globalization and international relations

ABDUL-RAHEEM Tajudeen

An African Perspective on Globalization

> Pan African Movement

http://www.panafricanmovement.org/Gl (...)

Africa and Europe have had a continuous contact of more than 400 years. It has been a relationship of domination, exploitation and oppression. Whatever happens in Europe tends to have ripple effects in Africa. Therefore any idea that has become fashionable in Europe trickles down into intellectual and political discussions/battles in Africa.  read

date of on-line publication : 20 June 2006

DOR George

Economic Alternatives to Neoliberalism

> Pambazuka News 209: 2 June 2005

http://www.pambazuka.org/index.php?i (...)

Any attempt to build economic alternatives to neoliberalism also needs to take account of its ideological and repressive elements. As potentially viable alternatives are developed, the neoliberal system will do all in its power to repress these initiatives. Therefore, as well as being visionary and identifying offensive demands towards realising that vision, attention must also be given to defending the space that is available to develop alternatives. The closing down of forms of expression, passing of restrictive legislation and acts of violent repression must be resisted together with the building of alternatives. Maintaining the space to be able to develop alternatives is thus an integral dimension of the struggle for alternatives.  read

date of on-line publication : 1 June 2006

dossier

DENYS Lieven, JETIN Bruno

Ready for Implementation: Technical and Legal Aspects of a Currency Transaction Tax and Its Implementation

> World Economy, Ecology and Development e.V. (WEED), Berlin, November 2005, 238pp., PDF

http://www2.weed-online.org/uploads/ (...)

This study brings the important technical and legal details of the Currency Transaction Tax (CTT) to the debate table. It proves explicitly the feasibility of a CTT implementation and clarifies its political, technical, institutional and legal aspects. It is, so far, the most in-depth analysis of the possibilities of an implementation of the CTT and the challenges emerging from this implementation.
Eventually the implementation of a CTT depends on the political will and especially the pressure by the global justice movement on governments and decision makers. The technical feasibility of a sound project does not ensure its implementation, as politics are shaped by interest groups and power struggles. However, this study shows that there are no more formal, legal or technical excuses behind which opponents or hesitant supporters of a CTT can hide.  read

date of on-line publication : 18 May 2006

Pambazuka

Africa and the WSF: From Bamako 2006 to Nairobi 2007

> Pambazuka, January 26, 2006

http://www.pambazuka.org/index.php?i (...)

This Pambazuka "question and answer" provides a general overview of the World Social Forum (WSF), addresses the primary criticisms of the forum. African awareness-raising and mobilization was made possible in 2006 by holding polycentric events, which included Bamako, Mali. African attendance at previous forums had been minimal; therefore it was important that the WSF provide a space for groups from the area hardest hit by the globalization and poverty link to voice their concerns and ideas.  read

date of on-line publication : 9 May 2006

WAHLBERG Katarina

Progress on Global Taxes?

> Global Policy Forum, December 2005

http://www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/ (...)

In recent years, political leaders and influential institutions have taken important steps toward global taxes, and have succeeded in making the topic less of a taboo in international relations. While welcoming these developments, Katarina Wahlberg of Global Policy Forum argues that the recent high-level proposals neglect the vital role global taxes can play in steering global environmental and financial policy. Moreover, these proposals fail to guarantee that the tax revenue will be additional to Official Development Assistance (ODA) and spent in a democratic way to finance real development.  read

date of on-line publication : 11 April 2006

BOOTH David

Aid to Africa: More doesn’t have to mean worse

http://www.odi.org.uk/annual_report/ (...)

Why are we condemned to conduct the public debate about aid to Africa in such grossly simplified terms? The sound bites around this year’s G8 seem to be dominated by just two points of view.
One uses the shocking statistics on unmet needs in Africa as a sufficient basis for urging substantially increased funding flows. The other scores telling points against an approach that worries so little about feasibility but fails to offer an alternative vision for aid.
Thus, a ping-pong ball is batted back and forth between two positions:
a. The needs of the peoples of Africa are enormous and urgent.
b. It is a moral outrage that we cannot meet them, even in the most basic ways.
So, a massive increase in aid resources and debt relief is the minimum acceptable response.
David Booth, a Research Fellow of the Overseas Development Institute, offers practical suggestions about Aid to Africa to both the donors and the recipients that is realistic and hopeful.  read

date of on-line publication : 6 February 2006

dossier

BIGG Tom, ROBBINS Nick, SIMMS Andrew

The trouble with the global economy - the United Nations’ lost role and democratic reform of the IMF,World Bank and the World Trade Organisation

> Nef, September 2000, 32pp., PDF

http://www.neweconomics.org/gen/z_sy (...)

This report argues that democratic reform of institutions like the World Bank, IMF and WTO is crucial to creating a more accountable and representative system of global governance: a system necessary for tackling the problems that the evolution of globalisation has thrown up (environmental degradation, an unstable and turbulent global economy, increasing inequalities, etc). This includes recognising the legitimate authority of already existing representative bodies and international agreements, which have been arrived at by more democratic means, as well as new ways of connecting society with these institutions (such as citizen’s juries). The report draws on the progress of the European Union as an example of what can go wrong in the building of broad-based economic governance and how this can be avoided. Written at the time of “Charter 99” (a campaign for UN reform and a charter for global democracy), it outlines the key challenges, broad themes for reforms, and the precise need for accountability.  read

date of on-line publication : 11 January 2006

BRITO Lydia

Let Africa Into the Carbon Market

> Project Syndicate, Dec 2005

http://www.project-syndicate.org/com (...)

This article calls for a change to the European bias against using credits from forest projects for its own internal carbon market, in order to allow Africa to play a larger role in the emerging international carbon market.

• Further details on the European Trading Scheme
• A selection of video clips with people expressing their views on carbon trading in Africa
• See also the website carbontradewatch.org

date of on-line publication : 21 December 2005

dossier

Coordination SUD

Agriculture: for a regulation of world trade, placing development at the centre of WTO negotiations on the Agreement on Agriculture

Recommendations of the French International Solidarity NGOs on the occasion of the 6th WTO Ministerial Conference

> Gret - Coordination SUD, 2005/12, PDF, 106 pp.

http://www.gret.org/ressource/pdf/07 (...)

« International trade is [...] not the answer to the priority needs of rural Thailand, but it seems to be the only concern of the policies implemented. » This statement by a Thai small-scale farmer reflects the despair expressed by nume-rous organisations, partners of Coordination SUD’s members working in rural areas. It challenges the validity of the postulate that guides the trade nego-tiations underway and maintains that all one needs to do is facilitate interna-tional trade to overcome poverty and ensure the development of poor countries.
In this report, Coordination SUD’s Agriculture and Food Commission attempts to make more explicit the extent to which the trade policies of the past two decades have or have not made it possible to attain the proclaimed goals of fighting hunger and poverty. This work was done in partnership with organisations in the South, through case studies of six particularly sensitive agricultural products : rice, sugar, bananas, chicken, milk and cotton. Each of these products illustrates different facets of the stakes involved in commercial trade liberalisation on the multilateral level. Based on the observation that trade policies as they are currently conceived do not benefit the poorest, this report sets forth a number of proposals that aim to replace development at the centre of trade nego-tiations, and especially the negotiations that will take place during the WTO’s Sixth Ministerial Conference in Hong Kong from 13 to 18 December 2005.  read

date of on-line publication : 21 December 2005

DOR George

Case studies in alternatives

> Pambazuka, 15 Dec 2005

http://www.pambazuka.org/index.php?i (...)

This article tracks the emergence of an “African Peoples’ Consensus”, in opposition to the Washington Consensus, through the rise of the African Peoples Forum and recent debates on economic alternatives. It asks what should we be questioning (use of language, erosion of cultural values), and what concrete process is needed to get closer to these alternatives.  read

date of on-line publication : 20 December 2005