following opinion sounds all too familiar to me: When interviewing officers at
a UN organization I was told they were discouraged from reporting failures to
headquarters; it would go on their personal files and reflect negatively on their future
careers. Some avoided this difficult situation by not reporting at all on an
unsuccessful intervention, while others would redefine the outcome and present an
enhanced result. (yen, 2002:11). A display of positive results, she says, favorably
increases the image of politicians and the bureaucracy and can be used to increase
the flow of goodwill and money in many organizations.
2. Writing in the aftermath of the Seattle riots that disrupted the WTOs ministerial
meeting in November and December 1999, The Economist reported an estimate of
the NGOs in India at a million and the NGOs worldwide at two million: a proportion
that could not have been guessed at by the layman from the virtual monopoly of
Western-dominated NGOs on the streets and in the corridors of the Seattle
meetings (Bhagwati, 2004:36-37).

it is claimed that financial aid flows would have systematic adverse

effects on a countrys competitiveness, as they push up the local
exchange rate, hence hindering export activities and discouraging local
manufactures. All in all, NGOs and aid flows are not denied positive
outcomes in poverty eradication but their contribution to growth is
more difficult to assess.
If growth is accepted to be almost the only major input to the MDGs,
a first obvious consideration comes to mind: economic growth is
expected, in turn, to be one of the Goals major outcomes. Less poverty,
higher employment rates, better health and educational facilities, fewer
epidemics, the promotion of women in civil societies and other
objectives embodied in the MDGs are no doubt going to mobilize idle
resources and thus make relevant contributions to growth in amazing
proportions. Causes and effects are blurred; growth is instrumental to
poverty eradication and so is poverty eradication for growth. Most
relevant in this respect are categories of Goals such as gender equality
and empowerment of women, elimination of gender disparity in
primary and secondary education, and other Goals that demand less of
financial resources than of a new social and democratic perspective and
a specific institutional framework.
In this respect, the question is not only the evaluation of the adequate
volume of growth necessary to carry out the programmes and activities
involved but also the way growth and the resulting resources are
translated into effective results in terms of MDGs. Beyond ideological or
doctrinaire options, the question involves a time constraint and a
distribution issue. MDGs, once achieved, will most likely pay for their
initial cost, but only after a period of time that may be considerable and
only if distributive issues have been fittingly dealt with. A popular
argument linking growth and poverty eradication suggests that growth
generates investments and from them it yields productive capacity,
employment, higher salaries and personal incomes, fiscal revenues, and a
budget leeway permitting public investments and pro-poor policy-
Nmero 1, 2006 11
making. This means, so the argument goes, that income growth or

increased GDP does not have to be necessarily directed to the lowest strata
of the population and those in need of poverty reduction measures,
because its benefits will eventually trickle down to them, in one way or
another, in a kind of automatic process: development at the national level
would improve the well-being of all sections of the population.
When confronted with poverty, the initial reaction of the government
seems inclined to make the scarce resources available with a priority
public expenditure. Some official opinions have it right: it is best to
ameliorate poverty as far as possible while waiting for development to
occur, as poverty breeds poverty. Then, because public resources are
limited and globalization has changed the rules of the game and
curtailed the decision margins of the national government (next
section), donors, business, bureaucracy, academia, financial institutions,
international organizations, step in: market development becomes the
key word to poverty eradication. Liberalize market forces, take fiscal
measures to favour new investments, add a few social safety-nets in
order to allow the poorest to placate their irritation and, at best, catch
the train of growth, and the economic machinery should, almost
spontaneously, solve the problem of poverty.
In such a philosophy, growth makes not only the rich richer but it will
also bring gains to all because they [rich people] have a much higher
propensity to save and invest than the poor and because they are more
likely to protect the moves towards greater openness which should bring
growth dividends to all. The market works autonomously and takes care
of distribution, according to the composition of national resources and
relative endowments of labour, land, human capital and physical and
financial capital.
In this argumentation, any explicit off-market redistributive policies are
ruled out for other reasons as well. Specific direct pro-poor policies and
public programmes (e.g. jobs, housing, food rations, transportation
subsidies) often miss their objective as they dry up resources, financial and

otherwise, that would be essential for more investments in productive

activities that would eventually mobilize idle resources and generate
further employment and growth. A policy of distribution of resources
only on the basis of poverty rates would lead to impoverishment for
everyone. This may have at best one-off benefits for the poor (unless when
they are appropriated by the non-poor), but they will eventually choke off
any further progress, to the impoverishment of everyone. Growth should
therefore fall into the hands of investors,3 preferably private ones, as
investments bring about employment and make room for better salaries,
which would ensure a long-lasting prosperity for all.
In addition to the basic faith in the efficacy of the market to bring about
the desired results and the idea that manipulating the market would
distort its positive workings, there is also the fear that significant
redistributive measures will scare away private investors, local and foreign.
Actually, investors and potential providers of foreign direct investment
(FDI) would assimilate anti-poverty measures and other redistributive
policies to obstacles to the dynamics of market forces and thus contrary
to their investment strategies (Mkandawire, 2004). An additional reason,
as explained in the next section, stems from the fiscal and budgetary
constraints and conditionality norms imposed by external financial
agencies in their programmes for financial assistance, which restrain
national policy-making if contrary to the basis tenets of fiscal discipline.
More than that: any strategy implying resources aimed directly at
reducing poverty without going through basic investments would
eventually increase the importance of government and of its left-wing
establishment parties. Accurate or not, this opinion has been very
3. Keynes: If the rich had spent their new wealth on their enjoyments [in the 19th
century system] the world would long ago have found such a regime intolerable. But
like bees (the rich) saved and accumulated, not least to the advantage of the whole
community.
Nmero 1, 2006 13
popular in non-poor bureaucracy, official and private, which has

traditionally chided very active poverty-reducing programmes. Some
of these groups wield forces that have been likely responsible for
keeping down the poor for centuries and there is little indication the
picture has changed. As yen (2002: 13) says: At no time have
efficient poverty-reducing measures come about without resistance
from vested interest groups.
However, experience has shown here and there that, while admitting
the markets primordial role in bringing about growth, and with
growth to be the principal strategy for raising incomes and hence
consumption and living standards of the marginalized poor,
spontaneous income distribution is not forthcoming (Bhagwati, 2004:
54). It is seldom true that growth will pull up the poor into gainful
employment through market mechanisms. In particular, increases in
income do not automatically result in nutritional improvement even
for very poor and malnourished populations (Bhagwati, 2004: 59). For
still more reasons, automatisms are not forthcoming for projects that,
like those embodied in the MDGs, entail public spending and
investment to such a large extent.
These comments and analysis sound familiar to former colonies,
where, as I pointed out above, poverty eradication and growth
distribution have traditionally had a strong political component.
conditions for market development (in Africa) are not fully in
place, and thus governments have to fill the gap. As Gray Mgonja,
Deputy Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Finance, Tanzania, says (in
Barbone, 1999: 141). In the short run, market development is not
expected to deliver the basic social services. And even if it could,
social service delivery alone may not be sufficient to create the
conditions for economic growth. Brian Raftopoulos (2001), a
research fellow at the University of Zimbabwe, highlights the tone of
a more radical discourse, very common to the liberation movements,
on a decisive state intervention in pro-poor policies often

punctuated by a general, populist and imprecise commitment to

redistributive policies namely poverty eradication policies in a
vague socialist rhetoric. A more moderate argument is epitomized in
Zimbabwes Bernard Chidzero, a friend and colleague of mine at
UNCTAD who was later to become the first Minister of Economic
Planning and Development in his country of origin: Equity in the
distribution of wealth and income is one of the cornerstones of our
economic policy.
Realities and idiosyncrasies dictate a complicated path towards the
objectives of making economic growth directly aimed at poverty
eradication. A peculiar feature of those different options is that the
interested poor populations are generally politically weak as compared
with public agencies, government bureaucracies, lobbies, and
entrepreneurial classes. The result is that the poor are usually excluded
from the discussion over pro-poor programmes and strategies.
Especially in the countryside, they may be even detested by official
and private groups in the capitals or, at least, not be given the
attention they deserve.4 The image of the Moroccan social poor
matches classical definitions of idle, dependent, illiterate large
families, in a rather stereotyped fashion (Destremau, 2001).
Marginalization can also be observed in particular contexts, in
relation to identities based on class, race, ethnicity and/or gender
(Wilson et al., 2001: Introduction: 11).
Indeed, in many popular minds, public programmes directly aimed
at the poor often are either seen as encouragements to laziness and
dependency - or a leakage into the pockets of the non-poor, who are
more organized, articulate and informed (World Bank 1997, ch.3).
4. For an excellent discussion about a necessary concordant relationship between

groups of poor people and external agencies, see Joshi and Moore, in yen et al.
(2002): Enabling Environments and Effective Anti-Poverty Programmes.
Nmero 1, 2006 15
The issue is not a World Bank hoax, as many would believe, but a
reality in many countries. A leakage problem in public distribution
programmes has been highlighted in different places. As Joshi and
Moore (2002: 33) point out, even if economic growth allows
sufficient margin for adopting efficient poverty eradication measures,
strategies to counteract those who fight for their vested interests may
be just as necessary as actual poverty-reducing strategies. The
description of the problem they offer lends credibility to their
opinion:
in so far as jobs, houses, food rations, transport subsidies,

school places and medical services formally intended for the
poor are actually appropriated by the non-poor (the neo-liberal
prediction), it is in the implementation stage that this is
especially likely to occur. Poor people generally lack political
resources. This is particularly true in poor countries, where they
are likely to be physically dispersed and face high transport and
communication costs; to be ill-educated; to be (partially)
excluded from the public sphere because they cannot
understand the language or dialect of elites and government;
and to face government agencies and bureaucratic processes that
are weakly institutionalised, informal and accessible mainly to
those who have privileged personal or social connections. Those
connections can most effectively be employed during
implementation.
especially in poor countries characterized by high degrees of
income inequality and socio-political polarization, reformist
regimes and politicians often use the implementation phase to
redistribute income or assets to the poor in non-transparent
ways, trying to avoid mobilizing the opposition of the wealthy
and powerful by providing them with few specific targets or
grievances.

Underlying the various political options on distribution strategies, the

policy dilemma arises: Take the goal to reducing by half the proportion
of destitute, hungry people. If it is to be given high and urgent priority
and to be attained in time, the question is whether that urgency is
compatible with a long-term elaboration and preparation, mainly made
up of investment in human capital formation, public infrastructure, and
other investments that are aimed at providing further and more
sustainable growth. Development theories decades ago focused on
growth through capital accumulation. There was a mistrust of the
private sector and little mention of entrepreneurship or social inclusion.
A theoretical shift occurred, with less asserted policy-making. Since
there exists no scientifically based method to decide if one kind of
intervention leads to comprehensive poverty reduction faster than
another, the decision-making field is open to many interested players
(yen, 2002: 22).
In fact, MDGs would require both a one-shot set of measures aimed
at correcting the most glaring poverty situations and an unrelenting and
consistent policy in a long-term perspective that is not going to pay off
immediate returns. This is in essence the strategy that an independent
advisory body headed by Professor Jeffrey Sachs (Investing in
Development, 2005) put forward. To the extent that investment
performance is susceptible to policy influences, aiming at growth
provides the opportunity to adopt tangible criteria for designing and
assessing development strategies (Kozul-Wright and Rayment, 2004:
29), which implicitly include those directed at satisfying the Goals.
Here again, the investment component that the MDGs imply should
not conflict with the consumption component hence, a variety of
options and political choices that go beyond the question of growth as
an immediate, almost automatic, outcome of the MDGs. This requires
a big push of basic investments between now and 2015 in public
administration, human capital (nutrition, health, education), and key
infrastructure (roads, electricity, ports, water and sanitation, accessible
Nmero 1, 2006 17
land for affordable housing, environmental management) (Investing in

Development, 2005). This opinion makes recent developments in
Brazil be looked at with interest.
Geography and Economic Structures -> Irregular Spread of

Growth -> Social and Gender Inequalities -> Poverty
Poverty eradication and the MDGs in general do not only call for
quantitative economic growth but also for its stability and steady
strength. Growth in many developing countries depends to a large
extent on international prices and on stable weather conditions for their
main commodity export production. A widespread opinion (heard in a
local radio) is that when it rains and cotton prices are up, we live well.
The weather and the market: two erratic variables with uncorrelated
moves, at a national scale, on which the economy and welfare
exclusively depend. Malis public finance is indeed dependent largely on
the foreign currency price of cotton, as well as on an adequate rainfall
one example among thousands of others. The same could be said of
countries with sugar, coffee, and other commodity main crops for
exports. Climate whims and unsteady prices are important factors to
weigh what growth may do for the attainment of the Goals. Volatile
growth rates cannot be relied upon to build up a sustainable and
efficient education system, so as to achieve universal education, for
instance, or to organize an efficient system of health security.
The nature and composition of economic growth are also relevant
within the MDG perspective. Perhaps these factors are more important
issues than growth itself and its volume in a poverty reduction
perspective. Growth comes in different categories, which affect the poor
differently. Growth stemming from micro-credit facilities, for instance,
has rarely been shown as a superior element than many other and more
glittering systems. On the other hand, economic development records
are full of well-known projects turned into disasters (white elephants

making gargantuan losses, says Bhagwati (2004: 56)) that were

described as fantastic engines of growth when they were launched.
Among them, there have been import-substitution projects, capital
intensity, heavy industries (such as steel and electrical machinery), and
the proliferation of public enterprises.
National averages may be misleading. Generally, growth does not
spread uniformly across a country; selected economic and social
sectors are more privileged than others. Endowments and activities,
generally those relating to primary commodities, minerals, labour-
intensive manufactures, and tourism, are usually unevenly distributed
across the country. They provide generally more employment and
income than elsewhere, while at the same time poverty in rural and
agricultural areas may still increase. Developing economies may be
growing nationwide, while large sectors of the population, women in
particular, continue to be malnourished or denied the basic
necessities, like education or medical care. Irregular spread of growth
may give way to income inequalities within a country or region, a
factor that would be in itself a source of increased poverty for less
privileged sectors of the population.
Botswana is a good example:5 during the diamond boom, in the
1980s, when the national annual growth rate was 15 percent,
agriculture grew at minus 0.6 percent. As the poorest population,
caught up in a cycle of primitive accumulation, lives in rural areas often
stricken by drought-related shocks, GDP growth is no indication of
reining in national poverty. Similar considerations apply with still more
pertinence to oil-rich Equatorial Guinea.
5. Information in this and the following paragraphs is taken from Charity Kerapeletswe
and Tsholofelo Moremi: Poverty and Democratization: The Case of Botswana and
from Arnon Bar-On: Providing So Little for So Few: Botswanas Social Assistance
Scheme, both in Wilson et al., 2001.
Nmero 1, 2006 19
South Africa provides a good illustration of the rural poverty that

contrasts with a relative affluence in the cities. Approximately half of
the countrys population can be categorized as poor. Most of the poor
live in rural areas, with the poverty share of rural areas (i.e. the
percentage of poor individuals that live in rural areas) being equal to
72 percent. The poverty rate in rural areas (i.e. the percentage of
individuals classified as poor) is about 71 percent, compared with 29
percent in urban areas. The poverty rate among Africans is 61 per cent
of the population, and a mere 1 per cent of the white population is
poor. More recent data (mine is taken from an evaluation carried out
in 1995 and included in May, 2001: 304) should provide a better
assessment of a situation that may have been deteriorating.
Growth goes generally with income inequality. Inequality,
particularly that giving rise to ostentatious spending, increases the
feeling of dispossession and exclusion of the underclass. China is a
case in point. As pointed out above, the country has grown in the last
decades at an unprecedented rate, along with eradication of poverty.
However, over the same period, income inequality has doubled. One
percent of the population now controls 60 percent of the wealth (as
compared with 5 percent in the U.S. controlling 60 percent of the
wealth). The notion of growth with equity has been abandoned
(Roger Cohen, in The International Herald Tribune, May 27-28,
2006) .
More on this: a person living in a Chinese city earns $1000 a year on
average, as compared with just over $300 in the countryside. An urban
citizen can also expect to live over 5 years longer than a farmer. In Tibet,
only half of the population can read and write, while over 97 percent of
the Chinese living in Beijing, Shanghai or Tianjin are literate. At the
national level, the illiteracy rate for women is more than double that of
men. Thus, less than 1.5 percent of Tibetan children go to junior high
schools, while more than 60 percent of children in Beijing, Shanghai or
Tianjin pursue their secondary education. Obviously, inequality

stemming from growth calls for more investment and legislation in

public education to ensure compulsory primary education more
MDGs, in short.
Growth could reinforce territorial inequalities by providing a false
sense of progress to the central bureaucracies. Growth could also
exacerbate gender inequalities. In the mid-1990s, it was estimated
that, in Botswanas rural areas, the earning power of male-headed
households was eight times higher than that of female-headed
households. Consequently, almost three-quarters of rural female-
headed households were below the poverty line as compared with
between a third and a half of male-headed households according to
Botswanas Central Statistics Office (1996), quoted in Bar-On (2001:
250). To a point, a growing economy contributed to a dumping of the
countryside and rural production by the male population, to leave
women and children to cope with the vagaries of rural life. Statistical
measurements in Morocco, according to Destremau (2001) quoting
El-Ghonemy (1998: 189), suggest that parallel to a substantial
reduction of poverty there has been a slight worsening of income
distribution in the years following the launching of structural
adjustment reforms. Women were the main victims. Other opinions
confirm that income distribution was actually negatively correlated
with growth and tended to work contrary to the growth effect the
decline in poverty would have been larger if income redistribution
had not occurred Destremau (2001). By and large, women are
shown as the disadvantaged gender and the main victims of those
distributional shocks.
Women, who are by no means a homogeneous group, are

disproportionately represented among the poorest in our
country. They are the majority of the homeless, the landless, the
unemployed, the violated. (Govender 1996: 1, cited in
Budlender (2001: 330).
Nmero 1, 2006 21
Assignment of Pro-Poor Resources: Socio-Political Priorities

and Controversial Options
MDGs and the policies and strategies they command may not always be
a first priority in the very countries directly concerned, and still less in the
countries in a position to provide effective help. yen rightly calls our
attention to negative stereotypes about poverty which flourish and creep
into our images on poor people (those lazy chaps!) and how their
behaviour can be interpreted as asocial and deviant (yen, 2002).
Begging, in particular, makes poverty visible in a fashion that disturbs
public order in the street, or an intended image of public order
(Destremau, 2001: 144).
This is particularly true with respect to poverty alleviation programmes
(what I could call pro-MDGs public and private resources,) aimed at rural
populations. Programmes carried out in several developing countries have
rarely offered a lasting solution to make up for rural underdevelopment
and increasing rural poverty (see above). Efforts towards land reform, rural
credit institutions, investments and infrastructure and foreign trade
negotiations better focused for agricultural and other commodities, were
neglected, to put a premium instead on other development options.
Behind those priorities lies a complex issue involving divergent options
arising from class interests, theoretical social and economic philosophies,
political, religious, and social convictions, and academic theories. A main
argument is: how can resources to alleviate poverty best be used? They are
now the result of political, social and economic options and competing,
often contradictory, criteria.
As suggested above, there is a separation between rural and urban
poverty and societies, and a similar disconnection between rural and urban
powers under a single economic and social central authority, which made
pro-poor policies and social security concepts difficult to articulate. Urban
power spoke the language of civil society and civil rights, rural power of
community and culture (Wilson et al., 2001: Introduction). New forms

of tribalism contributed to distorting what could have been an effective

system of income distribution.6 That bifurcated society adds to the
difficulties to build up a common, uniform culture of poverty eradication.
Rural society is not the only sector that distribution of resources often
ignores. Informal sectors, which are also a particularly relevant feature to
many developing countries, are also neglected. The scarce data available
suggest that the incomes of the informal sector are largely market-
determined and probably stagnating, while formal sector workers are
highly organized into various trade unions, with increasing real wages,
especially at the higher levels. (This is at least the case in Namibia, one of
the countries with the highest income inequalities worldwide). To rural
communities, land reform and management were expected to be a radical
remedy for poverty eradication something that was and still is beyond
many of the ritual and stereotyped concepts of growth and income
distribution. The result is that Northern concepts in those fields were and
still are of difficult adaptation to Southern realities.
Growth? Sometimes, Not Always
Growth is meant to be the starting point towards poverty eradication,

but the road is sometimes rough and bumpy and sometimes not even a
road at all. There are even categories of growth which are detrimental to
poverty reduction. Immiserizing growth, for instance, worsens a
countrys terms of trade, so much that its welfare declines (for a lively
explanation of this observable fact see Bhagwati, 2004: 55). A similar
negative outcome of growth on welfare, poverty reduction and, generally,
6. Anthony Ngare: Nobody is surprised when they hear of tribalism in the public
sector. After all, many of the people at the policy-making level get there because
they have (or benefit from) tribal political constituencies. Nairobi: East African
Standard, January 2006.
Nmero 1, 2006 23
on MDGs, is found in growth processes bringing about environmental

damage and even catastrophes: Chernobyl, oil spills, and others.
Bhagwati explains that coastal shrimp farming in India, which led

to substantial exports and was expected to contribute to
enhancing Indias growth and its fight against poverty, turned out
to be damaging the surrounding mangroves because of discharge
of chemicals and accumulation of uneaten feed, disrupting the
livelihood of fishermen and others subsisting traditionally in the
surrounding areas. Growth is not always relevant to welfare in its
social and environmental dimension; therefore it could even be
detrimental to the attainment of the Goals.
The above suggests that, whatever their importance, neither growth nor
income distribution are reliable guarantees of poverty eradication and
other achievements included in the MDGs. The issue of growth and its
influence on employment is a disconcerting element that would also merit
serious discussion. In a number of developing countries, employment is
rightly equated with less poverty. For instance, in the Moroccan Social
Development Programme, the issue of income poverty is essentially dealt
with in the fashion of creating employment for the poor (Destremau,
2001: 140). However, growth does not necessarily increase employment
opportunities, and hence it does not secure an essential factor towards
poverty eradication. Here again, the results show wide regional variations.
(International Labour Organization [ILO], 2005).
A possible conclusion is that real income growth and pro-poor
distributive policies are not always efficient in increasing employment,
enhancing productivity, providing good environmental conditions, and
building up infrastructure, in short: achieving MDGs but they help. A
similar unpromising conclusion is arrived at when considering the
influence of globalization on growth, which will be discussed in the next
section.

2. Globalization Does Not Necessarily Fuel Growth

But it Often Helps
Lheure est la mondialisation. Cest elle qui vide les

usines, appauvrit les plus pauvres, nivelle les diffrences,
procure le bonheur, contient le malheur, permet de voyager en
low cost, est responsable du rchauffement climatique,
dclenche la guerre conomique et fournit lhomme lespoir
dun monde qui ressemblerait une plate-bande. On laura
compris, la mondialisation est bien le laminoir intellectuel
de notre temps. leve au rang de vide-poche de la
critique sociale contemporaine, elle sert sans distinction
toutes les causes et tous les combats. Or ce vide-poches de la
critique sociale en vient fonctionner comme le cache sexe
dun capitalisme pudique. Rduisant la diversit et la
complexit, il permet de voiler, dans le mme temps quil en
assure la reproduction, des rapports conomiques et sociaux
dissymtriques. Ainsi, la question reste celle de savoir qui
profite le flou? (Laurent Matthey et Olivier Walther [2005],
in www.articulo.ch).
Does globalization, in the specific form of freer trade (and
inward direct foreign investment) imply a close integration
into the world economy, part of that poverty-reducing policy,
or are wisdom and knowledge on the side of those who claim
the contrary? As it happens, the proponents of globalization
have it right We can never forget also that a transition to
more rewarding globalization requires careful steering and
optimal speed of policy changes, not maximal speed la the
shock therapy of excessively rapid reforms that devastated
Russia (Bhagwati, 2004: 32).
Nmero 1, 2006 25
Determining Factors
Globalization in its modern version, which allegedly coincides with

Chinas beginning to liberalize its economy in 1980 (Murshed,
2004:68), is construed in various ways, often according to ideological
convictions, political preferences, business strategies, and academic
fads. It has often turned out to be a clich camouflaging political or
business failures and highlighting the doctrinaire radical left.
Definitions are often rigid and dogmatic and they often overlook the
fact that globalization is an everlasting man-made contraption and, as
such, expected to respond to a cyclical and permanent evolution in line
with growing and declining hegemonies, mentalities, ideologies, and
cultures all being liable to constant change.
For some, globalization is an indispensable growth instrument, to
which all countries, rich and poor, participate on an equal footing.
Globalizations chief elements, international trade in goods and services
and capital flows, are the key to progress, so the larger their scope the
better. Lessons from South-East Asia are compelling. Trade reforms
contributed to the impressive economic growth and export performance
over the past few decades. African trade regimes, on the other hand, for
all the openness in recent years, have remained significantly more
restrictive hence, poverty remains. New means of communication,
production patterns, and technological advances, make globalization an
unstoppable drive that benefits all. This is the optimistic judgment,
with a liberal, pro-market consensus (see below).
Other opinions challenge this rosy position. In this interpretation,
the essence of globalization is a modern modality of hegemonic trade
rules, which has not necessarily resulted from automatic, impersonal,
inevitable forces; it has been shaped and controlled by an interaction
between these forces and deliberate political options and institutional
forms by the powers which wielded influence over the rest of the
world.

There is indeed a close relationship between those new rules and growth
and from growth, as explained in section 1, to the old aspirations that are
now translated into the Millennium Goals. But to the extent that growth
has not spread uniformly all over the world, it can therefore be suspected
that the new rules have been unfair to some. In a number of developing
countries, liberalization policy recipes generated less welfare and
employment. Extreme poverty and hunger subsist, and no progress in
universal primary education, in gender equality and in reduction of child
mortality has been recorded the reverse is often true.
Underlying Forces and Powers: The Washington Consensus
Globalization, i.e. the integration of national economies into the world

exchanges connote(s) powerlessness on the part of nations, societies and
groups to shape their own destiny in the face of the silent takeover by
the forces of globalization, says Murshed (2004), who, as so many other
academics on social and political matters, definitely does not like the way
globalization has unfolded and pervaded the political arena.
There is an explicit code for the globalization process: structural
adjustments in the 1980s, later replaced by a Poverty Reduction Strategy,
which was a Trojan horse for the eventual introduction of the John
Williamsons Washington Consensus. A primary goal of the code was to
contain inflation, an objective that has called for fiscal restraint and
cutbacks in social programmes at least in the short term and in a number
of developing countries. Other items of the Consensus include removal of
distortionary policies regarding taxes, capital controls, subsidies and
open trade policies as a major component. Structural adjustment policies
of that kind and the Washington Consensus are based on very basic
mainstream premises of continuously clearing markets with flexible prices.
The possibility of market imperfections or temporary price rigidities is
ruled out (Murshed, 2004: 74). No demonstration is needed that these
premises are hardly found in most developing countries.
Nmero 1, 2006 27
Through the Washington Consensus, the hegemonic powers and the

international financial institutions under their control rendered
globalization a policy choice on which access to external finance was
contingent. Oil shocks in the 1970s and other macroeconomic
difficulties confronted non-oil-producing developing countries with
balance of payments problems (Murshed, 2004: 73). Assistance was
compulsory, not an option and it had to be obtained from those which
were in a position to provide it, namely Washington-based, Bretton
Wood institutions. However, their assistance has been conditional to
the adoption of, for all practical purposes, the tenants of the
Washington Consensus, with which expenditure on a number of social
programmes had to be curtailed, something that was to be detrimental
to exactly what the Goals propound.
The influence of the hegemonic powers in shaping new rules to their
own advantage, including through their grip on the Bretton Woods
institutions, was bluntly acknowledged by former United States
Secretary of State, Dr. Henry Kissinger, in 1999: What is called
globalization is really another name for the dominant role of the United
States (Lecture delivered at Trinity College, Dublin, 12 October, 1999).
This description coincides to a large extent with that put forward by the
radical left: globalization is an engine of domination by the hegemonic
powers. (See box above, with a quotation of Matthey and Walther (box
above), Department of Geography, Universit de Lausanne.)
In more moderate tones, globalization is not necessarily seen as a
direct outcome of or in association with the hegemony features that lie
behind the Washington Consensus, the IMF, the World Bank, and the
WTO. There are two different things. Nobel Prize winner, Joseph E.
Stiglitz (2002), for his part, has not been particularly lenient on
globalization, but his condemnation of the system is rather directed at
the way it has been led to policy formulation, conduct and advice by the
Washington set up. For all his criticism and reservations, he accepts that
globalization, if more reliant on good economics and less on dogma or

politics, could be a positive development for the whole world. But it has
unfolded, in his opinion, with a blind application of unabashed
capitalistic ideology, politics and prescriptions for the problems of poor
nations. These countries have been sacrificed on the altar of high
finance, to serve global lenders, free trade agencies and large brokerage
firms that maintain a worldwide presence through their location on
New Yorks Wall Street.
On the claim that globalization undermines the societys most
vulnerable, i.e. children and women, Stiglitz insists that this is mainly
derived from the botched way globalization has been imposed on
developing countries, not for globalization per se. Recurrence of wrong
advice and prescriptions from its main practitioners (IMF, WB, WTO)
to the developing countries, belt-tightening demanded by IMF, trade
liberalization demanded by WTO without preparation, liberalization of
capital markets that openly perpetuated the financial stranglehold on
these countries, and privatization simply ceded the nations assets and
treasure to a coterie of individuals with strong elite connections at the
expense of everybody else, says Stiglitz. Wrong advice to developing
countries, lack of democratic practices and accountability in decision-
making dismay Stiglitz. And he, a former official of the Washington
institutions, must know what he is talking about.
Globalization and what comes with it has therefore been considered a
poor engine for removing poverty and for achieving MDGs at large
perhaps abusively and for the wrong reasons. Few countries adopted
Washingtons economic prescriptions more eagerly than Bolivia did in
the 1980s and 90s. Yet despite considerable mineral and energy
resources, it remains South Americas poorest country, with 60 percent
of its people living in poverty. The question to be asked is whether this
is the outcome of globalization or Washington prescriptions on the
way to carry it out? In any case, the left-behind and angry poor have
joined progressive forces in voting for Mr. Evo Morales in large
numbers, as they had voted repeatedly for Mr. Hugo Chvez in
Nmero 1, 2006 29
Venezuela some years before. Their poverty has surely been the main
determining factor in their votes, a poverty that may be attributed more
to the Washington institutions, their neo-liberal ideologies and their
grip on the economy than to the globalization process itself.
But regardless of the responsibility of policies dictated under the
emblem of the Washington Consensus and the way the hegemonic
powers and their international institutions have managed to put it
under their influence, the actual experience in many countries suggests
that globalization unleashes market forces which exposes them to a
dependent status and a control of their economic policy-making by the
strong ones. Globalization carries with it a number of conditions widely
regarded as essential for growth, but a deeper examination of its effects
reveals a more complex and less encouraging picture. It is not at all sure
in particular that outward trade orientation is enough to stimulate
growth without a prior effort toward export incentives. With economies
increasingly determined by transnational designs and dynamics,
governments are less confident than ever that export incentives and
national policy-making at large will substantially bear upon economic
conditions. Under the circumstances, it is increasingly difficult to
indulge in long-term planning or programmes on social spending and
to build up investment projects for social purposes.
Globalization? Some Upbeat Outlooks
As pointed out above, in East and South-East Asia domestic

liberalization and outward orientation of their economies were
associated with spectacular growth, poverty reduction and social
progress (to a point). As a result, East Asia has already achieved the goal
of halving poverty by 2015, and South Asia is on target (above section).
That one third of humanity and 40 percent of the developing countries
population lives in that region is a fact to constantly bear in mind: the
relationship between globalization and growth is not just a coincidence.

Pro-globalization arguments are clearly and constantly set out in

current mainstream literature. One of the most fervent proponents is
Jagdish Bhagwati (2004), read worldwide. The central question in his
In Defense of Globalization is this: Trade (as the main component of
globalization for that matter) enhances growth (and growth reduces
poverty: above section). However, free trade is indeed not optimal in
the presence of distortions in the economy, which are to be corrected
by the appropriate policy instrument prior to adopting a free trade
policy an implicit support for the Washington Consensus. Some
highlights of the argumentation (Bhagwati, 2004:60ss.) are given in
the following box:
Contrary to what is usually purported (protectionism went

with economic growth and expansion of trade; liberalism went
with stagnation in both, at least from 1875 to 1914) this
positive association has recently been broken. Rapidly growing
countries, like Canada and Argentina, for instance, were in fact
examples of outward-oriented countries that built prosperity on
their pro-trade orientation.
There are scale economies in production that can be exploited
when trade expands markets. This is particularly the case for
small countries. The East African Common Market built
successfully upon this assumption.
There are the gains from increased competition. Protectionism
is the chief cause of domestic monopolies and, hence,
stagnating economies.
In order to maintain outward orientation, countries must create
macroeconomic stability. Inflation-prone economies with fixed
exchange rate regimes would soon find that their currency had
become overvalued.
Direct foreign investment would also be lower in the presence
of trade restrictions.
Nmero 1, 2006 31
A close link between increased openness and faster growth is not only
a general experience but also a confirmation of the standard argument
of free trade: by specializing according to their comparative advantage,
countries reap efficiency gains from moving to a better allocation of
existing resources, with the optimal reallocation brought about by the
stimulus of increased competition to domestic enterprises.
Take the Doha Round of the WTO negotiations and the last Hong
Kong meeting: for all practical purposes they have not achieved a
substantial expansion of trade, their alleged objective. The main victims
of the stalled talks will primordially be the poorest. Neither developed
nor developing countries have been ambitious enough to seek the
degree of trade liberalization needed to help the poorest, says The
Economist (December 10th, 2005), along with a quotation from the
World Banks trade model that estimates that if trade in industrial and
farm products had been fully freed, the one-off gains from reallocating
resources more efficiently could have boosted income in developing
countries by $86 billion by 2015 and pull an extra 30m people out of
extreme poverty. Two-thirds of these would be in Africa.
In this line of thinking, external trade would be the most efficient
engine for growth, at least in sub-Saharan Africa, were it not that internal
constraints and external barriers to its exports subsist. Section 1 points
out that the region would attain much of the Goals if only its aggregate
per capita income (in terms of purchasing power parity) rose to Latin
Americas current level. Calculations carried out by Mayer and Fajarnes
(2005) contend that for the region to attain that growth rate it would be
necessary that its primary exports be roughly three times their level in
2000 and its manufactured exports be about 7 times their level in 2000.
There is no fantasy in these speculations. Growing world demand for
primary commodities from rapidly growing natural-resource-poor
Asian countries, particularly large ones such as China and India, has
sharply increased Africas potential for exports. But by all accounts two
obstacles should be overcome beforehand. First, failures should be

addressed in the supply side, stemming from low agricultural

productivity, weak macroeconomic management and physical
infrastructure, absence of collective research services, little technological
capabilities, and others (Mayer and Fajarnes, 2005: 10). Second, market
access and entry barriers are particularly high for agricultural products
of export interest to African countries. The two constraints feed each
other. Low productivity may stem from the absence of large, mainly
export, markets that do not permit extensive cultivations, and absence
of large export markets stems from low productivity. In a sense,
therefore, what Africa would need to increase its per capita income
would be less protectionism and more open markets outside the
continent, i.e. more globalization, not less.
An additional observation must be made regarding mining.
According to data in Mayer and Fajarnes (2005: 11), with respect to
Africas potential for exports, Africa is a major producer of the worlds
most important minerals and metals Improvements in physical
infrastructure, particularly rail and road transport facilities, will be
crucial to allow such opportunities to be seized beyond high-value
products (such as gold and diamonds) and countries with long
coastlines According to media reports, Africa presently accounts for
less than 5 per cent of proven global oil reserves but hosts about 20 per
cent of new worldwide production capacity. Successful exploitation of
these reserves could lead to a rapid and very substantial increase in these
countries primary exports.
Globalization and other liberal policies that WTO inflicts (for some)
or negotiates on a multilateral basis (for others) would be better
understood and accepted if they applied to all. This is not the case. First,
exporters in developing economies face a number of constraints which
do not conform to the globalization paradigm. Exports are restrained by
significant trade barriers in the developed countries, including quotas,
tariff peaks (i.e. rates above 15 per cent for imports defined at the 6-digit
level of the Harmonized System), high rates of tariff escalation or
Nmero 1, 2006 33
effective protection, anti-dumping actions and other forms of contingent

protection, as well as a variety of new barriers relating to labour and
environmental standards (Kozul-Wright and Rayment, 2004:9). The
products most affected by such restrictions include textiles, clothing,
footwear, leather and leather goods, and travel goods clearly those in
which developing countries enjoy comparative advantages.
Not only do external obstacles to exportation hinder higher incomes,
but internal obstacles to importation does so as well. Sachs and Warner
(1995) estimate that African countries would have grown 1.4 percent
more had they implemented similar open-trade system and other trade
policy features as those adopted in South-East Asia, with the same
adverse geographic and structural conditions (climate, transport and
being landlocked).
And even though the theoretical foundation for a positive relationship
between trade liberalization and growth is still debatable, dynamic gains
are said to be forthcoming from economies of scale, from an expansion
of learning-by-doing and from an increasingly fine division of labour,
which are made possible by an enlargement of the potential market. In
this way, it is expected that an investment-friendly climate be created,
which in turn attracts foreign direct investments (FDI) (Kozul-Wright
and Rayment, 2004).
There is no doubt that trade liberalization has static income effects (a
one-off increase in income level). Different estimates are given in the
relevant literature, but they are generally assumed to be in the range of
between 2 and 10 per cent of GDP. The scarcest factor of production
loses, while the abundant factor gains. Other non-negligible effects stem
from encouragement of foreign direct investment and investor
confidence. Such credibility or confidence of private investors is vital, as
has been experienced by the Asian new industrialized economies.
Indeed, a globalized country is known to be the best environment for
foreign investors. However, foreign direct investment does not
automatically result in growth acceleration (it could in fact be

detrimental to it) in the absence of specific ad-hoc economic policies:

infrastructure, including banking and financial institutions; stable
political and economic environments, associated with the quality of the
legal and regulatory framework; and a strong overall institutional
framework. When these conditions are met, FDI is considered one of
the major stimulants of growth. (And that helps explain in part why
investors are not going to Africa, as pointed out by Dabeesingh [1999],
with an explicit reference to Mauritius).
The above does not necessarily imply, however, that there is a causality
effect between a globalized economy, FDI, and poverty alleviation. The
ad-hoc conditions mentioned above (infrastructure, stability, legal,
institutional and regulatory framework), may well be not only pre-
conditions to FDI, but inputs to growth in their own right, a growth
that FDI would only contribute to accelerating. No doubt this question
has been elicited somewhere else or it merits further clarification.
Benefits of Globalization Irregularly Spread
So, why is it that countries in East Asia and elsewhere have fared so
well in a globalization context? One explanation is that these countries
had not been as subject to the Washington Consensus orthodoxy as
many others were, at least not until recently. Indeed, high growth
occurred precisely where the policy prescriptions of the Washington
Consensus had been resisted. This was the case until the 1997-98 crisis,
where those economies hardly qualified as star pupils of the Consensus
and the Bretton Woods institutions (Murshed, 2004). But I am not
absolutely sure. A more convincing argument is that manufacturing
exports in resource-based or unskilled labour-intensive products
concentrated in South-East Asia because of the existing reserves of
surplus labour to be absorbed, the basis for the rapid development of
manufacturing capacity (Kozul-Wright and Rayment, 2004: 9). Specific
regional cultural and educational factors provide additional explanations.
Nmero 1, 2006 35
Just another basic factor: Freer trade promoted total factor

productivity (TFP) growth, and vice-versa. That growth stems from
changes of technology and institutions, among other factors, which
have been clearly inadequate in the sub-Saharan African and other
low-income countries of the world, while they have been important in
Asia. This could also partly explain the difference in the globalization
outcome between those groups of countries. (See, for instance, Tahari
et al., 2004).
The relentless focus on education in East Asia belongs to the same
category of issues. It makes sense, says Fareed Zakaria, in Newsweek,
January 7, 2006 .Many of these countries have no natural resources,
other than their people; making them smarter is the only path for
development a path which would not have be forthcoming had the
borders remained closed. China, as always, appears to be moving
fastest. When officials there talk about their plans for future growth,
they point out that they have increased spending on colleges and
universities almost tenfold in the past 10 years. The question is
whether that huge investment can be taken as part of the measures
aimed at the Millennium Goals. Time-horizon considerations are here
unavoidable.
The free trade drive brings about many problems of various kinds
and categories. Some emerging and middle-sized economies are
affected in a particular way it is not surprising that they are those for
which globalization has the gloomiest reputation, particularly in the
left and ultra-left sectors of the population. The so-called fallacy of
composition is responsible for much of the difficulties: potential
exporters of low-technology, labour-intensive products may be
stunted by the competition of larger emerging economies (e.g. India
and China). Chinese textiles in Cairo stores, while Egyptian textile
industries are languishing or bankrupt, are an illustrative example.
Egyptian textiles face constraints in their domestic and other
developed countries markets because these markets are oversupplied

by Chinese manufactures; life for local manufacturers is very arduous

indeed, many plants have had to close and unions have spread the
popularity of anti-globalizing campaigns. According to ECLAC,
Central America is also affected: it is a net oil importer and the victim
of strong Chinese competition in the US textile market. The region
faces a deterioration of terms of trade (12 percent between the 1990s
and 2005) and a significant reduction of export growth rates.
Other negative results of globalization: More competition resulting
from globalization has negative effects on innovation and growth, to
the extent that it reduces the monopoly rents that reward successful
innovation (Acemoglu et al., 2002). In addition, while it may be true
that more globalized trade results, in general, in higher output growth
rates, it is also true that those rates are afflicted with higher output
volatility and are particularly detrimental to some specific regions or
social classes.
The problem appears to be more severe where countries are caught
between relatively high wages and low productivity (Latin America
would be particularly vulnerable). The structure of international trade
adds to the difficulties. Most commercial transactions are conducted
with transnational concerns or systems of governance that link firms
together in a variety of sourcing and contracting arrangements. The
so-called value chains assumptions look at those problems with
important insights. Progress stemming from globalization, according
to classical economics, is based on trade transactions among arms
length firms.7 However, the way in which much of this trade is
7. A variety of texts on value chains are found in IDS bulletin vol.32, number 3, July
2001 (The Value of Value Chains: Spreading the Gains from Globalization), with
contributors of the significance of Gary Gereffi, John Humphrey, Raphael Kaplinski,
Timothy J. Sturgeon, and others. I was particularly attracted by Adrian Woods
(2001) An Economists Perspective.
Nmero 1, 2006 37
organized by importers introduces doubts on the validity of the

classical model. Access to the developed countries markets depends,
on a large scale, on entering into the global production networks of
lead firms situated in importing countries. Distribution and
marketing, flows of information between the stages of activity in the
supply chain, with costs that often account for a larger share of the
final price of a good than the costs of its manufacture, are not
accounted for in classical economics and make its models somewhat
unreliable.
No Good Governance, No Adequate Infrastructure? No

Successful Globalization
The key to a successful globalization and growth of South-East

Asian and other emerging economies is often attributed to their
political stability, a great deal of good governance and the social
capital those countries enjoyed. The contrast with many other
countries, particularly in Africa and Latin America, is often
highlighted. Wars, civil wars and swinging basic constitutional
systems are not good omens for investments and for attracting foreign
capital. Crime is also a deterrent of growth and, hence, contributes to
poverty, so that fighting crime would be a sure path to benefiting from
globalization.
The rise in violence is having a serious impact on Central

American economies. According to a study by the UNDP, the
cost of violence to El Salvador in 2003 was $1.7 billion,
equivalent to 11.5 % of GDP. The Inter-American
Development Bank is even more pessimistic, estimating that the
per capita GDP of the region would be 25% higher if the rates
of violence were no worse than the world average... (The
Economist, January 7th, 2006)

But stability and good governance (which, in the IMFs terminology,

includes a good environment for the private sector by ensuring the
conditions for the fair and efficient functioning of markets) are tricky
concepts full of different and often biased interpretations. Some
opinions argue that the true meaning of good governance is a strict
submission to a given model that asserts that the best government is the
tiniest possible government. Along this line of thinking, an IMF staff
member suggested reforming the civil service from within, or moving
certain functions outside the core civil service and entrusting them to
quasi-autonomous bodies (Barbone, 1999). His argument was
corroborated by the Zambian Minister of Finance and Economic
Development (Mr. Godfrey Simsiku), who pointed out that revenues
had tripled after the revenue authority was separated from the
government. A similar success story was the now independent export
board, helping non-traditional exports to triple in a short period of time
(Barbone, 1999: 129). Unfortunately, though, these comments could
not be confirmed by any credible analysis.
On the other hand, the insistence on making local governments
responsible for their own plights on account of bad governance implies
a very inconsistent and contradictory policy prescription on the part of
the Northern donors and benefactors. The argument of governance is
often a fallacy, a way of deflecting attention from the structure and
constraints imposed by globalization (Schulz, 2001: 105). The joke
about the new development economics is that when something is
difficult to explain, one can always try governance or social capital.
Often, they have become a sort of factor x to conveniently explain what
cannot be explained by other methods. (Jomo, 2005).
Sometimes, however, the governance issue is no joke at all. Congos
Mobutu, Idi Amin Dada of Uganda, Perus Fujimori, Malawis minister
of education stealing millions of dollars from the education budget in
2000, the Zambian president stealing from the treasury, Nigeria
squandering its oil wealth, Marcos holding up the Philippines these
Nmero 1, 2006 39
are no legends at all but depressing realities, which have intensified the
poverty condition and denied the true meaning of the Goals.
Globalization has often been made the scapegoat. Indeed, improving
good governance, eradicating corruption, ensuring the rule of law, and
other measures aimed at a more efficient policy-making are crucial for
reaping the benefits of globalization. (In fact, the issue is recognized as
one of the MDGs: Develop a global partnership for development). The
paradox is that, as Schulz (2001: 105) highlights, globalization demands
good governance to reap its benefits and mitigate its costs, while it
usually weakens at the same time the states influence over its traditional
policy margin of decision. State-building under conditions of extreme
poverty and lack of resources is surely an impossible task.
It would be wrong, in addition, to equate globalization-induced
growth with a good governance style. Ever-larger numbers of people in
developed countries, where this style generally prevails and adequate
physical and institutional infrastructure co-exist with a globalization
environment, are also becoming economically marginalized. Workers
and the marginalized poor are particularly vulnerable. If the richest
countries in the world have largely failed at finding a solution for
overcoming the deindustrialization of their economies and the growing
marginalization of their workforces, how can the poorest countries be
expected to do this successfully? asks Schulz (2001: 104), citing
Manuel Castells.
More than a governance issue, important as it is, low levels of material
infrastructure available to the poorest countries do not permit them to
play on a level playing field with the forces of foreign trade unleashed
by globalization. The UNDPs figures in its Human Development
Reports speak for themselves: telephone lines, power production, public
postal and transportation services, tax collection and codes, statistical
compilation and use cannot compare with those of the richest part of
the world. While in 1994 each person in the industrial countries used
7,514 kilowatt-hours of electricity, in the developing countries as a

whole that figure was 763 per capita. In the poorest countries, the figure
was 74 kilowatt-hours per capita. Among other returns, material
infrastructure of this kind would permit and promote the integration of
foreign direct investments into the national economic systems along
with the participation of local highly trained human capital. Absence of
it makes globalization prescriptions seem cynical at best, as asserted by
the so-called alter-globalizers, particularly as, in the absence of adequate
physical and institutional infrastructure, an increasing proportion of
national academics, trained personnel and research staff emigrate to
developed countries, in a most suffocating brain drain that deprives the
local societies of the best elements for their development (Ripoll, 2005).
Nmero 1, 2006 41
A final note
I examined the Millennium Development Declaration and its Goals

through the lens of the present globalization process. Was globalization
going to hinder or enhance the attainment of the MDGs? The question
could have been largely academic and even futile, as there is no discernible
alternative to globalization and if alternatives ever arise, they will likely be
dominated by national interests that will not necessarily be conducive to
the Millennium Development Goals either. I venture the conclusion that
countries facing the longest and bumpiest road to the MDGs are those for
which globalization has done less to achieve enough internal growth to
attain the objectives or, still worse, globalization has had a negative
influence. The question would be then to make development strategies in
these countries more compatible with existing globalized economic
structures or how to commit these structures to make them provide the
necessary resources called for by MDGs.
The Goals are huge and ambitious, and they do indeed call for vast
resources. Assignment of resources is primordially a matter to be dealt with
within the framework of internal policy-making. Policy-making depends
in large part on whether or not adequate institutional frameworks and
productive capacities permit outward orientation and integration in global
economies, i.e. globalization. This integration condition has been and can
be met in emerging and middle-sized countries, which by and large have
derived sizable profits from it - but it is definitely out of reach for the
poorest countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa and some Latin
American countries.
This paper puts forward a few hypotheses to explain the differences
between these groups of countries. First, differences in physical structures
and human capital, financial institutions and credit systems, educational
and health facilities partly stemming from different political
environments and cultural mindsets. Secondly, differences in priorities
and pro-poor internal policy-making. Thirdly, production structures
yielding inadequate total factor productivity. Fourth, excessive reliance on

external official financing with corresponding limitations on social pro-

poor programmes. And also, differences in the field of governance, a
responsibility that is often a legacy of the former colonial powers.
The international community is left with the duty of helping to fix these
differences, out of its alleged humanitarian values and generosity or self-
interest or both. Globalization may be an ostracized concept in populist
views, but it is indeed a mechanism whose pro-poor efficiency is
corroborated by formal analysis and empirical evidence, provided
important conditions are met.
First of all, the Millennium Development Goals have to be given high
priority by the countries concerned and the international community at
large. Such a common priority can neither systematically be taken for
granted, nor does the way it should be implemented meet general
agreement. In a number of countries, a variety of political, social,
economic and industrial structures have all different perceptions on how
to make use of resources in the MDG perspective and also have different
strategies on how to carry them out. Complexities arise over the
arbitration and trade-offs between direct short-term poverty reduction
measures and the medium- and long-term build up of human capital,
infrastructures, and other investments that would ensure the sustainability
of the Millennium Development Goals. Most existing development plans
and strategies are stuck in the short run, and the key processes for
international partnership are also short-term in their orientation, while
development is a long-term process (Investing in Development...., 2005).
The majority of texts consider countries as single entities with
homogeneous aspirations and unanimous political voices. The truth is
that, when it comes to issues like those dealt with in the MDGs, there are
a myriad of distinct, sometimes contradictory solutions fiercely expressed
and challenged by the national sectors and interests. Government, political
parties, social groups, unions, churches, lobbies, the UNDP and NGOs,
you name it, each of them claiming to have the best answer as to how and
where and for whom resources should be best assigned. However, The
Nmero 1, 2006 43
right to judge what is best for millions of poor people carries with it
ethical dilemmas and problems that so far have not been well expose.
(yen, 2002: 18). Policy-makers are often involved in a principal/agent
issue or a conflict of roles, where political strategies, patronage politics,
party commitments and allegiances, academic fads on development
economics, caste or class solidarity, personal ambitions, selfishness (not to
speak of forthright lack of integrity and greed), often prevail over more
noble attitudes.
Secondly, this paper assumes that, under certain conditions, increase in
trade through market forces fuels investments, employment and
productivity, with a resulting increase of global economic output, which
in turn is meant to help millions of people to leave their poverty condition.
The problem is that market forces are shaped and controlled by policy
choices and institutional frameworks that do not conform to the classic
economics model (Kozul-Wright and Rayment, 2004: 1). In other words,
the World Trade Organization in the area of trade, and the Bretton Woods
institutions and their iron fist of conditionality in the area of external
financing, have an agenda that marginally coincides with that of the
Millennium Development Goals. To meet the demands of what these
Goals imply, new rules of the game are due in the area of trade, so that
developing countries potential and competitive advantages in agricultural,
industrial and service products can be better exploited, and in the area of
finance, where conditionality should be shaped under new criteria.
Without that, the outcome of globalization is unpredictable and as likely
to lead to stagnation as to growth, rising incomes and poverty reduction
in developing countries. Now, not much has come out in this direction
from recent developments in trade (Geneva-based institutions) and
international finance (Washington-based). Expectations are poor, for all
the soothing rhetoric that is presiding over the official discourse of these
bodies.
***

In September 2000, 189 Heads of State and of Government defined

a set of objectives aimed at poverty elimination and at substantially
improving the lives of the poorest by the year 2015. This was a righteous
ambition and a microcosm of a larger truth: they recognized that
achieving the Millennium Development Goals requires a global
partnership suitable for an interconnected, globalized world. In the
globalization drive that we see today, the world truly shares more than
ever a common fate and thus it demands efforts and contributions from
everyone. These efforts raise hopes that a more civilized, human, decent
world would eventually come into being. Everyone is agreed that
poverty in the proportion that it is presently seen in many countries (if
not all) is an insult to the human kind; so its eradication is overly due.
But one can suspect that in each of the Great Powers signatories minds
there were concealed misgivings and mental reservations as to how, how
much, and to whom, economies should be open. This is the mind-set
stemming from a fabric of political allegiances, internal commitments
and personal interests to be expected when those grand projects are
negotiated. All the same, it does not bode well for 2015, the year when
most of the Millennium Development Goals were due to be attained.
Alas, we should be prepared for unpleasant frustrations.
Nmero 1, 2006 45
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GLOBALIZATION:

Josep Ripoll Borrell

Serie: Desarrollo y cooperacin

Josep Ripoll Borrell

Edita: CIDOB edicions

Depsito legal: B-38404-06

Josep Ripoll Borrell*

*Ex United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD)

now been highlighted by the international community: a wide aspiration

6 Documentos CIDOB, Desarrollo y cooperacin

1. Economic Growth and the Millennium Development

Sub-Saharan Africa, most dramatically, has been in a

Correlations: Growth Rates / Poverty Rates.

Growth is rightly considered at the center of any strategy to achieve

Countries with no GDP growth, or negative growth, are those

8 Documentos CIDOB, Desarrollo y cooperacin

However, average data gloss over dramatic differences within and

From Growth to Goals: The Uncertain Itinerary

Consideration of the growth effects on MDGs should not overlook, if

related subjects should be taken with caution: it generally is biased

10 Documentos CIDOB, Desarrollo y cooperacin

it is claimed that financial aid flows would have systematic adverse

making. This means, so the argument goes, that income growth or

12 Documentos CIDOB, Desarrollo y cooperacin

otherwise, that would be essential for more investments in productive

popular in non-poor bureaucracy, official and private, which has

14 Documentos CIDOB, Desarrollo y cooperacin

punctuated by a general, populist and imprecise commitment to

4. For an excellent discussion about a necessary concordant relationship between

in so far as jobs, houses, food rations, transport subsidies,

16 Documentos CIDOB, Desarrollo y cooperacin

Underlying the various political options on distribution strategies, the

land for affordable housing, environmental management) (Investing in

Geography and Economic Structures -> Irregular Spread of

18 Documentos CIDOB, Desarrollo y cooperacin

making gargantuan losses, says Bhagwati (2004: 56)) that were

South Africa provides a good illustration of the rural poverty that

20 Documentos CIDOB, Desarrollo y cooperacin

stemming from growth calls for more investment and legislation in

Women, who are by no means a homogeneous group, are

Assignment of Pro-Poor Resources: Socio-Political Priorities

22 Documentos CIDOB, Desarrollo y cooperacin

of tribalism contributed to distorting what could have been an effective

Growth? Sometimes, Not Always

Growth is meant to be the starting point towards poverty eradication,

on MDGs, is found in growth processes bringing about environmental

Bhagwati explains that coastal shrimp farming in India, which led

24 Documentos CIDOB, Desarrollo y cooperacin

2. Globalization Does Not Necessarily Fuel Growth

Lheure est la mondialisation. Cest elle qui vide les

Globalization in its modern version, which allegedly coincides with

26 Documentos CIDOB, Desarrollo y cooperacin

Underlying Forces and Powers: The Washington Consensus

Globalization, i.e. the integration of national economies into the world

Through the Washington Consensus, the hegemonic powers and the

28 Documentos CIDOB, Desarrollo y cooperacin

Globalization? Some Upbeat Outlooks

As pointed out above, in East and South-East Asia domestic