This article is a background article for the Europe-wide Global Education Congress,
Maastricht 15-17 November 2002.

Global development education aims at broadening an informed public dialogue about major issues facing citizens in global society, situated in a globalised information society, where citizens are supplied with enormous amounts of information about every thinkable subject, where mass media are omnipresent. Citizens meanwhile have grown profoundly sceptical about the possibilities of reaching policy objectives.

Globalisation.

Public debate on globalisation is extremely polarised. Either the positive influences of globalisation are defined within a consensus model for generating global economic growth, or globalisation is seen as destroying economic opportunities for those who have weaker positions in a liberated market, leading to marginalisation of those who have weaker skills or health, followed in their wake by cultural domination of poor societies by wealthier societies.

There is evidence to support all these opinions.

There is abundant evidence that policy makers from OECD countries, while pushing developing countries to adopt market opening policies for trade and services, have not been capable to open their own markets to the exports from poorer countries. For low skilled labour-intensive imports (which are therefore most likely to generate pro-poor economic growth) EU policy makers decided to keep their markets closed. These policy choices have attracted considerable criticism from civil society actors who argue that globalisation accompanied by openly protectionist policies in rich countries has not resulted in better opportunities for the poor in poor countries, thereby not leading to a stronger fiscal basis in these countries to provide basic education and health services. These policies maintain foreign aid " addiction".

Sir John Vereker, DFID Permanent Secretary, suspected that "few in NGO policy teams would disagree with the proposition that economic growth is a necessary, though not in itself sufficient, condition for poverty reduction; or that a rules based world trade system has at least the potential to offer developing countries better prospects than its GATT-type predecessors. But some of the recent public presentations of these issues, and the consequent impact on the well intentioned, though inevitable less well informed supporters of NGOs and others, has encouraged a travelling street theatre of protest against institutions and policies which changed long ago.

This is echoed by some of his collegues from other countries like Dutch minister for development co-operation, Eveline Herfkens, who provided these well intentioned but inevitable less well informed supporters of NGOs and others with the label of anti-globalists. She warns that their attitudes risk to strengthen western trade protectionism. She makes the argument that free trade and integration of poor countries in the world market is the only possible way to fight against marginalisation. Then she poses a basic question: How can we guide globalisation in such a way that the poorest countries also can benefit? Policies of market integration need to be accompanied with international and national policies that can balance the effects of globalisation in favour or the poorest. Minister Herfkens questions the wisdom of promoting social and environmental norms that prohibit developing countries to export to OECD markets and that therefore risk to be misused as a disguise for trade protectionism. Her questions come very close to those of the majority of civil society actors.

However, her anti-globalist label echoes mass media prejudice and adds to Verekers unuseful polarisation between a group of misinformed circus artists on the one hand and a group of better informed and wiser serious policy makers to whom unfortunately not enough of the well intentioned people choose to listen.

To extend the label anti-globalisation movement to include civil society representing the promotion of norms and values of universal human rights, the priority of global poverty eradication, the rule of law, fair trade, human dignity, labour standards, the resistance to exploitation of children, the multi-localisation of cultures, is not helping to engage citizens who may have different opinions and may have a weaker knowledge base than the experts. It just adds to a feeling of powerlessness of the average citizen to ever be heard in circles of the political society. This labelling mirrors the opposite labelling by those who identify themselves vocally and colourfully with the anti-globalists' position, and who accuse the international institutions of being responsible for the death of thousands of poor and malnourished children. If only development educators would engage themselves in illuminating the international bureaucrats who promote these exploitative policies, then bingo: exploitation and underdevelopment will go away.

In fact, a large part of civil society is arguing that globalisation is results from national and international policies of deregulation and market liberalisation. The effects of globalisation limit the capacity of policy makers to guide globalisation. Civil society argues for a strengthened capacity of policy makers, democratically controlled, to reclaim some of that management capacity and to use it for policy choices in the interest of the poor. When Vereker states that: ‘The world is changing (into) a global market place for goods and services, and ‘international development is increasingly focused on ensuring that this process of globalisation is managed so as not to marginalize poor people and poor countries’ he may find that many of the "less well informed" support him and his colleagues in this effort.

The main difference however is the recognition by many in civil society that development and social inclusion can not only be managed as technocratic policies empty of political interests and therefore outside the clash of these interests. These civil society actors join Amartya Sen when he writes this summer in the Observer ‘The real debate associated with globalisation is, ultimately, not about the efficiency of markets, nor about the importance of modern technology. The debate rather, is about inequality of power.’ The UK White Paper on International Development of 2000 rightly states: ‘Managed wisely, the new wealth being created by globalisation creates the opportunity to lift millions of the world’s poorest people out of their poverty. Managed badly and it could lead to their further marginalisation and impoverishment. Neither outcome is predetermined; it depends on the policy choices adopted by governments, international institutions, the private sector and civil society.’

Civil society involved in development education argues for the need to empower the poor themselves in poor countries as the crucial difference that will eventually contribute to a just outcome of balancing policies in favour of poverty eradication. In that they go one step further than donor governments who promote ownership of recipient governments, but prefer not to state that that ownership can only be guaranteed if civil society in developing countries is enabled to exercise power. By relegating the power dimension, the political dimension, of poverty eradication, to an insignificant noisy group of circus artists policy makers are showing that they misunderstand the driving force through which engagement of citizens expresses itself.

2. The promotion of a rights based coherent policies for international development.

People often feel distant from the reality of developing countries and development policy. They have a negative perception about the self-reliant development capacities of poor countries, and feel that the only way they can do something for these countries is to provide aid. They also overestimate the proportion of the government budget for development co-operation. The overestimation of the budget, combined with the feeling that the development aid for which this budget is used is the only possible activity to better enable poor countries leads to the opinion that this aid has not been effective because abject poverty still exists: The ‘omnipotence trap’.

Global educators have a real dilemma: If they provide information and stimulate dialogue about the aims of the 21st century international development strategy, they risk to fall into this "omnipotence trap". They risk to repeat also a boring thruth: promises are seldom kept, except in situations where there is a direct threat to security of people in wealthier countries, as in the case of much feared immigration waves, global Aids, or in these days terrorism. And they have to provide information about how this development strategy is actually carried out on the ground, while little real evidence of actual changes on the ground or of the impact and effect of these changes on the situation of the poor can be shown.

The only signs of change are the increased importance given to the role of civil society actors in the PRSP processes in poor countries. In these PRSPs country and society ownership of policies is increased and policy choices are open to debate. PRSPs however have not in all countries lived up to the high expectations of civil society actors.

Furthermore, the development strategy is not a human rights based strategy, and fails therefore to include in the approach the recognition that the ultimate goal of respect for social, economic and cultural rights are the base and the objective of development efforts. If governments would respect economic rights as human duties they would be obliged to meet the targets. If the poor have legal rights, the rich have legal duties. Empowerment of the poor and the strengthening of ownership is part of a legal duty, not only of a moral humanitarian norm. And ultimately citizens everywhere could monitor whether governments have political will to enforce their own existing laws, whether civil servants will diligently do their job of ensuring such enforcement becomes reality. A rights based approach would shift development strategy from a humanitarian effort to a structural part of policy choices for better global governance. Meanwhile, while arguing for the universality and indivisibility of human rights, most governments relegate in practise the economic, social and cultural human rights to the backburner. Effective development co-operation remains at best an afterthought after policy makers have achieved their domestic priority targets first. And poor country governments can meet all the conditionalities posed, open up all their markets as requested, and may still never see the benefits promised.