m b e r

and health Treating the world as one huge marketplace brings new opportunities for sharing ideas and technologies, experiencing different cultures, and developing highly efficient modes of production. But anti-globalisation rallies show that not everyone is pleased. Globalisation can increase the gulf between rich and poor and is currently producing a world where an increasing number of people live in absolute poverty. And poor people all too often have ill health. This file assesses the health impact of economic globalisation. Globalisation is based on the idea of free trade between nations. It has crept into our language just as rapidly as it has affected our lives. Just look at what we wear, eat and use. Fashion clothing comes from countries like Mauritius or Pakistan; tea from Kenya or Sri Lanka; bananas from the Windward Islands. Your watch could have been made in Japan or Hong Kong. Phone a call-centre help-line and it is increasingly likely to be answered in India. The world is effectively right on our doorstep. You can travel by train from London to Paris in less than three hours, or take a plane and be in Australia within 24 hours. You can write a document and have it on a colleague’s desk anywhere in the world in a matter of seconds. This choice and ease of access, however, is only available if you can afford it. Those who are rich stand to reap the benefits of globalisation and gain more wealth, while the poor just fall further behind. Indeed, poorer people in rich countries are starting to suffer as unskilled and semi-skilled jobs are moved to countries were people work in bad conditions for poverty wages. Part of the cause of this imbalance is the structure of so-called ‘free trade’