Poverty and Globalization

Global poverty is increasing.  Sick and diseased children, high cost of drugs, lack of medical care, infant mortality and female illiteracy, all indicate problems of global poverty.

National boundaries have become nearly as irrelevant to economic and political tides as they are to infectious diseases or popular music.

Governments have been weak in the face of global problems, such as ensuring that all children get a basic education, reducing debt to the poorest nations and protecting the world from global warming and HIV/AIDS.

The concern by the poor is that all globalization is being undertaken by the very colonial powers of the past that put the poor where they are today by their imperial control of resources and people.  The UN believes that globalization should become an engine to lift people and countries out of hardship and misery.

Despite progress in science and technology and giant improvements in living standards, too many people have been left out.  Worldwide, there are 1.3 billion people living in extreme poverty, more than 150 million children forced to work, 125 million children who don’t go to school plus many more who drop out before getting a basic education, and 880 million illiterate.

The UN wants to halve the number of people who subsist on less than a dollar a day- 1 billion of them, by 2015.  Also addressed was AIDS, primary education, and clean water.

Persistent poverty defies the wisdom of globalization.  Some cultures perpetuate poverty and economic inferiority.

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