Globalisation and dimensions of poverty

What is the impact on poverty of prevailing globalisation? Is the globalisation process a neutral economic phenomenon that can be harnessed to benefit everyone, or is it a conquest-like political process intrinsically slanted to benefit the few? This report looks at these crucial questions in the present globalisation debate. Besides income and consumption poverty, it investigates some of the other dimensions of poverty: poor health, powerlessness, insecurity, vulnerability and socio-cultural poverty. It also contains a historical overview of the relationships between poverty, wealth and power in order to understand what links them in today's world. The report concludes that prevailing economic globalisation and poverty are intrinsically linked. Globalisation aggravates poverty in the material, health, security, power and socio-cultural dimensions. Also people who have been living frugal lives in their communities but were reasonably satisfied with their conditions are now transformed into suffering poor. Perceiving this trend is difficult for the people in the North. It is part of a profound cultural change that makes even poor people need - and often use - more money. When the poor become more like the rich, it is easy to imagine that things are getting better. This all has very important consequences for what can be done to change the situation. To be content with the ever-recurring improvements in the governance of globalisation or with those measures that make the World Bank poverty figures fall, will probably lead only to the aggravation of poverty. A technical fix does not help but political action and movements are indispensable. The struggles of the poor themselves are essential, and fortunately they are going on in various parts of the world. They need outside solidarity, not necessary money in the first place but political support. Forms of support action are, in principle, easy to find because the forces the poor in the South are struggling against are often of Northern origin or supported by the North. [author]