Poor nations yet to taste the "milk" of globalisation

Accra, Oct. 1, GNA - In spite of the increasing benefits of globalisation, it has still not provided the "milk and honey" that poor countries needed to be fully integrated into the world affairs, a government official has said.

Mr Samuel Owusu-Agyei, Minister of Public Sector Reforms, who said this in Accra on Wednesday to open a two-day international conference on globalisation said: ".the benefits of globalisation are apparent but it has not provided the milk and honey to all." "While there are visible benefits of globalisation in most parts of the world, the story is different in developing countries," he told the conference participants mainly from the public sector of government. The conference is being organised by the Ministry of Public Sector Reforms, Public Services Commission, Office of the Head of Civil Service and the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA) in collaboration with French Embassy.

It is under the theme: "Managing Globalisation in a competitive Environment: The state and Public Sector Perspectives". Mr Owusu-Agyei further said, while it was true that globalisation encouraged free trade, there were also negative consequences because some countries tried to save their national markets. Touching on some of the ills of globalisation, he said, it had made it difficult for poorer countries to compete with stronger nations that subsidized their agricultural sector.

"Due to globalisation, companies from powerful industrialised nations are able to offer workers enough salary to entice them to endure extremely long hours," Mr Owusu-Agyei said.

The Minister asked participants, to deliberate on how much the negative effects of globalisation was Ghana enduring and how she could manage globalisation adequately in order to reap more of the benefits. Mr Sam N. Woode, Chairman of the Public Services Commission, said how a country responded to globalisation was significant because in a review of literature on the subject, one came across several models. He said every country stood the risk of not being a winner from globalisation if it proceeded on an assumption that there was a set of policies that could be presented on an every-size-fit-all.