The impact of globalisation and free trades on developing countries,particularly Zambia

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Date
2013-05-16
Authors
Bwalya, K.Mubanga
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Abstract
Developing countries have continually sought ways and means through which they can abate their declining economic fortunes and the developed world has seen globalisation as the saviour of the developing world. The free movement of goods and services in and out of nations is the only perceived mode through which the ever worsening economic strife will finally be abated. There has been a failure to realise that just as nations have different cultures and thus policy objectives, no single and uniform concept applied across the board can have a single positive impact across third world countries. Developing countries have nonetheless adopted liberal market policies and viewed openness as their only hope of economic freedom. The policies adopted are to a very large extent imposed and controlled by the Bretton Woods Institutions that provide different forms of assistance, direct and indirect, in exchange for the compliance by developing countries of particular structural reform that suits them. Zambia has in no way been left out with regard to reform and embracing liberal market policies of openness and freer trade with state parties of the World Trade Organisation. After the oil shocks of the 1970s and the sharp decline in Copper prices the nation has had very little success in economic recovery that is supposed to lead to sustainable economic growth and better living standards for the majority of the people of Zambia. In considering where the nation has gone wrong with its quest to attain economic development via the medium of globalization and free trade, it is necessary to consider the nations that have successfully pursued this course and attained economic freedom. A number of issues, hinging on policy as well as legal and institutional framework need to be addressed in order that the nation may cease to operate on an autopilot basis led by developed nations that continue to reap the rewards of integration at the expense of the developing countries, Zambia inclusive.
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Free trade --Zambia , Globalisation--law and legislation
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