Poverty, Human Rights and Globalization

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POVERTY, HUMAN RIGHTS AND GLOBALIZATION
Introduction
According to Nissanke & Thorbecke 7, poverty refers to a state of human condition that is characterized by sustained or chronic deprivation of resources, choices, capabilities, security and power required to maintain an adequate standards of living and economic, civil, cultural, political and social rights. The concept of poverty over the past decades has broadened with increasing concerns on poverty vulnerability, human rights and inequality. Its study has involved various facets such as its causal structure including cultural, political, social, and coercive factors. The study of poverty involves other aspects such as poverty reduction strategies, human rights and their implications for globalization
Globalization of human rights, on the other hand, helps in eliminating poverty by ensuring that people have access to education, health, and freedom from violence, ability to live a dignified life and the ability to exert political influence. Globalization of human rights helps in building interventions in social, economic, political and civil rights leading to achievement of human rights and elimination of poverty. Equality and non-discrimination of human rights ensures that all individuals in any given economy are equal and they are all entitled to their human rights without discrimination of any kind such as color, race, sex, age, ethnicity, language, politics and religion (Arat 1). This paper, therefore, discusses the impacts of globalization towards poverty reduction and recognition of human rights. It also discusses globalization as critical for promoting sustainable development and improving the capacity of the people to address development issues.
Globalization and Poverty
Globalization can be defined as increasing interdependence, as well as integration of economies and its people. The greatest challenge economies face today is integrating globalization as a positive force for all the worlds` people. Integration of globalization will help in reducing poverty in most of the developing nations rather than leaving behind billions of people in squalor. A globalised world leads to more markets, more jobs, more business opportunities, and more information. The globalised economies involving the developed states such as US, East and South East Asia, China and European states have turned into export-based economies (Nissanke & Thorbecke 10).
Over the past decades, a number of concerns have been debated on owing to slow economic growth such as Africa. A number of developmental issues have faced the 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. After independence, the total number of poor people in Africa has been increasing, and there are chances of this number increasing by 2015. Africa is the prominent continent where poverty has increased at an alarming rate (Nissanke & Thorbecke 13).
There is relevance in broadening the causal factors to poverty and globalization. Globalization involves various dimensions such as social, economic, political and cultural aspects. In its broadest sense, globalization reflects increasing trade amongst nations, labor, financial flow, technological exchange, spread of norms and beliefs, cultural practices and juridical forms amongst nations. Therefore, globalization can work effectively for the poor economies. For instance, most of the democrat structures have been spreading with increasing attention given to aspects such as political rights and civil rights. Globalization has been associated with growth in democracy amongst nations and human rights. Most of the political institutions in developing nations have performed effectively by strengthening the voices of the poor and help in realization of their human rights. Through globalization of democracy, it empowers people to make their own decisions reducing aspects of discrimination in various government policies and legislation. It helps people have control of their own lives. Through globalization of democracy, people have freedom to speak their minds and various governments have come up with mechanisms to ensure that all people can be heard. The various forces of globalization accentuate the significance of social and political capital towards reduction of poverty in developing economies (Ishay 45).
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 developing economies such as 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 (Nissanke & Thorbecke 17).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. 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 possess knowledge of other world regions, their cultures, economies and their international issues. This will enable 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 (Pogge 132).
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, reduction of 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 (Pogge 137).
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 developmental goals, globalization has to come in to help create job opportunities for the unemployed thereby reducing poverty (Pogge 153).
Despite the fact that globalization helps in reducing poverty in developing economies, critics of globalizatio...