Source: Carnegie

For Immediate Release: December 19, 2002
Contact: Scott Nathanson, 202-939-2211, snathanson@ceip.org

New Resource: Experts Pave Fresh Path on Globalization
Testimony on Expanding the Benefits of Globalization to Working Families and the Poor

Earlier this month, the UN's International Labor Organization (ILO), in a first-of-its-kind collaboration, joined with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Brookings Institution to hold a two-day discussion on how to expand the benefits of globalization to poor and working families around the world. Transcripts of this unique event are now available online at www.ceip.org/trade.

The conference provided a timely reality check, as top researchers reviewed the empirical evidence regarding the impacts of globalization on workers, the poor and on income inequality. Top analysts and policy makers then laid out concrete policy alternatives in the areas of trade, employment conditions and social safety nets, designed to distribute the benefits of trade and economic integration more broadly across and within countries.

This new assessment is immediately relevant, as the sweeping advance of globalization in the 1990s has now encountered significant resistance. The slowdown of the global economy has combined with dissatisfaction in the developing world over what is perceived as a disappointing payoff from liberalization efforts of the 1990s and criticism that globalization has done too little to alleviate poverty.

Audience participants-all of whom were experts in the field-praised the discussions for going beyond the cliches about globalization and avoiding the usual sterile pro-and-con debate.

Click here to access more information and a transcript of each of the panel discussions.

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