Poverty and How It Links to Globalization - Research Paper Example

Globalization is the process whereby investment of funds and businesses tend to move beyond domestic and national markets to other markets to other markets around the globe, leading to an increase in interconnectedness of various markets (Litz 47). Globalization has affected our lives in many ways since it has led to faster access to technology, improvement in communication and innovation. Globalization has led to integration among people of different cultures as well as ushering a new era of economic prosperity and opening up vast channels of development. African countries are less likely to benefit from globalization due to the fact that they are at the lowest integration level with the rest of the world (Docquier and Hillel 690). As much as globalization can affect the growth of a region in a positive way, the case in Africa is different. For instance, African states need to maintain a strong and stable macro-economic framework as well as conducting major institutional reforms like promotion of good governance in all its angles. This paper is going to show why Africa still suffers harmful economic systems, conflict, environmental problems and population growth despite being exposed to globalization. Liberalists view globalization as the best tool of relieving poverty and providing the have-nots with a secure position from which they can make further progress in the global economy (Kacowicz 570). In Africa, the nationalists fought for independence because of economic exploitation by their various colonial powers. Despite globalization, Africans are still suppressed economically through the European Imperialism, whereby the first world countries from the west exploit the third world countries in Africa. This means that African states are still controlled by western powers through signing of trade pacts, some of which have unfavorable conditions. Most African economies depend on one a single export, which is agricultural produce; hence they lack diversification (De Janvry and Elisabeth 20). Over the past decades, the market value of Africa’s agricultural produce has been deteriorating amid the steady rising cost of imports to Africa. This shows that the current global market disadvantages these mono-economies, as they have to dramatically in order to pay for the same amount of imports. For instance, in 1962, it took two tons of sisal export in Tanzania to pay for the import of one tractor (Cooksey and Tim 1). The case was different in 1980 since Tanzania had to export six tons of sisal in order to pay for the same tractor. Therefore, it is clear that since the majority of African states lack economic diversification, they are seriously disadvantaged by economic globalization. Due to globalization, African countries are able to borrow from the World Bank via bilateral agencies and private banks in order to maintain government services and fund projects (Aluko and Dare 120). Since this money is not used to generate new wealth with which these loans can be repaid, repayment of these loans is usually difficult. Money used for provision of basic services like education and health care does not produce new wealth since schools and hospitals are not directly productive. Some African leaders were eager to access capital without critically assessing the viability of the projects to be funded. Such loans never achieved these governments basic objective of creating wealth and productivity. Some transnational banks were also eager to loan money to African governments during the 1980s without thinking carefully about the viability of the projects they were funding (Orr and Jeremy 115). These unwise loans have become difficult to service, which explains why Africa is debt laden. The indebtedness nature of these countries forces them to spend large amounts of money earned from exports to repay the loans. Zambia for instance uses close to thirty percent of the money earned on copper exports to pay its debts. The weak Zambian economy can therefore be attributed to large foreign debts which are serviced by a larger portion of the country’s export earnings. If the money earned through Zambia’s exports was used for investing in new projects in the county and paying for goods and services it needed, then Zambia would experience stronger economic growth. Globalization demands that countries must open their economies freely and haphazardly import and concentrate on exportation of what they are supposed to be good at. It also demands that the government’s role in the economy to be reduced to that of supporting the market and the private enterprise. Further, the determination of prices of goods, currencies, labour as well as resource allocation should be left to the market. The implication here is reconstruction of international economic and political relations in line with a particular set of interests and vision of multinational companies. Therefore, the interests of profit motivations of multinational companies and the primacy and free enterprise in all human development processes dogma are taken care of. In Africa, governments have been busy deregulating foreign investment, liberalizing their imports, removing currency controls and emasculating the direct economic role of the state. As a result, the internal, national productive capacity, social security democratic integrity of these countries has been undermined. Trade liberalization has seen cheaper rice imported from Asia and sold in southern African countries at a cheaper price (McMichael 290). This has forced Malawi out of the market, hence no more production of rice locally in Malawi, rendering thousands jobless. Another setback of trade liberalization is that it does not ensure availability of fertilizers, insecticides and herbicides at a cheaper price. Marketing of agricultural products has been left malicious businessman who are only out to maximize profit, thus highly threatening Africa’s food security. The adverse effects of trade liberalization in rural Africa have led to an increase in rural-urban migration, which in turn leads to increase in the number squatters and crime in urban areas. In Zimbabwe, trade liberalization has resulted to women doing cross-border trade, which has impacted negatively on their sociocultural life. There is a breakdown of the social structure in the process since most children are left out of parental care. Most of these children are further exposed to such risks are rape, which affects their emotional and psychological development. Globalization in Africa has seen multinational companies enter the African market with their cheap products, competing unfavorably with locally produced goods (Kaplinsky and Mike 560). This has forced African manufacturers out of their own markets, as is the case with the closure of Cone Textiles in Zimbabwe that saw hundreds of workers retrenched. Since the majority of those retrenched were bread winners in their families, they became disillusioned as there was no work or money. The importation of and selling of cheap sisal bags in East Africa from Japan affected the Kenyan women who were involved in the manufacture of these bags. Importation of cheap second hand clothes from Europe has killed textile industries in most countries, with those in the sub-Sahara most affected. Globalization has been of more benefit to foreign investors especially from the west compared to the locals. For instance, foreign investors took over major revenue enterprises such as tobacco, textile industries and the national airline. The same case was witnessed in Cameroon where the foreign investors took over agricultural ventures, banks and national airlines. Therefore, it is clear that globalization has encouraged decrease in National control of the country’s economy and increased external control of the state’s economy by outside players. The government of such countries lack incentives to encourage production locally through high importation and devaluation of currency. Lack of incentives to encourage production in the Tanzanian leather industry has seen production in this sector almost collapse as the imports have flooded the market in the country. Further, free trade has made the African market the dumping site for all kinds of goods from developed economies. The high cost of production in Africa discourages local investors, leaving the African countries to largely rely on imports. Globalization has encouraged drug trafficking, terrorism, sex tourism, and rapid spread of diseases like HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. Many people who get retrenched as a result of closure of companies or cannot secure job resolve to drug trafficking and robbery for their survival. Many young girls who drop out of school due to poverty resolve to prostitution to make a living. In the process, these girls get infected with Sexually Transmitted Diseases like HIV/AIDS. AIDS has been a major challenge in Africa, forcing most governments to allocate large amounts of money on the fight against the disease. Perhaps if this money was invested in profit generating projects, these economies would have experienced some growth. The same case applies to the spread of crime and terrorism, where some countries like Nigeria are using much money in fighting terrorism rather than investing in the economy. Kenya’s tourism sector has experiences negative growth in the past few years due to insecurity posed by the Somali based Al-Shabaab terror group. As a result, the Kenyan government is spending heavily on fighting terrorism instead of investing in new wealth generating projects. Many people have lost employment as most hotels in the Kenyan coast have been closed due to lack of customers. The issue of insecurity is also likely to scare away foreign investors hence affected countries are likely to experience high rates of unemployment. Corrupt government officials in in most African countries have misappropriated most of the public resources, including borrowed loans and donors. The ministry of education in Kenya for instance misappropriated about forty six million US dollars in 2011, forcing the UK to demand its money back (Dubner and Kimberly 297). In this case, repaying 77 million pounds for such a country may lead to stagnation of the economy, as it will be financially stretched. Most governments are run with a lot of partiality, with most of them running ghost projects that enable them pocket a lot of money. Just like western powers are suppressing Africans economically, these leaders have also ensured that national resources are controlled by the few. The result of embezzling borrowed money is increased taxation from the innocent citizens in order to repay the debts. This is another reason as to why most African economies have remained stunted, or steadily deteriorating since independence. Intergenerational poverty is a common feature in these countries, since most of the revenue is spent on paying back the loans rather than being ploughed back to the economy. Most critiques of globalization view it as neocolonialism since it encourages dependency of third world economies on the developed economies. It is true that the African states can no longer define the rules and regulations of their economy, production, credits and trade due to globalization. These states can hardly manage their political affairs volitionally, as seen in most of these nations seeking foreign military aid due to internal conflicts. The inequality of the members of the global village in terms of status and the inability of the Africans to resist the imposed policies qualifies globalization to be a new order of marginalization of Africans. The free market liberalism and property based democracy is likely to continuously license cultural imperialism as well as the institutionalization of both political suppression and exploitation of developing economies. In this case, the western powers are abusing the human rights, especially the right to economic equality, which explains why Africans are still poor. The civil turmoil in the Port Harcourt area of Nigeria is attributed to the Nigerian government’s failure to respond to the needs of the citizens. The failure to respond is tied to globalization policies that have curtailed most African states’ autonomy in terms of decision making. Most coup de tats in Africa have been linked to the governments’ ignorance of the needs of the citizens. The overall impact of poverty caused by globalization is limited access to basic services like health and education. Children dropping out of school due to lack of school fees may end up in early marriages, hence likely to have more children due to high fertility level. This translates to high population growth rates in the continent despite being exposed to globalization. Poor and uneducated citizens may not get access to health services like family planning. This also explains the high fertility rates in most African states that have translated to high levels of youthful population. Globalization has had a negative impact on the environment in Africa, perhaps due to the inability of the inability of the African governments’ to deal with pollution. Globalization increases consumption which in turn affects the ecological cycle. Southern African countries or instance have exhausted most of their resources to meet the high demands of the growing population. High amounts of fuel used during transportation of people and goods from one country to the next have increased pollution levels. Getting access to clean water in southern Africa has become a major concern due to rising level of pollution. These emissions have led to global warming and consequently climate change e.g. the Sahel drought in the 20th century was linked to pollution in the west. The Sahel drought was the biggest that hit the planet as it made Central Africa remain dry from the 1970s to the 1990s. Research indicates that the drought was due to pollution in the Northern Hemisphere caused by America and Europe. As a result, the region was hunger-stricken since no food could be grown, hence malnutrition especially in children. Emissions from jets have led to the depletion of the ozone layer, causing the greenhouse effect that is evidenced by the increasing global temperatures. In southern Africa, climate change as a result of pollution is evidenced by increase in precipitation in some areas and decrease in other areas. For instance, central Botswana is likely to be more hot and humid whereas eastern southern Africa will be wetter than the western part. High demand for ivory in Asia has encouraged poaching of elephants in Africa, impacting negatively on biodiversity. Globalization has made it easier for the ivory to be smuggled into these states, with the number of elephants and rhinos decreasing drastically because of poaching. As a matter of fact, most African countries’ ability to prevent pollution and protect the environment is overstretched. External players continue to expand their industrial activities in countries whose regulatory capacity of public administration is limited by the free trade policies. The situation is further worsened by the fact that some international agencies make decisions which are binding on countries. Such countries are not autonomous when it comes to formulation of certain policies and making decisions, which translates to them being undermined. In a nut shell, globalization can be equated to neocolonialism in Africa, since it promotes economic and political inequality like the colonialists. It is a high time Africans woke up to the reality that globalization is one way of promoting western hegemony. Pro globalists call the world a village, but the reality is that this is a village of suppression and inequality. The problem of poverty, political struggles; population growth, environmental concerns and conflict have been authored by the west through globalization. The west must revise its concept of development since it currently lacks social, economic and cultural justice. Failure to revise this concept will contradict the European and American agitation for equality and justice through their human rights movements. Works Cited Aluko, Funso and Arowolo Dare. ""Foreign Aid, the Third Worlds debt crisis and the implication for economic development: The Nigerian experience."." African Journal of Political Science and International Relations 4.4 (2010): 120. Cooksey, Brian and Kelsall Tim. ""The political economy of the investment climate in Tanzania."." Africa Power and Politics Programme Background Paper 1 (2011): 1. De Janvry, Alain and Sadoulet Elisabeth. ""Agriculture for Development in Africa: Business-as-Usual or New Departures?." Journal of African Economies 19.suppl 2 (2010): ii7-ii39. Docquier, Frederic and Rapoport Hillel. ""Globalization, brain drain, and development." Journal of Economic Literature (2012): 681-730. Dubner, Barry Hart and Chavers Kimberly. ""Dilemma of Piratical Ransoms: Should They Be Paid Or Not: On the Human Rights of Kidnapped Seamen and Their Families." Barry L. Rev. 18 (2012): 297. Kacowicz, Arie M. ""Globalization, Poverty, and the North–South Divide1." International Studies Review 9.4 (2007): 565-580. Kaplinsky, Raphael and Morris Mike . ""Chinese FDI in Sub-Saharan Africa: engaging with large dragons." European Journal of Development Research 21.4 (2009): 551-569. Litz, David. ""Globalization and the changing face of educational leadership: Current trends & emerging dilemmas." International Education Studies 4.3 (2011): 47. McMichael, Philip. ""A food regime analysis of the ‘world food crisis’." Agriculture and human values 26.4 (2009): 281-295. Orr, Ryan J. and R. Kennedy Jeremy. ""Highlights of recent trends in global infrastructure: new players and revised game rules." Transnational Corporations 17.1 (2008): 99-133. Read More