Commonwealth Secretary-General Supports Globalisation but calls for Reform of International Structures
20 October 1998
Commonwealth Secretary-General, Chief Emeka Anyaoku, has said that the immense opportunities that globalisation holds for improving the lives of millions of people in all parts of the world make it the paramount policy for Commonwealth countries to pursue, even countries currently suffering from the global economic crisis.
Chief Anyaoku said the benefits included commitment to market principles and openness to trade and investment, the spread of political pluralism, the growth of civil society, respect for the rule of law and human rights and the predominance of democracy. However, he stressed that to exploit the opportunities, countries would need to manage the globalisation process so that the benefits were shared by all.
The Secretary-General was speaking at the annual conference of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association in Wellington, New Zealand, on 18 October.
Chief Anyaoku said that the recent economic crisis had shown that reform of the international system was needed as well as action at the national level. He said the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund were proving inadequate to deal with current day realities where huge capital flows capricious in character, were exposing the world economy to incalculable risks.
The Secretary-General said that despite recent setbacks, globalisation had had a very positive impact and the liberalisation policies and the closer integration of the world economy in the last half century had resulted in huge increases in world trade and cross-border investment.
He discounted the belief that the functions of government were being increasingly emasculated under globalisation. Globalisation meant added responsibilities for governments, and he pointed out that the lack of either the resources or the time to ease the transition from closed to open economies made it a process fraught with risk. However, the alternative was marginalisation and stagnation.
He said the management of change needed to go beyond economic issues because global integration was happening at a time of political uncertainty in many countries. Without political stability, no economic progress or social progress was possible. The global community must also respond urgently to this aspect of the globalisation process, and one of the first things to be done was the setting up of social safety-nets to protect the vulnerable.
98/74 20 October 1998
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