SOAS Research Online

Abstract

Globalization and poverty epitomize two of the most pressing contemporary international development issues. Despite the enormous potential of globalization in accelerating economic growth and development through greater integration into the world economy, the spread and transfer of technology, and the transmission of knowledge, its impact on poverty reduction has been uneven and even marginal in some regions. Both the prevalence and depth of poverty in many parts of the developing world remain unacceptably high. Many of the current problems facing the global community are related to how fair the international economic and political system is perceived in relation to the poor in developing countries. This volume presents thirteen studies selected from three regional conferences organized under the auspices of UNU‐WIDER to illustrate the differential effects of globalization on growth, inequality, and poverty in Asia, Latin America, and Africa. Significant differences in initial conditions—natural resource endowment, quantity and quality of human capital, institutional framework, quality of governance—as well as distinct internal dynamic processes of institutional and sociopolitical change triggered by the forces of economic integration have influenced the poor in these regions in quite dissimilar ways. Focusing on distinct manifestations of globalization and channels through which the latter affects poverty, these case studies cover the spectrum from broad macroeconomic regional and country analyses to micro‐oriented village studies in each of the three continents. This volume clearly illustrates that the impact of globalization on poverty is extremely context‐specific, reflecting the heterogeneous and complex nature of the globalization–poverty nexus.