Nobel laureate tells G20 to listen to poor nations

By Kim Tong-hyung

The Group of 20 touts itself as the primary global forum for economic policy. But a lax commitment toward integrating the voice of poorer nations, such as the bulk of countries in Africa, could end up compromising its relevance, according to Nobel prize-winning economist and philosopher Amartya Sen.

Meeting with Korean journalists on the sidelines of an international philosophy forum in Seoul, Wednesday, the Harvard University professor also criticized the governments of Europe and other advanced nations for mishandling the attempts to strengthen the recovery by prematurely shifting their focus to reducing deficits and halting the growth of debt.

``The G20 represents the traditionally rich countries, newly rich countries like Korea, and countries like China and India that are growing fast, but not the countries that are poor and not growing fast. There is a need for intelligent discussions within the G20 to reflect the voice of the more stagnant and stationary countries, especially of the bulk of nations in Africa,’’ Sen said.

``We also need more discussions on how to coordinate the global efforts to achieve environmental sustainability. This didn’t happen adequately in Copenhagen, but the G20 could be a better forum for it.’’

G20 members, comprised of the 19 countries with the world's largest industrial and emerging economies, plus the European Union (EU), combine to represent about 90 percent of the world's gross domestic product (GDP), 80 percent of world trade and two-thirds of the global population. The next meeting between G20 leaders is slated for Seoul on Nov. 11 and 12, which doubles as a loose deadline to provide a detailed set of measures to inject new life into the world economy and fix global finance.

The India-born Sen, who became the first Asian to win the Nobel prize for economics in 1998 for his work on development, poverty and welfare economics, was in Seoul to participate at the 6th annual ``Global Forum: Civilization and Peace’’ held at the Sheraton Walkerhill hotel in northeastern Seoul.

``The G20 isn’t facing a moment of extreme urgency as it was in the summit of April 2008 that was called by (British) Prime Minister Gordon Brown. At the time the world seem to be going into an economic catastrophe and freefall, but it was saved to some extent by G20, which certainly was its moment of glory,’’ said Sen.

``Although G20 helped the initiation of the recovery, we are now stuck in a phase where the recovery has been slowing in many countries. Europe seems to be a bit misguided in giving total priority for reducing budget deficits when they still have huge unemployment, and this could prove to be counter-productive. An important issue this time is to address whether reducing budget deficits right now should be considered a matter of great urgency.’’

It’s apparent that global solutions are required for combating the most serious of global challenges like climate change, poverty, political conflict and financial instability.

And a better level of integrated thinking and ability can only be achieved by discarding the traditional understanding of history and civilizations based on the ideas of ``nations’’ and ``cultures,’’ according to Nobel prize-winning economist and philosopher Amartya Sen.

``Confusion about the history of humanity plays an important part in the contemporary world in preventing us from developing an integrated global approach. For example, the idea of a Western civilization that is altogether different from and incomparable with civilizations elsewhere establishes an imaginary barrier to the feasibility of a global perspective,’’ he said.

``It’s very important to recognize in the contemporary world, given our shared problems as well as alienated disaffections, that globalization is not a new phenomenon in the world. Over thousands of years, globalization has constructively progressed through travel, migration, trade cultural interactions and the spread of knowledge and understanding.’’

Sen stressed that globalization should not be considered a contemporary phenomenon and that the flowering of global science and technology was not exclusively a West-led advancement, citing the Asian contributions in the inception of print technologies and the influence of the spread of Buddhism.

The idea of ``clashing’’ civilizations, backed by influential historians such as Samuel Huntington, is flawed as it classifies people with diverse and complex loyalties one-dimensionally, as members of the ``Western world,’’ ``Islamic world,’’ ``Hindu world’’ and ``Buddhist world’’ in Huntington’s case.

``The basic error lies in the presumption that the people of the world can be sensibly seen in terms of a singular partitioning between `civilizations.’ The problem begins well before we get to asserting or denying the existence of a clash,’’ Sen said.

``The importance of an understanding of global civilization lies not merely in getting our history right, including the historical origin of so-called `Western science’ and `Western values,’ but also in seeing that any kind of parochial interpretation of history can feed needless alienation and confrontational violence.

``If we need a global vision to avoid the separatism and sense of alienation that feed sectarian extremism and cross-border violence, we also need it for the constructive steps that are positively necessary for dealing with such problems as global warming.’’