The 2007 World Social Forum
By Kathambi Kinoti, AWID

The seventh annual World Social Forum (WSF) ended in Nairobi, Kenya with thousands of delegates marching from the city's Korogocho slums to Uhuru Park. This year's Forum drew together an estimated 60,000 participants from all over the world and was said to be the 'most international' of the forums, partly because African delegates were able to attend in large numbers because of this year's location.

The Architect and Engine of Neoliberal Globalization
What is the G8 and why should civil society engage with it?
By Kathambi Kinoti

The “Group of Eight” otherwise known as the G8 is a forum of the leaders of eight of the richest and most powerful nations in the world - Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States. They meet annually to discuss global economic and political issues.

Globalization, Poverty and Food Security: The Linkages of Gender Inequality and Agricultural Growth in Africa: Conceptual and Empirical Issues
By Bola O Akanji

This paper draws on the extensive but mixed discussions around the concepts of globalization and liberalization with a view to exploring their linkages with gender inequality and economic growth in the specific context of developing countries of Africa.

Labor Market Flexibility as a Demand of Globalization
By Danica Drakulić, Ph.D., and Drago Pupavac, M.Sc.

Globalization of the world is inaugurating a new economy. Compared to the traditional economy, where the scope of competition was mostly determined by the boundaries of the national market, the global market environment in the new economy imposes the need for a permanent increase in efficiency on regional and/or global levels. A decreasing number of products bear national characteristics. Likewise, human potential is becoming a global factor despite the fact that the workforce is the least mobile production factor.

The Economic Aspects of Globalization
by Dejan Petrovic

The globalization of economic flows may be the most manifest nowadays, and it is the first thing one thinks of when globalization itself is discussed. Limiting the once sovereign role of nation-state, expanding the market across the planet without a visible chance of anyone preventing it, amassing wealth in ever fewer countries is combined with the growing disproportion between the rich and the poor within these countries. What seemed probable over the few decades after World War II – the prominent role of the so-called nation state, care for the less able, less healthy and elderly population, free schooling and healthcare – seem to be vanishing into historic oblivion.

Economic Terms Demystified
By AWID

Myth: Economics is pure science.
Reality: Economics is often represented as technical and scientific, based on ‘truths’ from mathematics or statistics. However, economic policy is profoundly political and represents a certain set of subjective assumptions about power and the distribution of resources.

Globalisation: a Feminist Economic Perspective
By Tatjana Djuric Kuzmanovic, Ph.D.

Eighties saw radical changes in women’s lives worldwide, whether in terms of their inclusion into or exclusion from global economy. The issue of the impact of globalisation on women implies perceiving the most direct relationships between gender and globalisation. An analytic gender model is supposed to ensure avoiding all pitfalls noted in the debates on globalisation, and reproducing the existent dichotomies and stereotypes. Gender analysis, as an integral part of analytic approach to globalisation, contributes to its better comprehension as a multidimensional process.

Globalisation - Definitions

Globalisation broadly refers to the expansion of global linkages and encompasses several large processes; definitions differ in what they emphasize. Globalisation is historically complex; definitions vary in the particular driving force they identify. The meaning of the term is itself a topic in global discussion; it may refer to "real" processes, to ideas that justify them, or to a way of thinking about them. The term is not neutral; definitions express different assessments of global change. Among critics of capitalism and global inequality, globalisation now has an especially pejorative ring.