Tight credit and an increase in the price of commodities are not just impacting U.S. and E.U. market economies. The credit squeeze has had a rippling impact on developing and emerging economies. The African Trade Network (ATN), a coalition of trade related advocacy groups, has expressed worry about the imbalance in trade between the north and south. Fifty delegates from across Africa gathered in Accra, Ghana in August 2008 for the ATN’s 11th annual meeting. There, they openly acknowledged the impact of the U.S. financial, fuel and food crisis on African markets.
According to the ATN, the impact of the U.S. economic crisis has caused multinationals to speculate in the global market against the potential of a rise in commodity prices. According to Dzodzi Tsikata, a research fellow at the University of Ghana, cultivatable lands in Africa allocated for the production of various cash crops like cocoa is rapidly being taken over by international trade partners in a growing speculative market. The concern voiced was whether multinationals would effectively re-colonize Africa for food production where growing numbers of African farmers are enticed with money to sell off their lands to international trade partners.
Couple this with a recent Camp Davis visit in the U.S. by Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, and Nicolas Sarkozy, President of France. This visit marked a call by the Europeans for a global summit that sounds curiously like a Bretton Wood II. According to an October 19, 2008 Financial Times report, U.S. President Bush stated that he looked forward to convening a meeting in the "near future" in what he calls a move to "preserve the foundation of democratic capitalism." Though there is no concrete information on when or where the summit will be, now is the time to determine who should be parties to this major global summit on regulating the global markets.
Bretton Woods, a site in New Hampshire, Connecticut, is where in July 1944, the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference was held after the end of World War II. The Conference resulted in the Bretton Woods Agreement that established the International Monetary Funds (IMF) and the World Bank. Forty-four nations were represented at the Bretton Woods Conference. Thirty-five of the 44 nations signed the necessary multilateral treaties by the December 31, 1945 deadline. The World Bank, now with 185 member nations or sovereign shareholders, makes loans from its capital when private funds are not available in the global markets on reasonable terms. The five largest shareholders include the United States (16.9%), Japan (8.1%), Germany (4.6%), France (4.4%), and the United Kingdom (4.4%). Furthermore, the IMF's main mission has been to promote international monetary cooperation, stabilize exchange rates, and assist in removing barriers imposed on international payments by countries through currency restrictions. Like the World Bank, there are 185 member nations in the IMF. Member nations may borrow from the fund to meet temporary deficits in their international payments to maintain imports and avoid currency devaluation during financial difficult times. Both Bretton Woods institutions have had a huge influence on global economies.
A call to include Brazil, Russia, India and China, the so-called BRIC, in any 2008 summit conveyed to plan further regulating the global financial markets has already sounded among global financial analyst. The so-called emerging economies counted among African, Caribbean, Pacific, and South American nations were also not represented in 1944 and there has been no call for their inclusion in a future global summit. In fact, they are now positioned for exclusion though they account for a human population of over 700 million.
The issue should be to what degree emerging and developing economies should be included in creating a new global regulatory regime. The African Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries, an organization founded in 1975 and now comprising 48 sub-Saharan African countries, 16 Caribbean countries, and 15 Pacific nations, met in Lagos, Ghana on October 2 for a two day summit. Reaching out to organizations such as ACP starts the dialogue on how to include the voice of emerging economies in a future global summit.
The global crisis of 2008 is not the same as the global crisis of 1944. In 1944, European countries still effectively held the rest of the world as colonies. In America, a Black man running as a viable candidate for the U.S. presidency would have been an absurd idea for the times. The language has changed. The times have changed. Now, the so-called developed nations must change their thinking about who should be included in the dialogue on regulating globalize financial institutions.
DISCLAIMER: Because of the generality of this update, the information provided here may not be applicable in all situations and should not be acted upon without specific legal advice based on particular situations. This profile may constitute attorney advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Any correspondence with this blog does not constitute a client/attorney relationship. Neither the content on this blog nor transmissions between you and the blogger through this blog are intended to provide legal or other advice or to create an attorney-client relationship.
According to the ATN, the impact of the U.S. economic crisis has caused multinationals to speculate in the global market against the potential of a rise in commodity prices. According to Dzodzi Tsikata, a research fellow at the University of Ghana, cultivatable lands in Africa allocated for the production of various cash crops like cocoa is rapidly being taken over by international trade partners in a growing speculative market. The concern voiced was whether multinationals would effectively re-colonize Africa for food production where growing numbers of African farmers are enticed with money to sell off their lands to international trade partners.
Couple this with a recent Camp Davis visit in the U.S. by Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, and Nicolas Sarkozy, President of France. This visit marked a call by the Europeans for a global summit that sounds curiously like a Bretton Wood II. According to an October 19, 2008 Financial Times report, U.S. President Bush stated that he looked forward to convening a meeting in the "near future" in what he calls a move to "preserve the foundation of democratic capitalism." Though there is no concrete information on when or where the summit will be, now is the time to determine who should be parties to this major global summit on regulating the global markets.
Bretton Woods, a site in New Hampshire, Connecticut, is where in July 1944, the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference was held after the end of World War II. The Conference resulted in the Bretton Woods Agreement that established the International Monetary Funds (IMF) and the World Bank. Forty-four nations were represented at the Bretton Woods Conference. Thirty-five of the 44 nations signed the necessary multilateral treaties by the December 31, 1945 deadline. The World Bank, now with 185 member nations or sovereign shareholders, makes loans from its capital when private funds are not available in the global markets on reasonable terms. The five largest shareholders include the United States (16.9%), Japan (8.1%), Germany (4.6%), France (4.4%), and the United Kingdom (4.4%). Furthermore, the IMF's main mission has been to promote international monetary cooperation, stabilize exchange rates, and assist in removing barriers imposed on international payments by countries through currency restrictions. Like the World Bank, there are 185 member nations in the IMF. Member nations may borrow from the fund to meet temporary deficits in their international payments to maintain imports and avoid currency devaluation during financial difficult times. Both Bretton Woods institutions have had a huge influence on global economies.
A call to include Brazil, Russia, India and China, the so-called BRIC, in any 2008 summit conveyed to plan further regulating the global financial markets has already sounded among global financial analyst. The so-called emerging economies counted among African, Caribbean, Pacific, and South American nations were also not represented in 1944 and there has been no call for their inclusion in a future global summit. In fact, they are now positioned for exclusion though they account for a human population of over 700 million.
The issue should be to what degree emerging and developing economies should be included in creating a new global regulatory regime. The African Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries, an organization founded in 1975 and now comprising 48 sub-Saharan African countries, 16 Caribbean countries, and 15 Pacific nations, met in Lagos, Ghana on October 2 for a two day summit. Reaching out to organizations such as ACP starts the dialogue on how to include the voice of emerging economies in a future global summit.
The global crisis of 2008 is not the same as the global crisis of 1944. In 1944, European countries still effectively held the rest of the world as colonies. In America, a Black man running as a viable candidate for the U.S. presidency would have been an absurd idea for the times. The language has changed. The times have changed. Now, the so-called developed nations must change their thinking about who should be included in the dialogue on regulating globalize financial institutions.
DISCLAIMER: Because of the generality of this update, the information provided here may not be applicable in all situations and should not be acted upon without specific legal advice based on particular situations. This profile may constitute attorney advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Any correspondence with this blog does not constitute a client/attorney relationship. Neither the content on this blog nor transmissions between you and the blogger through this blog are intended to provide legal or other advice or to create an attorney-client relationship.
