Name: How the Losers of Globalization Are Fighting Back
Uploaded: 2016-12-02
Duration: 5 min 30 s
Description: Nigeria's former finance chief Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala explains.

As far as the developing world is concerned, particularly in Eastern South Asia, but even in Africa, there have been benefits of this globalization. It has created jobs. There are some estimates that up to a third of the population on the continent, middle class. But the definition of middle class will have to Look at what that really means. If people living on $ 20 of income, if that is, but be that as it may, there have been benefits through trade, that have come through cheaper consumer goods that people have been able to buy. But I think what has not been focused on, are the costs. And it's really interesting to me that now the phenomenon it's been hitting developed countries, but now it's led to this new type of nationalism and populism. People are paying attention to the loop We have had losers. The winners and losers of this game have not been as well analyzed as they should be. And on our continent, I don't think the type of attention paid to the losers of the globalization game has come, and hopefully now we'll really focus on it. So what do I mean by that? At the same time, we've benefitted with demand from China for primary products, which has led to creation of jobs in the mining, the oil, the [ INAUDIBLE ] industries, and exports that have pulled up. Large numbers of people. I think the people living on absolute poverty of about $ 1. 90 a day has gone from about 60 % of the continent in 1997 to about 41 % now. So it's gone down, but not fast enough. But on the other hand, we've lost manufacturing jobs. Manufacturing was nascent in many countries and it has taken a backward step. And I'll just illustrate to you. We've lost in my own country Nigeria. Over two decades we went from 600, 000 jobs in the textile industry to about 20, 000 today. In South Africa, a study does show that over a decade they've lost 75, 000 jobs. In textiles, in shoe, in electronics, and some machinery. So this is the kind of impact we're seeing. And I just wanted to, I brought my bag on because there's something I want to You know, to show people of what this means, it so happens that as I was preparing to come here, found some interesting stuff that had been given to me by textile manufacturers. In my country as they complained about the impact of this globalization. So here is something, and I'd like to pass it around. I discovered this, [ BLANK_AUDIO ] This is made by United Nigerian textiles, UNTL. And you can see they brought it to me as when I was finance minister to show me what was happening to their monies. It's labeled real, right? This is the same, this is. [ BLANK_AUDIO ] A manufacturer from China And they've labeled it fake, and it also has the UNT label on it. This comes in at a couple of dollars less. So you can buy this for about $ 15 for 6 yards and this for about 12 or 10. And it's completely wiping them out. Taking all the jobs and that's why we've gone from 600, 000. I'm not saying it's the only thing. Of course there's the fact that they may not have invested in machinery, issues with power. Bu this is just to let you know and you can see bales of this cloth, the fake and real one. They're so close. And they said we can't compete, this is wiping us out. So I would really like to pass it around for people to see because it's one thing to sit and talk about this in abstract and it's another to. It's fascinating. So what. So, [ LAUGH ] Some more. [ APPLAUSE ] So, what you're saying is that the demand for resources that globalization has created has lifted a lot of people out of poverty but the diversity of the economy has It has left our economies in the same, the same mode. There's been no structural change or transformation. Yeah. Of our economy, because we've been able to export primary products the same way, not even transforming these longer value chain, and our small efforts we began to really transform And moving to manufacturing jobs and so one has been decimated by this. Yeah. So I just wanna touch on this. So I'm one that feels globalization has delivered certain, very important gains. But we also need to think about the losses. And the losers. And we've not often focused on that. [ BLANK_AUDIO ]

Nigeria's former finance chief Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala explains.