Reining in globalization for the benefit of all countries

GARY HOWE  / Earth Times News Service 15dec00

ROME -- Events in Seattle and Prague (not to mention in Washington, in between) reflect a growing disquiet about globalization and its management--and a failure on the part of global development "managers" to produce a convincing case that fears are groundless. Not all of these fears revolve around poverty and development--but many do. And not without reason.

The world is going through a process of articulation of new economic and social relations that penetrate into every locality and most human relationships --relations that affect not only how we work and consume but also how we think. But this is not the first time that globalization has taken place: what we confront is a new form of globalization. Previous "globalizations" have not at all contributed to the development of all peoples, nor have they been the basis of universal prosperity.

Take the case of Africa: for over three and a half centuries it was involved in a globalizing economic system that involved, for the majority, enslavement and deportation - and/or the continued and wrenching dislocation of normal life. Hardly had this affliction come to an end than a new wave of globalization brought colonialism on a continental scale -- with new forms of "unfreedom" and poverty. Against this background, it is hardly surprising that people ask "what sort of globalization" and "globalization for whom"?

Very few answers have been given to these questions. This is a pity, for the answers are equally as important for the proponents of globalization as for its apparent opponents. "Globalization" as an unguided or unassisted process is not likely to help us reach almost universally accepted development targets -- even if it is generally benign. Unless we know what sort of globalization we want -- and for whom -- it is impossible to purposefully influence its development; and expecting to get what we want without purposeful intervention is, perhaps, to tempt fate (or repeat history). The striking aspect of the current "debate" about globalization is a yawning vacuity when it comes to describing the real paths that will lead from poverty to non-poverty. Like Free Trade for certain Europeans more than two centuries ago, globalization is held by many to be the basis of a new wave of prosperity -- but it is difficult to identify on whose shores the wave will break, except, perhaps, for the already rich.

It is very unfortunate that the question of the relation between globalization and development/poverty reduction seems to have been almost entirely captured by the debate about debt relief -- through World Bank sponsored Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Debt-relief Initative or otherwise. It is true that debt service hangs very heavily on the economies of many of the poorest countries, and it may be that reduction of debt payments will allow improvement of social and (but much less so) economic services to the poor. But the amounts involved are very modest, indeed, when compared to gains (and losses) involved in the globalization process. And the belief that debt relief itself (with or without use of saved resources for social services of the poor) will somehow put poor countries and people on a new and more dynamic footing in a globalizing economy is, of course, an illusion. An illusion equal to the idea that getting the poor over the $1 per day line is a definitive victory against poverty.

What is needed, but is largely absent, is an understanding of the opportunities for income growth, savings and investment among the poor in poor countries -- and a concerted effort to create the conditions under which the poor can seize them. For most of the poor in Africa -- particularly in East Africa -- this means rural opportunities, not least agricultural opportunities as small-scale producers. This is not about subsistence production in closed economies. It is about establishing a competitive position in evolving markets -- upsetting the use (by outsiders) of African rural communities and farms as reserves of labour for other sectors (where the farmer re-emerges as a wage labourer), and asserting the key role of the small farm as a centre of accumulation and growth. A tall order? Perhaps, but we underestimate the extraordinary dynamism of the world agricultural economy over the last century-and-a-half -- and the successive transformations of "margins" and "peripheries" (the North American prairie, the Russian steppe, Australia, Argentina, New Zealand, for example) into centres of production and trade. To those who say it could not happen in Africa, one can only ask the question "why not?"

One of the reasons why not is because the issues of growth and the elimination of poverty in Africa (and not just Africa) are posed in terms that seem poles away from the forces that impel globalization -- and that determine success and failure within it. It is as though poverty and poverty alleviation have one language -- but wealth and accumulation have another. Nothing can be more puzzling than the discrepancy between "global wealth talk" (concentration of economic power, technological innovation, global organization of capital and production) and "global poverty talk" (decentralization, folk knowledge, local savings and exchange). This is not to suggest that the poverty alleviation discourse is irrelevant to wealth, but it is to modestly submit that unless the insights into poverty processes are plausibly articulated into development models that can hold their own within the discourse of wealth -- then the likelihood of their ever leading anyone out of poverty is notably slim.

It is not at all inconceivable that for many poor rural Africans, globalization can provide an opportunity to leave poverty behind. They are going to need help to make it. From the 1970s onwards Africa's position in the global economy worsened in relative terms -- and in many (most?) African countries, poverty worsened even in absolute terms. This is proof -- if any is needed -- that globalization is not necessarily a win-win process. If relevant help is to be given, then we need to use a more robust language for development processes -- one that identifies commercial opportunity and recognizes the elements necessary for competitiveness. Yes, debt relief is important. But more important in the long term is the development of the institutional, organizational and material infrastructure through which African farmers can identify and exploit their comparative advantages -- and leave poverty behind. We can be even-handed, the failings of Seattle and Prague were on both sides: among the globalization managers, a failure to grasp a real problem; among the protesters, a failure to offer a real solution. It looks as though these two sides can remain apart for a long time. That would be a pity. Africa needs both: an understanding of the need to address poverty; but also a language that captures and harnesses the forces of the globalization process. Poverty in Africa is, in part, a moral phenomenon and problem. But its solution will be a very material one -- coming from within the globalization process itself, but very much requiring an assisted birth.

* Mr. Gary Howe is the Director of the Eastern and Southern Africa Division of the International Fund for Agricultural Development, IFAD, a United Nations agency.