Monitoring Policy Making at the United Nations |
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Globalization, UN Attacks Growing Gulf Between
Rich and PoorBy Charlotte Denny and Victoria Brittain
Guardian
July 12, 1999
The combined wealth of the world's three richest families is greater than the annual income of 600m people in the least developed countries, according to a United Nations report out today, and a "grotesque" gap between the rich and poor is widening. Economic globalisation is creating a dangerous polarisation between multi-billionaires like Microsoft's Bill Gates, the Walton family who own the Wal-Mart empire, and the Sultan of Brunei - who have a combined worth of $135bn - and the millions who have been left behind, the UN's annual human development report states. In the report, Ted Turner, the billionaire who owns CNN, says: "Globalisation is in fast forward, and the world's ability to understand and react to it is in slow motion."
The UN is calling for a rewriting of global economic rules to avoid inequalities between poor countries and wealthy individuals. It also wants a more representative system of global governance to buffer the effects of a "boom and bust" economy. UN figures show that over the last four years, the world's 200 richest people have doubled their wealth to more than $1trillion ($1,000bn). The number of people living on less than a dollar a day has remained unchanged at 1.3bn. "Global inequalities in income and living standards have reached grotesque proportions," the report says.
Thirty years ago, the gap between the richest fifth of the world's people and the poorest stood at 30 to 1. By 1990 it had widened to 60 to 1 and today it stands at 74 to 1. In terms of consumption, the richest fifth account for 86% while the bottom fifth account for just 1%. Almost 75% of the world's telephone lines - essential for new technologies like the net - are in the west, yet it has just 17% of the world's population. Canada ranks number one once again for quality of life, according to the UN's index of human development. War- ravaged Sierra Leone stays bottom of the league table. The UK has moved up four places in the table to number ten, beating France into 11th place.
Globalisation is now more than just the flow of money and trade, the report says. The world's people are growing ever more interdependent as the amount of space and time available to them decreases. Even a seemingly isolated event, like the devaluation of the Thai baht in July 1997, can spark a global financial panic. The UN estimates that the current global economic difficulties will wipe $2trillion off annual world output between 1998 and 2000.
"The world is rushing headlong into greater integration, driven mostly by a philosophy of market profitability and economic efficiency," says the report's main author, Richard Jolly. "We must bring human development and social protection into the equation."
Breakthroughs like the internet can offer a fast track to growth, but at present only the rich and educated benefit. Of the net's users, 88% live in the west, says the report, adding: "The literally well connected have an overpowering advantage over the unconnected poor, whose voices and concerns are being left out of the global conversation."
Among the biggest beneficiaries of globalisation are criminals, who can now exploit worldwide markets for drugs, arms and prostitutes. Underworld bosses now command organisations with the global reach of multinational companies and six major international crime syndicates are believed to gross $1.5 trillion annually from the proceeds of crime. "They are now developing strategic alliances linked in a global network, reaping the benefits of globalisation," the report warns.
To counter the downside of globalisation, the UN makes a number of recommendations, including an international forum of business, trade unions and environmental and development groups to counter the dominance of the G7 in global decision making; a code of conduct for multinationals; and the creation of an international legal centre to help poor countries conduct global trade negotiations.
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