Poverty, Human Rights and Globalization 2

POVERTY, HUMAN RIGHTS AND GLOBALIZATION
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Introduction
Over the past decades, a number of concerns have been debated on owing to slow economic growth, for instance, in Africa. A number of developmental issues have faced African continent in the 21st century such as increasing poverty and human rights concerns. Development in Africa has lagged behind other regions of the world such as the western world. For instance, according to World Bank statistics, Africa per capita GDP growth has remained low over the past decades owing to increasing poverty in the region. Africa represents 10 percent of the world population and 30 percent of the world poor. Research shows that after independence, the total number of poor people in Africa has been increasing, and there are chances of this number increasing by 2015. Out of the five continents, it is only Africa where poverty has increased at an alarming rate thereby attracting debate as to the factors owing to the rise in poverty (Stiglits, 2003). The other concern that needs to be addressed is human rights issues affecting Africa. Norms in Africa over the years have not been applied to improve human rights conditions. All individuals have rights such as rights to own property, right to worship, right to equal employment and right to equal share of country`s resources. Most of these rights have been violated in Africa, therefore, demanding interventions (Ajayi, 2000a). This paper, therefore, discusses global poverty and human rights as critical for promoting sustainable development and improving the capacity of the people to address development issues. This paper, therefore, discusses the impacts of globalization on poverty reduction and on human rights. It, therefore, gives a clear linkage between poverty, human rights and globalization.
Ajayi, S. (2000a). What Africa Needs to Do to Benefit from Globalization? Finance and Development journal Vol, 38(4), 2000), pp.6-8
This journal discusses the impacts of globalization towards poverty reduction in Africa. Currently, economies are operating globally. For instance, there is free movement of goods and services across borders. To compete successfully in the global market, the competing companies require integration to help in marketing their products effectively around the globe thereby reducing poverty. Therefore, lack of integration amongst economies leads to low production of goods and services thereby affecting the performance of these economies. Increasing poverty in Africa also spill across borders as whatever a given economy does affects the other economies. For instance, the poverty level in Africa leads to ineffective exploitation of resources that would be required by neighboring economies thereby leading to slow economic performance. Therefore, in order to solve this problem, Africa and other developing nations should think globally to reduce poverty levels. Poverty over the years has remained a main confronting problem in modern economies. Research shows that more than 1.1 billion people of the global population leave under extreme poverty levels. Therefore, if all these people were to benefit from globalization, Africa and other developing economies should integrate, as this would help in free trade of commodities, globalization of education, and employment thereby reducing poverty.
The need for global competence and the accelerating force of globalization requires economies to have world-class production techniques including global knowledge and skills. For instance, globalizing education will help in reducing employment levels since people can work in any region of the world. This helps them to be most effective and competitive in the global market since most of the employers will be seeking for the globally trained students irrespective of their language and culture. The global competence has, therefore, remained a core element required by most of the industries in the 21st century. Therefore, students need to have a knowledge of other world regions, their cultures, economies and their international issues for them to be globally competitive, have acquired skills to communicate in various languages other than English for them to work in cross cultural teams, as well as assessing information globally, and finally have values of respect towards other economies and their cultures.
Globalization, therefore, helps in achieving international competence as economies can learn about other economies through art and culture, geography, economics and history. International knowledge is necessary to solve various challenges faced by economies such as environmental issues, reducing poverty, improving homeland security and public health. Economies, therefore, are required to achieve a competitive edge by incorporating international education achieved by preparing innovative and globally competitive students for a new economy.
Ajayi, S. (2000b). "Globalization and Africa." Journal of African Economies, 12, pp.120-50.
This journal discusses how globalization has impacted economies positively in main areas such as improved production, job creation and foreign direct investments. The increasing force of globalization requires states to be competitive in production since they are not only competing with the state next door, but rather with various states globally in areas such as trade, job creation and foreign direct investments. The economies need to implement training programs in areas such as agriculture, and mining. In addition, various ministries such as the ministry of agriculture and mining need to embark on vocational training aimed at equipping farmers with specific skills. These trainings cover areas such as machine tooling, electro-mechanics, auto mechanics and metalworking. However, Africa has the fastest growing population. Precisely, the average growth rate is 2.3% per annum. A sizeable population out of this growing population is close to entering their job market while others are below the working age. The governments of the various economies will soon have to deal with high unemployment rate. To meet the millennium development...