The Impact of Globalization in the Developing Countries

Fairooz HAMDI
PhD in management
Published Jun 11, 2015

Abstract

This paper will discuss the benefits and drawbacks from the point of view that globalization
made in the developing countries in the three important fields such as economic and trade
processes, education and health systems and culture effects. It is consists of four paragraphs.
In paragraph one, the benefits and detriment of globalization in the economic and trade
processes field will be discussed. Then, in paragraph two, the impact of globalization on
education and health systems in both sides will be shown. In the paragraph three, the
positives and negatives of globalization on culture will be illustrated. Finally, paragraph four,
will deal with conclusion and offer an opinion.

Introduction

Globalization is a process of global economic, political and cultural integration. It has made
the world become a small village; the borders have been broken down between countries.
''The history of globalization goes back to the second half of the twentieth century, the
development of transport and communication technology led to situation where national
borders appeared to be too limiting for economic activity'' (Economic Globalization in
Developing Countries, 2002). Globalization is playing an increasingly important role in the
developing countries. It can be seen that, globalization has certain advantages such as
economic processes, technological developments, political influences, health systems, social
and natural environment factors. It has a lot of benefit on our daily life. Globalization has
created a new opportunities for developing countries. Such as, technology transfer hold out
promise, greater opportunities to access developed countries markets, growth and
improved productivity and living standards. However, it is not true that all effects of this
phenomenon are positive. Because, globalization has also brought up new challenges such
as, environmental deteriorations, instability in commercial and financial markets, increase
inequity across and within nations. This paper evaluates the positive and negative impact of
globalization on developing nations in the following proportions;

1- Economic and Trade Processes Field

2- Education and Health Systems

3- Culture Effects

1- Economic and Trade Processes Field

Globalization helps developing countries to deal with rest of the world increase their
economic growth, solving the poverty problems in their country. In the past, developing
countries were not able to tap on the world economy due to trade barriers. They cannot
share the same economic growth that developed countries had. However, with globalization
the World Bank and International Management encourage developing countries to go
through market reforms and radical changes through large loans. Many developing nations
began to take steps to open their markets by removing tariffs and free up their economies.
The developed countries were able to invest in the developing nations, creating job
opportunities for the poor people. For example, rapid growth in India and China has caused
world poverty to decrease (blogspot.com.2009). It is clear to see that globalization has made
the relationships between developed countries and developing nations stronger, it made
each country depend on another country. According to Thirlwall (2003:13) " Developing
countries depend on developed countries for resource flows and technology, but developed
countries depend heavily on developing countries for raw materials, food and oil, and as
markets for industrial goods". One the most important advantages of globalization are goods
and people are transported easier and faster as a result free trade between countries has
increased, and it decreased the possibility of war between countries. Furthermore, the
growth in the communication between the individuals and companies in the world helped to
raise free trade between countries and this led to growth economy. However, globalization
has many economy and trade advantages in the developing countries, we must also note the
many disadvantages that globalization has created for the poor countries. One reason
globalization increases the inequality between the rich and poor, the benefits globalization is
not universal; the richer are getting rich and the poor are becoming poorer. Many
developing countries do benefit from globalization but then again, many of such nations do
lag behind." In the past two decades, China and India have grown faster than the already
rich nations. However, countries like Africa still have the highest poverty rates, in fact, the
rural areas of China which do not tap on global markets also suffer greatly from such high
poverty (blogspot.com.2009). On the other hand, developed countries set up their
companies and industries to the developing nations to take advantages of low wages and
this causing pollution in countries with poor regulation of pollution. Furthermore, setting up
companies and factories in the developing nations by developed countries affect badly to
the economy of the developed countries and increase unemployment.

2- Education and Health Systems

Globalization contributed to develop the health and education systems in the developing
countries. We can clearly see that education has increased in recent years, because
globalization has a catalyst to the jobs that require higher skills set. This demand allowed
people to gain higher education. Health and education are basic objectives to improve any
nations, and there are strong relationships between economic growth and health and
education systems. Through growth in economic, living standards and life expectancy for the
developing nations certainly get better. With more fortunes poor nations are able to supply
good health care services and sanitation to their people. In addition, the government of
developing countries can provide more money for health and education to the poor, which
led to decrease the rates of illiteracy. This is seen in many developing countries whose
illiteracy rate fell down recently. It is truth that, living standards and life expectancy of
developing countries increase through economic gains from globalization. According to the
World Bank (2004) " With globalization, more than 85 percent of the world's population can
expect to live for at least sixty years and this is actually twice as long as the average life
expectancy 100 years ago". In addition, globalization helped doctors and scientists to
contribute to discover many diseases, which spread by human, animals and birds, and it
helped them to created appropriate medicines to fight these deadly diseases. For example,
HIV/ADIS, swine flu and birds' flu whole world know about these diseases and they know
how to avoid it. By globalization, there are many international organizations, such as, Non-
governmental Organization (NGO), World Health Organization (WHO) and UNESCO, trying to
eliminate illiteracy and deadly diseases in the world and save the life. In spite of these
positive effects of globalization to the education and health fields in the developing
countries. However, globalization could have negative impacts also in these fields;
globalization facilitates the spread of new diseases in developing nations by travelers
between countries. Due to increased trade and travel, many diseases like HIV/ADIS, Swine
Flu, Bird Flu and many plant diseases, are facilitated across borders, from developed nations
to the developing ones. This influences badly to the living standards and life expectancy
these countries. According to the World Bank (2004) "The AIDS crisis has reduced life
expectancy in some parts of Africa to less than 33 years and delay in addressing the
problems caused by economic". Another drawback of globalization is, globalized
competition has forced many minds skilled workers where highly educated and qualified
professionals, such as scientists, doctors, engineers and IT specialists, migrate to developed
countries to benefit from the higher wages and greater lifestyle prospects for themselves
and their children. This leads to decrease skills labour in the developing countries.

3- Culture Effects

Globalization has many benefits and detriment to the culture in the developing countries.
Many developing countries cultures has been changed through globalization, and became
imitate others cultures such as, America and European countries. Before globalization it
would not have been possible to know about other countries and their cultures. Due to
important tools of globalization like television, radio, satellite and internet, it is possible
today to know what is happening in any countries such as, America, Japan and Australia.
Moreover, people worldwide can know each other better through globalization. For example,
it is easy to see more and more Hollywood stars shows the cultures different from America.
In addition, today we can see clearly a heavily effect that caused by globalization to the
young people in the different poor nations, it is very common to see teenagers wearing Nike
T-Shirts and Adidas footwear, playing Hip-Hop music, using Apple ipad and iphone and
eating at MacDonald, KFC and Domino's Pizza . It is look like you can only distinguish them
by their language. One the other hand, many developing countries are concerned about the
rise of globalization because it might lead to destroy their own culture, traditional, identity,
customs and their language. Many Arab countries such as Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, as
developing countries have affected negatively in some areas, their cultures, Developing
Country Studies www.iiste.org customs and traditional have been changed. They wear and
behave like developed nations, a few people are wearing their traditional cloths that the
used to. Furthermore, globalization leads to disappearing of many words and expressions
from local language because many people use English and French words. In addition, great
changes have taken place in the family life, young people trying to leave their families and
live alone when they get 18 years old, and the extended family tends to become smaller
than before (Kurdishglobe, 2010).

Conclusion

In conclusion, as we can see, the process of globalization has involved all the countries
around the world. Developing countries such as India, China, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan
and some Africa's countries, have been affected by globalization, and whether negatively or
positively, the economies of these countries have improved under the influence of
globalization. The size of direct foreign investment has increased and a lot of bad habits and
traditions erased, but also globalization has brought many drawbacks to these countries as
well. Many customs and cultures are disappeared such as traditions clothes and some
language and expressions have changed. In addition, the violence and drugs abuse are
increased and a lot of deadly diseases have spread under the influence of globalization.
However, although globalization has many disadvantages, we believe that globalization has
brought the developing countries many more benefits than the detriments. For example, we
can see there is more and a biggest opportunity for people in both developed countries and
developing countries to sell as many goods to as many people as right now, so we can say
this is the golden age for business, commerce and trade.

References

Kotilainen, M & Kaitila, V. (3/2002)."Economic Globalization in Developing Countries", The

Thirlwall. A. P. (2003), "Growth & Development with special reference to developing

Will globalization benefits or disadvantages (04/2009). [Online] Available:

The World Bank, Development Program, 2004. [Online] Available:

Kurdistan Government (25/7/2010) About Kurdistan. [Online] Available: