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Globalization And Sustainable Development In Africa
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The engineering mechanism of globalization
remains the revolution in science and technology, particularly as it
affects transportation and electro-communication systems. The net
result is the creation of a global village, a single market system, a
global factory and a global office. One result of globalization is
grotesque and dangerous polarization between peoples and countries
benefiting from the system and those that are merely recipients and
reactionaries of the effects.[8]
Against this backdrop, one can
rightly adduce that globalization seems to transcend mere flow of trade
or social relations to perpetrate some form of economic, political and
socio-cultural imperialism. This may imply a sort of donor-recipient
polarism. In this case, globalization cannot be a benign force since it
would certainly create a world of winners and losers. This explains
why its implications to developing countries, especially those in
Africa, appear to be precarious.
Yet, the pro-globalization thinkers maintain that:
There is mounting evidence that inequalities in global income and
poverty are decreasing and that globalization has contributed immensely
to this turn around … The gap between rich and poor is also shrinking
with most nations in Asia and Latin America. The countries that are
getting poorer are those that are not open to world trade, notably many
nations in Africa.[9]
The basic logic here is that poor countries
that have lowered their tariff barriers have gained increases in
employment and national income.
Sequel to this, the World Trade
Organization argues that “trade liberalization helps poor countries to
catch up with rich ones and that this faster economic growth helps
alleviate poverty.â€[10] Succinctly put, Professor Ron Duncan of the
AustralianNationalUniversity argued point blank that:
Although globalization may increase inequality in some countries, this
can be remedied with structural responses. A rise in poverty among the
poorest countries results from their not taking part in
globalization.[11]
But are we really to blame the poverty in Africa
and other under-developed countries on their abstinence from
globalization? Certainly this is not the view of some thinkers, who
maintain that globalization is even responsible for the increasing
impoverishment and marginalization of the so-called “Third World.†The
most frequently used data are those from the UNDP 1999 Development
Report. This report shows that the past decade, the decade of the most
intense globalization, has shown increasing concentration of income,
resources and wealth among people, corporations and countries.[12]
Situating these findings to the African setting, Yash Tandon, a Ugandan political scientist, argued that:
Anybody with any degree of intellectual integrity would see that the
globalization of Africa or the integration of Africa into the global
economy from the days of slavery to the contemporary period of
capital-led integration has on balance of costs and benefits been a
disaster for Africa, both in human terms and in terms of the damage to
Africa’s natural environment… it is also a measure of their (World
Bank/IMF officials) intellectual dishonesty or ideological brainwashing
that they cannot see the connection between globalization and Africa’s
poverty.[13]
This judgment is in indeed harsh, but it seems to
represent the views of many thinkers. For instance, Obiora F. Ike, a
theologian and social philosopher, affirms the veracity of this judgment
when he questioned and answered thus: “Is globalization good for
Africa’s future? Not at all. I would argue that its present form has
been exaggerating the gap between Africa and the so-called developed
world.â€[14]
Thus, Mbaya Kankwenda, a Congolese scholar, concludes that:
Globalization has a strong dogmatic and doctrinal dimension. In this
respect it concerns the globalization of market fundamentalism and its
paradigm, which in reality is nothing but the keeping in step of
developing countries, hence Africa, taking the continent as an object
rather than a subject and partner.[15]
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