Globalization and development: enabling fairer access to the world economy.

• Author: Ribeiro, Juliana
• Position: MDGs

Although technological advancement and increased economic interdependence are great advantages of globalization, a large part of the world population does not have access to these benefits. To encourage discussion of this shortcoming, the fifty-ninth United Nations General Assembly organized a meeting on 29 October 2004, with the participation of Amartya Sen, Lamont University Professor at Harvard University and 1998 Nobel Laureate on Economics, and Martin Wolf, Associate Editor and Chief Financial Commentator of the Financial Times. The Norwegian Millennium Development Report was also presented.

In his keynote address on "Forging coherence to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in the context of globalization", Mr. Sen warned about the danger of focusing the discussion of globalization on whether the poor were getting poorer or less poor, like many anti- and proglobalization groups did. Such perceptions could be true depending on the indicators chosen. The central question, however, lay on whether the poor could feasibly have a fairer deal with a globalization division, that is, an increased distribution of opportunities in a modified global order.

Mr. Sen emphasized that there was no need for dispensing the market economy, but rather that globalization on market alone was not enough. It needed to address global policies and make alterations of economic and social conditions, such as assessment of adequacy of global institutional arrangements, trade agreements, technological dissemination and distribution of natural resources, and fair treatment of accumulated debt. Moreover, an increased focus on education, epidemiology and micro-credit could contribute to such enabling conditions. Within such discussion, he argued, the issue of the arms trade was central. Over 80 per cent of the world's arms exports came from the Group of 8 countries. If one considered that small arms and light weapons are the main tools of war, that was an important concern to the development of many countries. The difficulty of the international community to address the current situation of small arms trade reflected a certain blindness towards global justice.

Mr. Sen referred to the General Assembly's call for the need to forge greater coherence in order to attain the MDGs. However, he highlighted that the Millennium Declaration went beyond the MDGs, making a powerful case for democratic and participatory governance. He reminded the UN audience that the...