REAPING BENEFITS OF GLOBALISATION

The twelfth United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) XII opened yesterday in Accra on the theme “Addressing the Opportunities and Challenges of Globalisation for Development”.
Opening the conference, President J.A. Kufuor touched on the essence of global co-operation and made a strong case for global support for Africa, to address the continent’s underdevelopment.
He said global trade should prove “beneficial to all and detrimental to none”.
It is significant to note that at the flag-raising ceremony of UNCTAD XII last week Friday, the Special Advisor to the UN Secretary-General, also echoed similar concerns of the African continent when he said “During UNCTAD XII we should be looking for answers, we will be proposing solutions, we will be offering alternatives and we hope to offer hope.”
Participants in the conference will be looking at a wide range of issues, particularly how to deepen the frontiers of trade and investments between developed and developing nations.
It is clear that Africa will take centre stage at the plenary sessions to help fashion out sustainable development strategies for the continent.
As expected at such international conferences, civil society groups have also gathered to offer their perspectives on the global development agenda and present their views on the new architecture for poverty reduction and job creation.
Presently, the world is on its knees trying to find reasons for the sudden slowdown in the world economy. The theme of the UNCTAD conference provides the platform for designing the conditions for sustainable economic development and poverty reduction with particular focus on regional experiences.
There is no doubt that globalisation has made the world a global village. The phenomenon has strengthened the nexus and helped us to know the needs of one another in a better way.
However, we should also be concerned about the dark side of globalisation because, for it to be mutually beneficial, the efforts at reforming the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to make it more embracing must be speeded up.
World trade still favours the advanced societies in the face of falling prices of primary products, while developing nations have no say in the fixing of the prices of finished goods.
Farmers in developed nations receive subsidies whereas governments in the developing world are persuaded not to give subsidy to their farmers.
The best approach ahead must be for the comity of nations to identify some common grounds on which people of goodwill on both sides of the heated controversies on globalisation may possibly agree.
Therefore, the way forward lies in transparency and accountability in trade policies. The debate on globalisation must be constructive and open.
The DAILY GRAPHIC believes that globalisation as a new phenomenon will generate winners and losers, but whatever the dark side of globalisation, transparent global competition can keep domestic businesses on their toes.
Let UNCTAD XII find solutions to unfair competition in the market so that all nations, particularly those in Africa, can have access to markets to trade on equal terms.
That achievement will be the bulwark of support for personal liberties and economic freedom to spur growth.