Globalization and Public Relations in Postcolonial Nations: Chal ...

During what has come to be known as the Battle of Seattle, approximately 75,000 people representing more than 700 nongovernmental organizations with diverse constituencies and often widely differing agendas protested WTO talks to establish trade negotiations for the new millennium. Protesters were teargassed and arrested by police, giving rise to charges that free speech had been subjugated to free trade (figure 1). Following the protests, more than 1,400 international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) accused the WTO of policies that benefited transnational corporations (TNCs) “at the expense of national and local economies; workers, farmers, indigenous peoples, women and other social groups; health and safety; the environment; and animal welfare” (Public Citizen, n.d., para. 3). In January 2000 the World Bank’s chief economist was forced to resign after he publicly disputed the institution’s policy, stating that “the West has driven the globalization agenda, ensuring that it garners a disproportionate share of the benefits, at the expense of the developing world” (Stiglitz, 2003, p. 7).

As the world ushered in the new millennium, world leaders could no longer ignore the problems of globalization. In September 2000, they met at the United Nations to address the disparities by setting an agenda to prioritize and achieve social justice principles rather than an integrated market economy. The results were the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which vowed to redress inequalities in poverty, education, gender, health, and the environment by 2015 (table 1). A decade later, the United Nations (2010a) rather optimistically and euphemistically characterized progress toward achieving these goals as a mix of successes, challenges, and opportunities. Child mortality had been reduced, yet about 8 million children were still dying each year before they reached age 5. Maternal mortality in poorer nations remained well outside the target: 350,000 women died each year during pregnancy or childbirth. Hunger and malnutrition rose between 2007 and 2009. Although 4,000 lives are being saved each day by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria (Bono, 2010), the number of new AIDS cases has outstripped the number of new patients receiving treatment.