Test Global

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Integrated Humanities Core - Test HWA CHONG INSTITUTION High School Section

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Class: 3

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Study the sources carefully, and then answer all the questions. You may use any of the sources to help you answer the questions, in addition to those sources which you are told to use. In answering the questions you should use your knowledge of the topic to help you interpret and evaluate the sources.

(a)

Study Source A. What is the message of this cartoon? Explain your answer, referring to the details of the cartoon. [6]

(b) Study Sources B and C. How similar are these sources about globalization in developing countries? Explain your answer. [7]

(c)

Study Source D. How useful is this source as evidence about the impact of globalization? Explain your answer. [7]

09/06/2009 Nancy Tay

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Has Globalisation Really Benefitted Developing Countries?

Source A

A cartoonist’s view of globalization published in a newspaper.

Source B:

The opinion of an American professor expressed in an interview.

Many poor countries are suffering from the economic changes brought upon by globalization. Some benefit but not always equally. Kenya is one of the unsuccessful countries to globalize, while Vietnam is considered to have been successful. In Vietnam, employment has risen because labour-intensive industries created about 90 percent of its exports in the late 1990s. However, in Kenya, the same industry only contributed 16 percent. China’s authorities was able to effectively regulate its economy hence, it became the main beneficiary for the decline in the number of poor people while Sub-Saharan Africa benefited only very marginally. Also, studies have shown that many times the fault of

globalization in poor countries lies in corruption and lack of accountability by governments.

09/06/2009 Nancy Tay

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Source C:

A speech by Alexander Downer, Minister for Foreign Affairs, Australia.

The main losers in today’s unequal world are not those that are too much exposed to globalisation. Studies have shown that the more open economies who have successfully integrated with the global economy have produced the best growth results, while those that have remained closed have produced the worst. A 2002 World Bank study of 72 developing countries found that “globalisers” grew almost four times faster than nonglobalisers. In the 1990s, with the exception of Japan, East Asia grew by between 6-8 per cent per annum, and the region’s poverty level fell rapidly. This is because since the 1960s, they have expanded their trade and became increasingly export oriented and globalised. However, countries that have failed to grow and still suffer desperate poverty – most notably many countries in sub-Saharan Africa – have failed to integrate into the world economy. This failure to integrate is caused by domestic conditions including war and internal governance.

Source D:

An interview with an unemployed Indian citizen.

Murthy sees himself as one of the victims of the "Indian economic wonder" hence, one of the "losers of globalization". He is one of those who have lost their jobs as a result of India's economic liberalization. He had worked for 10 years as a food chemist for the company, which is part of the Anglo-Dutch multinational ‘Unilever’. The company told Murthy that, at 52 years of age, he was "too old, too inflexible and too expensive." With a huge and inexhaustible source of young and well-qualified workers, there's little room left for people like Murthy. "I had to leave my apartment the same month they laid me off," he says. Now he and his family are living without any kind of appreciable social safety net in an abandoned house that is falling apart on the edge of Bangalore. They struggle to make ends meet with his wife's pay.

09/06/2009 Nancy Tay

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