HOME | ARCHIVES |

Issue 27: September-October 2003

Remake globalization to
benefit everyone – Ramos

Thirty experts and more than 400 members of the public attended the globalization conference at UNU Centre.

Policy makers must manage and refashion globalization so that it better serves humanity as a whole, former Philippines President Fidel Ramos told an international conference held at UNU Centre in Tokyo July 30-31.

“The interplay of the actors in globalization must be orchestrated so that all will aim not only for economic growth and financial stability, but also for people empowerment in terms of equal access to opportunity, social mobility and human security in its widest sense,” said Ramos.

He was speaking during the conference Globalization with a Human Face – Benefitting All, where more than 30 experts from politics, government and academia discussed how globalization can be made to benefit all of humankind, and not just those currently in the driver’s seat of the globalization processes. Co-organized by UNU and UNESCO, the event was attended by more than 400 members of the public.

The conference aimed to review our current understanding of the multiple linkages between the economic and political driving forces of globalization and socio-cultural development, to evaluate the effectiveness of political action taken to balance the negative with the positive effects of globalization on people's lives, and to identify areas and means for improving the policy response on part of governmental and civil society actors on the international, regional, national and local levels to the challenges of globalization.

Ramos . . .'manage and refashion globalization	Van Ginkel . . . 'factual, pragmatic approach'	Matsuura . . . 'ethical ground is shifting'

In an opening address, UNU Rector Hans van Ginkel stressed the importance of discussing globalization in a factual and pragmatic way. “We need to focus on the multidimensional character of globalization, or in other words to break it down into its constituent elements,” he said. "These include not only the economic, but also the geographical, cultural, social and political dimensions of the globalization process."

The negative effects of globalization include unequal distribution of economic benefits, sometimes resulting in increased poverty rates; the “digital divide” which serves to polarize the world into those with access to timely information and speedy communication, and those who are left out of this circle of global interaction; and rapidly spreading diseases such as HIV/AIDS or, more recently, SARS. 

In addition, however, many perceive globalization as a threat to cultural diversity and stress the need to protect diverse cultural expression, and to engage in an active global dialogue about the ethical foundations of modern societies:  “In many areas of life, the ethical ground is shifting beneath our feet due to the very rapidity of scientific and technological change, which is outstripping our capacity to devise appropriate ethical, political and social responses,” said UNESCO Director-General Koichiro Matsuura.

The conference called on actors in politics, society, academia and the business world on the local, national, regional and international levels to devise policies that will confront the challenges of globalization. Examples of such policies were discussed in four working groups, which focused on cultural policy, education policy, environmental policy and the role of media and communication in the process of globalization.

The recommendations of the working groups, along with full texts of many presentations given at the conference, will be available on the conference website soon.

HOME

Copyright © 2003  United Nations University. All rights reserved.