Coping
with New Chanllenges, Especially Globalization
Development
economics fell into disrepute in the West, especially in the USA, with the rise
of neo-liberalism from the late seventies.
The
eighties began with Carter appointee US Federal Reserve chief Paul Volcker’s
sharp reversal of developing country growth of the seventies, with the UN
promise of a New International Economic Order. The Reagan-Thatcher decade began
with the debt crises of Latin America, Africa, Eastern Europe, Korea and the
Philippines, enabling the post-Bretton Woods International Monetary Fund (IMF)
to take over macroeconomic policy with its stabilization policies and the World
Bank to require indebted governments to abandon development policies in favour
of economic liberalization through structural adjustment policies.
Meanwhile,
however, the protests at Seattle and since have continued to remind the world
that all is not well with liberalization, with its international manifestation
in the form of globalization. It is therefore useful to begin reconsidering
development economics by the issues exacerbated by the current phase of
globalization. Economic globalization poses serious challenges to the
developing world, so much so that many in the South now think of globalization
as inimical to development.
Since
one size does not necessarily fit all, there is no universal formula for
desirable national level reforms to cope with globalization. The big challenge
for economic policy and regulation then is really at the international level.
The governance of international organizations -- such as the Bretton Woods
institutions and the WTO -- has to be fundamentally reformed in favour of
equitable and sustained development, rather than assuming that liberalization
and globalization will somehow miraculously achieve this objective.
Sumber : http://www.jomoks.org/popular/popular.htm