An Age of Globalised Crisis

In the light of fruitless conclusion of G-8 meeting in Japan early last month and this week's collapse of Doha Round of multilateral trade negotiations, a number of leading opinion makers are wailing the lack of political will by the world’s stakeholders to tackle difficult choices that must be made.

Jeffrey Sach has written a timely piece titled "Where are the global leaders?" for PROJECT SYNDICATE in which he urges so called “global leaders” of G-8 nations to “get your act together or don’t bother to meet next year”. He adds, "it’s too embarrassing to watch grown men and women gather for empty photo opportunities”. Sach stresses that the world needs global solutions for global problems but the G-8 “global leaders” simply aren’t up to the task. He identifies four underlying problems: the incoherence of American leadership; the lack of global financing; the disconnection between global scientific expertise and politicians; and finally, the lost relevance of key international institutions – notable the UN and the World Bank. Read "Where are the global leaders".

On a similar take, CAG Research Fellow Toby Carroll suggested in The Nation recently that in an age of globalised world, humanity as a whole has indeed a lot of thinking and organising to do if it is to survive well. Tobby calls for reinvigoration of debates and coordinated action to challenge the dominant ways of looking at globalisation and its challenges. Read Toby's "An Age of Globalised Crisis". [Sung]