How will globalization affect poor countries in future?
Globalization offers potentially great benefits to poor countries in the form of increased trade and foreign investment and easier and faster access to information, knowledge and production technology. However, for countries to participate in and benefit from globalization, certain conditions need to be in place. These include a certain degree of openness to international trade and foreign direct investment, appropriate infrastructure, capacity to adapt foreign technological innovations to local circumstances, etc. Equally important are policies providing the right incentives to deal with adjustment problems. Such policies are important, for instance, to mitigate the potentially negative impacts of transnational enterprises. Although such companies might provide a stimulus to upgrade local skills and technologies, there is also a danger that they might displace local producers and retailers. Countries that fail to integrate their economies in world markets will not only miss the benefi
