DGH at Home and Abroad By Jen Kasper |
This does not mean we at DGH are against globalization. We are against a corporate globalization that puts public riches into private pockets. We practice our own form of globalization from below. Rather than liberalizing trade, we are liberalizing cooperatives and microenterprises, which not only offer economic gains, but also dignified, community-centered labor. While corporations lobby to reduce trade barriers, we work to reduce geographic barriers by encouraging world citizenship and volunteerism.
Some import and export things like oil, cars and diamonds. We import and export precious commodities like our overseas partners, who come to the DGH annual General Assembly to share their reality with us.
| “We see a need for globalization of human rights and responsibilities. We articulate an alternative vision, one centered on equality and the sovereign will of people to be active participants in changing their present situation.” |
At DGH, we take a different view of the world and our role in it. Where some create division, we create unity and solidarity. Where our US government preaches and practices pre-emptive strikes, we take an anti-militaristic, peaceful orientation of engagement. Rather than destruction, we are about construction, of clinics and schools and minds. Eschewing hate, we draw on art and music in our healing.
In this age of globalization of economies and corporations, we see a need for globalization of human rights and responsibilities. Rather than wearing blinders to the injustice that prevails, we examine with a keen eye the social, economic, and political structures that perpetrate and perpetuate poverty and health disparities. We only go where we are invited, working with respect in partnership toward social justice. We articulate an alternative vision, one centered on equality and the sovereign will of people to be active participants in changing their present situation. We take the long view and are committed to accompanying communities around the world as a countervailing force to corporate globalization.
The preamble to the constitution of the World Health Organization (WHO) states, "Enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health is one of the fundamental rights of every human being without distinction of race, religion, political belief, economic or social condition." Yet most of the implementation of globalization promotes the pursuit of economic gains without regard to health and human rights, which has a profound, dehumanizing effect on people around the world. The globalized industrial market results in nearly $2 trillion crossing international borders daily. Nearly one-third of that goes to inter-corporate trading between different subsidiaries of the same transnational corporations (TNCs).
A large portion is in the form of foreign direct investment (FDI), which is highly concentrated– 80% of FDI goes to 10 developing countries. A significant portion goes into the coffers of TNCs. In fact, of the 100 largest economies, 51 are corporations, not countries. For example, General Motors' budget is $176 billion, compared to Denmark's $173 billion; Wal-Mart's budget is $166 billion, compared to Poland's $154 billion; and Exxon Mobil's budget is $163 billion, compared to South Africa's $133 billion.
 |
| Health workers march in the streets of San Salvador against the privatization of the healthcare system. |
The promise that globalization would result in equalization of incomes across countries has not come to fruition. A 1999 United Nations (UN) report, Globalization with a Human Face, indicates more than 80 countries now have per capita incomes lower than a decade ago. An analysis of economic growth rates comparing the periods of 1960-1980 and 1980-2000 shows that there was a fall in economic growth across all country income categories, with the poorest group experiencing a decline of 0.5% per year. The UN Conference on Trade and Development says that between 1965 and 1995 the gross domestic product (GDP) of Sub-Saharan Africa fell 50% and the GDP of Central America dropped 30%. The gap between the richest 20% of the population and the poorest 20% has increased from 30 to 1 in 1960, to 78 to 1 in 1994. The top 20% of people living in high income countries control 86% of GDP, 82% of export markets, and 68% of FDI, while the bottom 20% control less than 1% of each. The wealth of the world's richest 225 people is greater than the collective wealth of 2.5 billion people or 47% of the world's population.
And what of the impact on health? In the time it will take you to read this article, $600,000 in international finance capital will fly around the world; 1,200 children will die from preventable diseases; 200 people will die from tuberculosis and 300 from AIDS; and 600 will be infected with HIV. In the current creed–and greed–of globalization, the demands of profitability disregard the demands of social responsibility.
So what are some of the most damaging effects of globalization, a.k.a. neoliberal economics? Privatization, cuts in government social spending, imposition of user fees on social services, promotion of export over domestic production, higher interest rates, and currency devaluation. All have negative repercussions on the health of a country and ultimately those made poor by its policies.
An article entitled, "Ranking the Rich," by Foreign Policy Magazine and the Center for Global Development reports: "The World Bank estimates that trade barriers in developed economies cost poor countries more than $100 billion annually, roughly twice what rich countries give in aid. And among the most protected industries are agriculture, textiles, and apparel–not coincidentally the precise areas where poor countries are most competitive, and where they could create the most jobs, absent protectionism."
Disparities in distribution of economic opportunities abound. The large subsidies provided to US farmers by their government, for example, create an uneven playing field for the predominantly agricultural communities in the south. Least developed countries made up only 0.4% of world trade in 1997, a decrease of 50% since 1980. Sub-Saharan Africa received only 2% of all net long-term private capital flows in 1997.
It makes one wonder, is corporate globalization creating a global apartheid? Adding to the problem is the promotion of globalization by the corporate-leaning trio of the World Trade Organization (WTO), International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB). These institutions would have us believe that structural adjustment programs and loans to highly-indebted poor countries are producing prosperity for all.
Yet years of experience have demonstrated the opposite effect. From 1990-1997 the amount of money poor, southern countries paid in interest and repayment of foreign debt to wealthy, northern countries was more than they received in new loans, a total transfer of $77 billion.
Anne Pettifor, Senior research associate for Jubilee states, "Orthodox textbooks teach us that with financial liberalization, capital should flow from where it is plentiful to where it is scarce. Tragically, the reverse is happening today. This is a form of global theft of the world's poor–and helps explain rising tensions in the world." One only has to review the 2004 World Bank Finance Development Report to appreciate the magnitude of the problem.
Total external debt of developing countries is estimated at $2.4 trillion. In addition, the report shows how much of a country's per capita income goes to paying interest on its foreign debt: El Salvador 43%, Mexico 24%, Nicaragua 174%, Uganda 72%, Guatemala 22%. To put this in perspective, the UN estimates $13.5 billion is needed each year to curb the AIDS epidemic in Africa through education, prevention and medical care. That is the same amount these same African countries pay in interest every year on their foreign debts.
The WB's 2000-2001 World Development Report states that to combat poverty the capabilities of the poor must be enhanced, particularly through improved provision of education and health. The empowerment of the poor must be facilitated by making institutions more responsive and accountable to the poor. And governments need to better understand and reduce the vulnerability of the poor to ill health. It seems fair to ask how this is to be achieved at the same time that the WB and IMF impose structural adjustment programs that demand governments of developing countries "save money" by cutting back on and privatizing the very services–namely health, education and other social programs–that would help alleviate poverty.
Add to this the dubious record on foreign aid and the situation of the poor becomes clearer. First, in many cases international aid is tied to purchasing the donor's goods and services, thus it does nothing to support or improve the local economy. For example, the US will give an agricultural loan to Colombia that stipulates that most of the money must be used to buy tractors from a US company. In addition, the amount of foreign aid has fallen. Since 1965, the percentage of industrialized countries' GNP that goes to international aid has plummeted from 0.48% to 0.23% (the UN has asked that countries give 0.7% of their GDP in aid). The US gives only 0.1% of its GNP to assisting other countries, only a fraction of which is earmarked for health, education, water and sanitation–the problems that plague the communities where DGH works.
The Commitment to Development Index, created by the Center for Global Development and Foreign Policy Magazine, looks beyond mere foreign aid, encompassing trade, environment, investment, migration and peacekeeping policies. According to this index, the US ranked 20 out of 21 due to its poor environmental policies and lack of contributions to peacekeeping.
The 20/20 Initiative, a joint document by several UN agencies, the WHO and the WB, calls for both developed and developing countries to allocate 20% of their budgets (in the case of developed countries, it is their official development assistance budget) to basic social services. The total cost of this endeavor, $200 billion, represents less than 1% of total global output. A lofty ideal that is on the right track of focusing on health and human rights, but it has yet to be operationalized.
Using our human rights "glasses" (vs. blinders), the answers to why the number of poor in the world continues to grow in the midst of the growing globalized economy are crystal clear.
At DGH we believe that, as the World Social Forum theme states, "Another World is Possible." We also fervently agree with Dorothy Day: "People say, 'what is the sense of our small effort?' They cannot see that we must lay one brick at a time, take one step at a time. A pebble cast into a pond causes ripples that spread in all directions. Each one of our thoughts, words, and deeds is like that. No one has the right to sit down and feel hopeless. There is so much work to do!"
Implementation of a solution is not as easy as naming the problem, but the commonality of our humanity demands that we act. DGH members are committed to this work and we invite you to join us in the struggle to make this world a place of dignity, hope and joy for all.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Search the DGH Web Site Now!
Legal Notice