Globalisation: Challenges And Opportunities Offered By Globalization

Challenges and Opportunities Offered by Globalization

Since the earliest recorded history of the world, countries with abundant natural resources have been wealthy and those with scarce such resources have remained poor. With access to plentiful water, fertile soil, favorable climate for agriculture and livestock, minerals and fossil fuel, came power, both military and intellectual. With this, came the desire to expand beyond the traditional boundaries. Thus began the earliest territorial globalization through conquest and was gradually followed by globalization of religion and trade.

The industrial revolution of the nineteenth and the twentieth century more clearly defined wealthy and poor countries. A recent study by the Centre for Economic Policy Research based in London (1) found that while economic inequality has increased dramatically between rich and poor countries over the last two centuries, most of that inequality was established by 1950. Since then, there has been a fifty percent reduction in people living in abject poverty in poor countries across the world. The improved global communications have made us more aware of the differences between rich and poor. This does not necessarily mean that global poverty is on the rise.

Globalization, as it is currently practiced, integrates national markets through international trade and investment (2). This increases mobility of goods, services, labor, technology and capital throughout the world (3). Globalization offers infinite possibilities, greater freedom and new hope for the world’s poor. Since the current wave of globalization emerged in the 1970’s, world infant mortality rates have fallen by almost half, adult literacy has increased by more than a third, primary school...

... middle of paper ...

... not be about helping a few people get rich or creating a handful of industries that only benefit the country’s elite. It is about transforming societies, improving the lives of the poor majority. It is about enabling everyone to have a fair chance at success and access to health care and education. The developed countries need to do their part to reform the international institutions that govern globalization. After all, they are the ones who set up these institutions and now need to work to fix them. The world’s rich nations do have obligations to assist the poor nations (10).

All indications are that globalization is here to stay and it has proven to do more good than harm for global prosperity and in curbing poverty. As we move forward, transnational trade will only become more frequent, and will continue to find new participants in new corners of the globe (5).