Australia's globalisation challenge

In the lead up to the 2001 Federal Election, Oxfam Community Aid Abroad will launch its Vote Global campaign and release a new book – "The Globalisation Challenge" - outlining an agenda for Australian political parties to address the challenges of globalisation at home and abroad.

Humanity has a long history of communication between diverse communities. Over many hundreds, even thousands of years, the globe has been criss-crossed by movements of people – trade, migration and invasion. What marks human development over recent decades is the increasing interconnectedness of humanity through these relationships: what we now call globalisation.

Globalisation has seen the evolution of new global rules, tools, markets and organisations. The rules include conventions and agreements setting out universal human rights standards, the conduct of world trade and environmental protection. New tools like the internet, cellular phones and global satellite-linked media networks are fuelling a dramatic increase in the global flow of information. New globally-linked foreign exchange and capital markets operate 24 hours a day, conducting business around the world in real time, and new global organisations wield unprecedented influence on ordinary people’s lives. The World Trade Organisation sets out and enforces global trading rules, while many multinational corporations wield more economic power than entire nations, and global networks of non-government organisations make connections across national boundaries.

Globalisation has also seen a dramatic change in the role of governments, particularly in poorer countries. In the past 20 years, Australians have become familiar with the trend towards leaner government services and the privatisation of public assets. Many developing countries – known collectively as the South – have had similar changes forced on them, their governments cutting and privatising assets and services in return for financial assistance from institutions like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

Arguments for and against globalisation both find much support as we enter the twenty-first century. Advocates might point to consistent global economic growth and integration, to new institutions such as the International Criminal Court, and to growing political commitment on issues like debt relief. Opponents to its social and environmental costs might be encouraged by growing anti-globalisation protests in the North and South.

Some analysts, such as Australian author Keith Suter, unpack these contradictions by dividing globalisation into three strands: "economic globalisation (driven by transnational corporations), popular globalisation (which is the role of non-governmental organisations or "people power" organisations) and public order globalisation (where governments work together to solve common problems)."

The reality is that as the millenium ticks over, the rapid acceleration of worldwide financial, resource and information flows that characterise globalisation provide humanity with both immense opportunities and enormous challenges.

There can be no doubt that recent decades have seen great progress in human development. Worldwide, life expectancy is now 17 years longer than in 1960, and child death rates have fallen by more than half since 1965. Adult literacy rates have risen from 48 percent in 1970 to 72 percent in 1997. In 1965, less than half the children in developing countries attended primary school – today that has risen to more than three quarters of children. Most countries are now independent from colonisation, and more than 70 percent of the world’s people live under governments that are more or less democratic.

Economic globalisation offers huge opportunities for economic growth through increased trade and foreign investment. Australian businesses have benefited from access to new markets in Asia and elsewhere, and consumers have benefited from the availability of cheaper, more diverse products on our supermarket shelves and elsewhere.

Globalisation has also given people new tools to fight for their rights through better access to information and making links with supporters worldwide. Recent events – the demise of South African apartheid, independence for the East Timorese and debt relief for the world's poorest countries – prove that this kind of change can happen in a globalised world. In fact, it is far less likely that such advances could have been achieved had it not been for instant communication flows and co-operative action.

Popular globalisation also means that efforts to cover up governmental or corporate blunders are more vulnerable to public scrutiny and criticism. Even the remotest villagers – perhaps forced from their lands by unsustainable logging or mining – can access information about their rights, receive support from local, regional and global networks, and tell their story to the world. Instantly.

Many of the building blocks for popular and public order globalisation are now coming into place through international co-operation. United Nations treaty committees actively monitor every country’s compliance with international human rights commitments, and an International Criminal Court can now bring perpetrators of war crimes to justice.

Enormous challenges face our globalised world: the growing gap between rich and poor, the concentration of power into the hands of a select few, increasing social violence, conflict over finite resources and environmental degradation.

Despite the progress made in recent decades, poverty and inequality remain worldwide, and they’re getting worse. Ninety-five percent of humanity is now born in the South, the developing world, where nearly 1.3 billion people do not have access to safe drinking water, 840 million people are malnourished and one in seven children have no school to go to. Half of humanity - three billion people - survives on less than $2 a day.

The gap between rich and poor both between and within countries is widening exponentially. A child born this year in Australia will have a lifetime income 74 times that of a baby born in the developing world. Forty years ago, this income gap stood at 30 to 1. A hundred years ago, it was 11 to 1. Clearly, the heaviest price for this rising inequality is paid by those living in poverty. Yet inequality has impacts on all of us, including environmental decline, civil conflict, political instability and increased migration pressures.

There is little evidence that those with the power to tip the balance are committed to doing so. In the past decade, the world's richest countries have increased their wealth by around 30 percent. During that time total global Official Development Assistance (ODA – the amount wealthy countries give in aid to poorer countries) declined from US$53 billion in 1992 to US$41 billion in 1998. Australian aid is no exception, with the 2001 aid budget at an all-time low of just 0.25 percent of our gross domestic product, a long way from our commitment to reach the United Nations target of 0.7 percent. Inequality within almost all countries is also growing, as a result of large-scale, exploitative development and government policy skewed against poor people.

More alarmingly, aid to those most in need – the world’s 48 Least Developed Countries (LDCs) – declined from 24 to 21 percent of total aid between 1988 and 1998. Of these countries, which are home to 614 million people, 22 have suffered economic stagnation or decline over the past decade. Foreign investment in most LDCs has been insignificant, and has nowhere near offset the decline in aid. Meanwhile, the external debt of developing countries spiralled from $US857 billion in 1985 to $US2,651 billion in 1998.

Globalisation has also seen the rise and rise of multinational corporations. Private sector investment in developing countries now dwarfs the flow of official aid. Private investment is an important driver for economic growth, and it can result in poverty reduction. Yet too often private investment undermines people’s rights and destroys the environment: the private sector is rightly under increasing pressure to be accountable for the social and environmental consequences of its actions.

The economies of the world are increasingly becoming integrated. With the creation of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the formal rules for a world economy are in place. However, many of these rules are loaded heavily against poor and powerless people and nations. Trade agreements are benefitting producers in the North far more than those in the South. Patent protection laws are putting the interests of some of the world’s wealthiest companies above the survival needs of poor communities in the developing world.

Oxfam Community Aid Abroad’s Globalisation Challenge to Australian political parties is based on three propositions:

• That globalisation can only help to end poverty if equity and sustainability are given the same priority as economic growth. Without reform and regulation of international economic and financial policies and practices, the benefits that do flow from globalisation are unsustainable. A humane global balance sheet must be based on the principle that economics should benefit society, not vice versa.

• That we in Australia can help change the course of globalisation for the better. As a foundation member of the United Nations, Australia had until recently a proud record as an active and constructive member. As a leading member of the Commonwealth, Australia has important relationships with developing nations in Africa, Asia, the Pacific and the Caribbean. And as a key member of the World Trade Organisation, Australia plays a key role in international trade negotiations. We have also played a critical role in bringing together developed and developing countries through gatherings like the Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) and South Pacific Forums. As a stable parliamentary democracy and a relatively successful multicultural society, Australia has many experiences to contribute to the achievement of global stability. Australia is a rich country – per capita, one of the richest in the world – yet the majority of the world's poor live on our doorstep. The standard of living taken for granted by many Australians is beyond the wildest dreams of ordinary people in our neighbouring countries.

A series of key principles should guide Australian policy-makers to ensure that more people throughout the world can be able to enjoy their basic rights to shelter, education, food, water, health care, a say in their future, a safe and sustainable environment and freedom from violence.

One of the key objectives of a new form of globalisation should be the achievement of human rights for all as expressed through the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Both the Australian government and our private sector can play an important role in achieving this objective. Through our aid program, foreign policy and trade policy, Australia also has an obligation to ensure that the international community meets the international development goals.

Australia must do all it can – internationally and nationally – to narrow the gap between rich and poor countries, and rich and poor people. Gross disparities of wealth and income are both morally indefensible and lead to an unsafe and volatile world.

Freedom from the threat of violence is a basic right for every man, woman and child. The pursuit of global and country-by-country peace and security needs to be central to Australia’s international policies for achieving a socially just world. Australia must support measures to alleviate violence through our overseas aid program, as well as diplomatic and disarmament efforts in our region and on the international stage.

We are all responsible for preserving the world’s environment. However, wealthy countries like Australia have an extra responsibility, not only because we consume more scarce resources and have greater environmental impact – per capita we produce more greenhouse-producing gases than any other nation – but also because we have the technology and expertise to develop sustainable alternatives.

Australia must do all it can to promote ordinary people’s participation in decision-making, from supporting local initiatives at home and abroad – for example, the 1999 ballot on self-determination in East Timor – to taking part and supporting people’s participation in international forums.