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Collegiate
Case
Study www.usatodaycollege.com

Greenpeace, others pan G-8

global warming deal
UN Millennial Goals
By David Jackson On September 8, 2000, the United Nations adopted the Millennium
Declaration, a resolution that includes eight major goals towards building a
....................................................................................4
better world by 2015. These goals, called the Millennium Development
Goals, address issues such as extreme poverty, AIDS, child mortality, univer-
Bolton struggles to steer U.N. sal primary education and global development. As we near the halfway
toward change point to the completion date, questions arise as to how close the UN is
By Barbara Slavin
towards meeting these goals. This case study focuses on the progress and
well as problems associated with some of these critical global issues.
...............................................................................5-6

Innovative ways to prevent

AIDS languish on drawing
board
By Steve Sternberg
....................................................................................7

U.N. disputes U.S. position on

free trade’s impact on poverty
By Paul Wiseman
....................................................................................8

Critical inquiry
Discussion and future implications
....................................................................................9-10

USA TODAY Snapshots® Developing nations

Forced from home poised to challenge
At the end of 2006, the number of refugees
reached 9.9 million, according to the United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Refu-
USA as king of the hill
gee population, by UNHCR-defined regions:

CASWANAME 3,811,800
World economy might not revolve USA TODAY

around Americans in coming years

Africa (excluding 2,421,300
North Africa)
By David J. Lynch
Europe 1,733,700 USA TODAY

Americas 1,035,900 Globalization long has been regarded as a made-in-America phenomenon, driven
Asia and
by Silicon Valley's technology, Hollywood's movies and Wall Street's cash. But
Pacific 875,100 suddenly, countries formerly on the periphery of world events seem poised to
Note: CASWANAME comprises Central Asia,
Southwest Asia, North Africa and the Middle East challenge American dominance of this age of global integration.
Source: UNHCR By David Stuckey and Marcy E. Mullins, USA TODAY

© Copyright 2007 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co., Inc. All rights reser ved.
AS SEEN IN USA TODAY’S MONEY SECTION, FEBRUARY 8, 2007
It's not only that developing countries are proving to be
white-hot investment opportunities, though they are: the
Morgan Stanley Emerging Markets index gained 242% the past
four years. It's also that emerging markets, once known
dismissively as the Third World, are now central to Americans'
lives.
Not long ago, these countries were of interest only to the
Peace Corps. Now, everything from the financial lifeline that
makes possible the modern American lifestyle to the identity
of your next boss, customer, competitor or cultural trendsetter
likely can be found in the developing world.
"We're in the middle of the biggest shift in 200 years — since
the Industrial Revolution. It's really that big," said Antoine van
Agtmael, the investment manager credited with coining the
term "emerging markets" in 1981.
The new prominence of emerging markets represents a sharp
departure from the flurry of financial crises that tore through
Mexico, Asia and Russia in the 1990s. Since then, scores of
developing countries have cleaned up their balance sheets,
slashed inflation rates and accumulated enormous stockpiles of
hard-currency reserves. China alone sits atop a $1 trillion
mountain of cash. Russia, Mexico, India and South Korea also
are swiftly building their cash hoards, according to Treasury
Department data.
Developing nations have gone from beggar to banker. The U.S.
must borrow enormous sums each day to finance the gap
between its anemic national savings rate and its consumption.
Increasingly, those funds — largely raised by selling Treasury
securities — come from poorer nations.
Through November, the most recent data available, more
than 29% of the $806 billion in net securities purchases came
from developing countries compared with just 5% in 1998,
according to Bank of America. The river of capital flowing into
the U.S. economy enables Americans to continue consuming
beyond their means. But some analysts find it worrisome that
the world's wealthiest nation now depends on loans from
some of the globe's poorest countries.
"The average American doesn't realize where this liquidity
comes from. Capital is supposed to flow from rich to the poor,"
says Joseph Quinlan, chief market strategist for Bank of
America.
For the USA, the danger is that an unexpected development
could cause emerging nations to retrench on purchases of
dollar-denominated assets. What could trigger such a pullback?
A sustained oil price decline that pinches Middle Eastern oil
producers, a global economic slump or an outbreak of
protectionism in the USA, says Quinlan.
Reprinted with permission. All rights reser ved.
Consequences in the USA
For more than half a century, Americans could take for
granted that the world economy would orbit around them. No
longer. The USA today produces about 30% of world output at
market prices. That figure already is down significantly from
about 46% in the aftermath of World War II, when European
and Japanese factories lay in ruins. And it is headed lower still
as China and India continue their ascent.
Over the next generation, fast-growing developing nations are
expected to see a significant uptick in their share of world
output from 23% today to about 33% in 2030, according to a
recent World Bank study.
That shift has enormous consequences for Corporate
America. "The change is from globalization going one way to
globalization going every way. It's as much about what
developing countries are doing as developed countries," said
Mark Foster, a London-based Accenture consultant.
Assuming continued economic growth in the developing
world, the ranks of the global middle class are expected to
triple by 2030 to 1.2 billion, according to the World Bank. Today,
a bit more than half of that free-spending group resides in
developing countries. By 2030, almost all of it, 92%, will call the
developing world home.
For multinational corporations, that means paying ever more
attention to what's happening outside the United States and
especially in Asia, Latin America, parts of the Middle East and
Africa. Procter & Gamble CEO A.G. Lafley said in a Jan. 30
conference call that in the past several years, the company has
"added about 1 billion consumers" to the ranks of those who
have ever used or purchased its products. "We think we can
add another 1 billion consumers over the next three to five
years, and most of them are going to come from developing
markets," Lafley added.
In the most recent quarter, P&G's developing-country sales
outpaced its overall 8% sales growth. Examples: Sales of Crest
toothpaste rose more than 10% in Russia, while Duracell
batteries posted a 20% gain in Latin America.
Likewise, at PepsiCo, two-thirds of revenue growth is coming
from the company's international operations and 60% of that
from emerging markets, says Michael White, chief executive of
PepsiCo International. "We've seen a real, material change in
the performance of our emerging markets, and I expect it to
continue," White told a recent panel at the World Economic
Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Those aren't isolated examples. FedEx, Manpower and
Caterpillar all report impressive growth in their developing-
world business. By 2010, GE wants emerging markets to
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AS SEEN IN USA TODAY’S MONEY SECTION, FEBRUARY 8, 2007
account for 30% of its sales, twice the current level. "America is
realizing for the first time that globalization is a two-way
traffic," says Azim Premji, the billionaire chairman of Indian
software firm Wipro.
Trends from China?
As the developing world's purchasing power grows, it is likely
to exercise greater influence over global tastes. To date, U.S.
brands such as McDonald's, Nike or Apple mesmerize overseas
consumers. By 2030, when the World Bank estimates that the
number of middle-class consumers in China will exceed the
entire U.S. population, Americans might be on the receiving
end of as many trends as they start. Zhang Yimou, not Clint
Eastwood, might direct the world's most-popular movies. Fast-
food dumplings might rival burgers and fries. "New fashions,
new trends … are just as likely, indeed more likely, to start in
China and India or Brazil as they are today (to start) in Europe
or the United States," says Uri Dadush, director of the World
Bank's international trade department.
That's in the future. But already, Americans are being affected
by the rise of multinational corporations based in the
developing world. Once regarded as second-tier manufacturers
of shoddy goods, companies in the most mature developing
countries are making their presence felt by acquiring
companies in the developed world. From computer research
centers in North Carolina to steel mills in Oklahoma, American
workers are finding their new boss often hails from far, far away.
Among the best-known acquisitions: Chinese computer
maker Lenovo's 2005 purchase of IBM's personal computer
business. But there have been plenty of other deals.
Last month, Mexican bank Banorte bought UniTeller, a U.S.-
based remittances company. That deal came two months after
Reprinted with permission. All rights reser ved.
Banorte snapped up INB Financial of McAllen, Texas. Russia's
Evraz coal and steel producer in January completed its
takeover of Oregon Steel Mills of Portland, Ore. And in June,
Brazil's Gerdau Group acquired Sheffield Steel of Sand Springs,
Okla. European companies, too, are in the cross hairs: India's
Tata Steel earlier this month purchased London-based Corus.
The dealmaking is among the first visible signs of the growing
clout of emerging-market multinationals. In his new book, The
Emerging Markets Century, van Agtmael profiles 25 companies
— such as Mexican cement maker Cemex, whose U.S.
operations produce more cement in the USA than any other
company, and Indian generic-drug maker Ranbaxy — that
qualify as genuine global powers.
To many Americans, the notion of innovative, market-leading
companies based in areas where widespread poverty and
disease still hold sway might seem extraordinary. But van
Agtmael notes that, in fact, it was the Western world's 20th-
century economic dominance that was unusual.
For centuries, trade and commerce were rooted, not in the
USA or Europe, but in more distant parts of the globe. In 1820,
for example, today's "developing" countries were the
acknowledged economic powers, accounting for 68% of the
world economy, according to economic historian Angus
Maddison. As late as 1870, the Chinese economy was almost
twice as large as that of the United States.
Viewed from this vantage point, the contemporar y
emergence of countries such as China or Brazil represents less a
new phenomenon than a reversion to history's norm.
"We still hold onto notions that are dear to us but wrong,"
says van Agtmael. "We will not always be the center of the
world."
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AS SEEN IN USA TODAY’S NEWS SECTION, JUNE 8, 2007
Greenpeace, others pan
G-8 global warming deal
By David Jackson
USA TODAY
ROSTOCK, Germany — An agreement to curb global warming
by the Group of Eight industrialized countries was hailed as
"excellent" by one of its authors, but environmentalists dispute
the deal's real impact.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who shepherded the deal
as the G-8 summit's host, said Thursday that the climate-
change agreement represented "very great progress and an
excellent result."
President Bush and other G-8 leaders said they are
committed to "substantial" cuts by 2050 of greenhouse-gas
emissions, which are caused by the burning of fuels such as
gasoline and coal. But critics note that the deal has no binding
caps, only a pledge to "consider seriously" a 50% cut by
midcentury.
Greenpeace USA was one of several groups to say the
agreement fails to provide clear targets for dealing with the
threat of global warming.
Greenpeace and other groups blamed Bush, who has long
favored voluntary reductions, for blocking the 50% cut sought
by Merkel and British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Merkel and
Blair also suggested a target of keeping global temperature
increases to less than 2 degrees Celsius by 2050, which is not
part of the deal.
Still, both Merkel and Blair praised the G-8 statement as a
step forward. "We agreed that we need reduction goals, and
obligatory reduction goals," Merkel told reporters.
Bush, after meeting with Blair privately, said the United States
is "deadly earnest" about dealing with global warming, and
"will be actively involved."
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G-8 members supported Bush's idea of holding a conference
of the 15 countries that produce the most greenhouse gases.
Those polluters would include China and India, which Bush said
must be part of any global plan on climate change.
The 15 countries would develop their own climate-change
plans, as well as a "global framework," by the end of 2008,
according to the G-8 agreement. A broader deal would emerge
by the end of 2009, after Bush leaves office.
The Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank in
Washington, called Bush "the skunk at the garden party" for
rejecting the Merkel-Blair targets. Daniel Weiss, the center's
director of climate strategy, said Bush's global warming plan
amounts to "more talk, less treatment."
The G-8 members did support Merkel's demand that
countries endorse the United Nations framework for climate-
change talks. That framework begins with a December meeting
of environmental ministers.
The U.N. framework is a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, an
international treaty that expires in 2012. The United States
refused to ratify the treaty, in part because it did not apply to
China and India.
David McCormick, deputy national security adviser for
international economic affairs, said the G-8 recognizes that
climate-change policy has to be developed so it does not hurt
energy security or economic growth. He said the Bush
administration also wants to promote energy efficiency, such as
alternative fuel sources. "The president absolutely supports the
development of a global goal … by the end of 2008,"
McCormick said.
7
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AS SEEN IN USA TODAY’S NEWS SECTION ON JUNE 8, 2006
Bolton struggles to steer U.N.
Blunt style got him
the job, but not
necessarily results
By Barbara Slavin
USA TODAY
UNITED NATIONS -- When diplomats
crafted a new United Nations Human
Rights Council, John Bolton said it wasn't
good enough for the United States.
"We want a butterfly. We're not going
to put lipstick on a caterpillar and declare
it a success," the U.S. ambassador said.
Bolton, 57, is remarkably candid in an
institution accustomed to vague
diplomacy-speak. Over the past 20 years,
in and out of Republican administrations,
he developed a reputation as a tough
bureaucratic fighter and a harsh critic of
multinational institutions. President Bush
has said that's why he picked Bolton for
the job.
"John Bolton is a blunt guy," Bush said
last year. "John Bolton can get the job
done at the United Nations."
Bush has been proved at least half-
right. Bolton has been blunt. But his
manner has, by some accounts, made it
difficult to get results at the U.N.
Bolton acknowledges disappointments
at the U.N. Besides forming the new
Human Rights Council over the Bush
administration's opposition, the 191-
member General Assembly has voted
against management changes that would
make it easier to hire and fire staff.
Because of U.S. pressure last year that
was meant to encourage changes, a June
30 deadline looms when the
organization could run out of money to
pay salaries.
Reprinted with permission. All rights reser ved.
Even getting meetings to start on time
has been a challenge. When Bolton took
his turn as president of the Security
Council in Februar y, he insisted on
getting the council to open its meetings
promptly at 10a.m. That punctuality
ended in March when his presidency did.
Bolton, testifying before the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee last month,
acknowledged that "progress has not
been good" on changing an organization
he once said could lose 10 of the 38
stories in its headquar ters building
without anyone missing them. He faulted
what he called a "culture of inaction" at
the world body. By Tim Dillon, USA TODAY
Lightning rod: U.S. ambassador John Bolton.
Some adjustments
Bolton has adapted to the diplomatic developing countries that pay little but
lifestyle. He goes to breakfasts, lunches, have the votes to block change.
cocktail parties and dinners with other
ambassadors, and he enter tains "He's a real force here, but in a way
frequently at his suite in the Waldorf- that provokes a lot of reaction and
Astoria hotel, says his spokesman, Rick opposition from others," Malloch Brown
Grenell. said. Given the bitterness caused by the
U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, which
When he arrived at the United Nations many U.N. members opposed, "what you
in August, Bolton made a point of going needed was an ambassador who would
to other U.N. missions to introduce heal, not deepen, rifts."
himself. While president of the 15-nation
Security Council, he took the other 14 Bolton's behavior, Malloch Brown said,
council ambassadors to see the New has made it more difficult to win support
York Knicks play basketball. Bolton told in the General Assembly for changes that
the Associated Press he wanted to get would make the United Nations more
them out of their "bubble." effective. "This has led to a naked power
struggle where reforms are seen either
When it comes to negotiations with as weakening or strengthening U.S.
other countries, particularly those from control over the organization," he said.
the developing world, Bolton's style has
caused friction with many diplomats, It is unusual for a top U.N. official to
said Mark Malloch Brown, U.N. deputy criticize the ambassador from the host
secretary-general. In an interview last country — a nation that provides 22% of
month, Malloch Brown said he feared the organization's $3.8 billion annual
that Bolton's uncompromising manner operating budget, said Lee Feinstein of
has deepened the historical tension the Council on Foreign Relations.
between wealthy nations that bear the
biggest share of U.N. expenses and Feinstein said part of the problem is
Page 5
AS SEEN IN USA TODAY’S NEWS SECTION ON JUNE 8, 2006
that Bolton intervenes on issues, such as the Human Rights
Council, after difficult compromises have been made and
countries are reluctant to make further changes. Bolton has
shown "bursts of energy but not the consistent effort" needed
to persuade other countries to support U.S. views, Feinstein
said.
The previous U.N. Human Rights Commission had been
criticized by the United States and other countries because its
membership included nations with dismal human rights
records, such as Zimbabwe and North Korea. The new council
excludes some of the worst offenders, but it still includes China,
Cuba, Russia and Saudi Arabia.
Peru's ambassador, Oswaldo de Rivero, told Bloomberg News
that Bolton was "isolated. He lives in another world, with this
belief that he is morally superior."
Rivero said Bolton tried to get his way by "flagellating" other
U.N. members.
Interests, not personalities
Bolton declined requests for an interview. Speaking to
reporters outside the Security Council last month, he denied
that his brusque manner had set back U.S. goals. At the United
Nations, "countries vote their interests, not their personalities,"
he said.
Frederick Jones, a White House spokesman, said Bush
believes Bolton is doing a "great job."
Bolton "has made significant progress in furthering our
agenda for U.N. reform," Jones said. "He is also carrying out the
president's agenda in the U.N. Security Council at a time when
many critical matters are before it, such as Iran and Sudan, and
Reprinted with permission. All rights reser ved.
so has helped to shape the international community's
response."
The United States has long tried to get the United Nations to
be more efficient and to trim its bureaucracy. Those efforts took
on new energy after the worst financial scandal in U.N. history.
A $64billion program under which Saddam Hussein's Iraq was
allowed to sell oil to pay for humanitarian supplies led to nearly
$2 billion in kickbacks from foreign companies to Iraqi officials.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's son got a contract under
the program.
In response to the scandal, Annan submitted to an
independent investigation led by former Federal Reserve
chairman Paul Volcker. Annan also created an ethics office and
is requiring U.N. employees to submit financial disclosure
forms. But he has failed so far to eliminate old programs. Time is
running out: Annan's second five-year term expires in
December.
By then, Bolton may also be gone. The White House has to
resubmit his nomination to the Senate before January, when his
term expires. Bolton is serving under a temporary appointment
Bush made during a congressional recess because there wasn't
enough support in the Senate to bring the nomination to a vote.
The administration has not said whether it will resubmit his
name for nomination.
Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, who last year called Bolton
"the poster child of what someone in the diplomatic corps
should not be," said last month that he had not yet decided
whether he would support Bolton if the nomination was
resubmitted. "He's a smart guy. He's got a personality that
sometimes rubs people the wrong way."
Page 6
AS SEEN IN USA TODAY’S NEWS SECTION ON MARCH 26, 2007
Innovative ways to prevent AIDS
languish on drawing board
By Steve Sternberg
USA TODAY
TORONTO — Creative approaches to
AIDS prevention now on the horizon,
such as male circumcision and
diaphragms, may never reach the people
who need them because many countries
wouldn't be able to roll them out, a
report said Tuesday.
Researchers are studying whether
male circumcision and diaphragms can
be used to prevent HIV infection. Results
may be available within two years.
Other methods include antiviral drugs,
herpes treatments, vaccines and vaginal
gels that kill the virus.
The development of one or more of
these methods could help rein in an
epidemic that is growing by an estimated
4million infections every year.
"We all know the harsh reality," says
Helene Gayle, president of Care USA and
co-chair of the 150-member Global HIV
Prevention Working Group that wrote
the report. "Until we can reduce the rate
of infection, there's no hope of bringing
the epidemic under control."
Prevention effor ts have been
hampered by a lack of money along with
political wrangling over education
programs, access to condoms and
providing clean needles to drug addicts,
says Cristina Pimenta of ABIA, the
Brazilian Interdisciplinar y AIDS
Association. As a result, a fraction of
those who need prevention services get
them.
The United Nations Joint Committee on
HIV/AIDS estimates that $11.4 billion will
be needed each year for AIDS prevention
by 2008, more than double what's being
Reprinted with permission. All rights reser ved.
Access to HIV prevention, worldwide
6% 4%
of adults have of adults who
access to HIV inject drugs
tests. have access to
sterile needles.
spent today.
More than 80,000 volunteers will be
needed for research trials to prove that
the new methods work.
Among the studies:
u Male circumcision.. A study of 3,274
men in South Africa found that those
who were circumcised had a 60% lower
risk of infection than men who weren't,
and they also were less likely to infect
their partners. Studies are underway
involving more than 10,000 men to
confirm this result.
A study released Monday by Jim G.
Kahn and Elliot Marseille of the
University of California-San Francisco and
Ber tran Auver t of the University of
Versailles found that it costs $181 to
prevent an HIV infection using
circumcision. But it saves $2,411 in
medical costs to treat a person with HIV.
u Latex diaphragms. A study of 5,000
high-risk women in South Africa and
Zimbabwe is expected to yield results
next year, Nancy Padia of UC-San
Francisco says.
u P r e v e n t i v e d r u g s . Tenofovir and
Truvada, medications to treat HIV, are
being tested in 4,200 people in
9% 9%
of HIV-positive of adults have
pregnant access to con-
women have doms.
access to meth-
ods that prevent Sources: UNAIDS,
transmission to USAID
infants.
Botswana, Peru and Thailand to see
whether they can protect against
infection.
u Herpes treatment. Studies of more
than 6,000 people in the USA, Latin
America and Africa aim to show whether
dr ying up herpes sores reduces the
spread of HIV.
u Microbicides. Gels that kill HIV are
being tested in more than 30,000 women
worldwide.
"We are working on gels that can be
used at the time of sex and some that
can be used once a day. Other
approaches could be intravaginal rings
that could deliver a microbicide for 30
days or more," says Zeta Rosenberg of
the International Par tnership for
Microbicides.
*HIV vaccines. Researchers have been
stymied by HIV's ability to disguise itself
and cripple the immune system.
Francoise Barre-Sinoussi of the Pasteur
Institute in Paris says the answer lies in
pursuing basic research that will tell
whether researchers can develop a
vaccine.
"I believe that in this century we'll have
the answer," she says.
Page 7
AS SEEN IN USA TODAY’S NEWS SECTION ON JULY 5, 2006
U.N. disputes U.S. position on
free trade's impact on poverty
Agency advises tariffs
as protection in Asian
countries
By Paul Wiseman
USA TODAY
HONG KONG — Asia's poorest
countries are being out-muscled
economically by China and remain
stranded in poverty despite a regional
boom in free trade, the United Nations
says.
In a 152-page report released last
week, the U.N. Development Program
(UNDP) disputes the U.S. position that
busting down trade barriers is the surest
way to reduce poverty. Instead, the U.N.
agency advises poor Asian countries to
do what Japan and South Korea did
successfully in the 1970s and '80s:
protect key industries temporarily with
tariffs before exposing them to foreign
competition.
"Trade policy is like a marriage," Minh
Pham, manager of the UNDP's Asian
regional center in Colombo, Sri Lanka,
says in a telephone inter view. "You
always have to manage it. You cannot
just say you hope for the best and expect
it to work out."
Free-trade advocates "assume that
freer and freer trade will create greater
and greater wealth," says Walden Bello,
executive director of the anti-poverty
group Focus on the Global South in
Bangkok. "But experience has shown this
is not the case."
The UNDP says Asia's poorest
countries have been left behind even as
Reprinted with permission. All rights reser ved.
trade has exploded across the region.
From 1980 to 2000, tariffs fell from an
average 34% to 8% in East Asia and the
Pacific and from 60% to 18% in South
Asia. As tariffs came down, trade
boomed -- rising from 45% of Asia-Pacific
economic activity in 1990 to 81% by
2003. The region now accounts for about
30% of world exports, a figure the UNDP
believes could hit 50% within a decade.
But across Asia, job growth fell from
337 million in the '80s to 176 million in
the '90s, not fast enough to keep up with
rising populations. Increasingly, the
UNDP says, expanding trade is creating
jobs for skilled laborers, not for
uneducated rural Asians who can no
longer make a living on the farm.
One problem: Inexperienced trade
negotiators from poor countries are
frequently outmaneuvered and enter
into trade pacts on unfavorable terms.
Before it joined the World Trade
Organization in 2004, for instance,
impoverished Cambodia agreed to
expose its farmers to more competition
than the wealthy European Union and
the United States were willing to accept
for theirs — even though more than 80%
of Cambodians live on farms, according
to the anti-pover ty group Oxfam
International.
The Cambodian government, human-
rights activist Thun Saray says, "only
wanted access to the WTO. They didn't
care about the conditions."
Moreover, China's rising economic
clout is doing little to benefit the poorest
Asian countries, UNDP says. Reason:
Their low-tech economies don't produce
the sophisticated machiner y and
products that China needs. More than
three-quarters of China's Asian trade is
with the region's wealthiest countries
such as Japan, Singapore and South
Korea. And China's trade with the
poorest Asian countries is unbalanced: In
2004, it ran trade surpluses of $1.8 billion
with Bangladesh, $422 million with
Cambodia and $731 million with
Myanmar.
Pham called on China to offer favorable
trade terms to the poorest Asian
countries, something it has done with
African countries. The UNDP also urged
poor countries to impose tariffs on farm
imports to protect their own farmers and
food supplies.
Economist Fahmida Khatun, senior
research fellow at the Centre for Policy
Dialogue in Dhaka, Bangladesh, agrees
that free trade creates losers as well as
winners. But in her country, she says,
many of the problems are homegrown:
rampant corruption, government
bureaucracy and crumbling
infrastructure, especially at Bangladesh's
ports.
She also notes that Bangladesh's huge
trade deficit with China isn't necessarily
evidence of a lopsided relationship.
Instead, Bangladesh needs Chinese
machinery and textiles to feed its own
thriving garment industry. She says that
she and her colleagues have been
sur veying dozens of local garment
factories and have found that managers
are confident their low-wage workforce
will keep them competitive in global
markets.
"They're not afraid of China at all,
actually," she says.
Page 8
 1. Several articles in this case study outline progress that
CRITICAL INQUIRY
has been made to improve living conditions across the
globe; however, in many cases roadblocks are slowing
this progress. What are some of the impediments to each of the following three initiatives: a.) AIDS prevention, b.)
maternal and child mortality reductions, and c.) free trade improvements? Make a three-column chart and list the
hindrances for each initiative. Place a checkmark next to the one you believe is most critical. As a class, tally your
checkmarks and discuss your findings.

2. Free trade has long been thought to be the answer to reducing poverty in developing nations. This case study discuss-
es possible drawbacks to free trade and advantages for the use of tariffs. On a sheet of paper, make two columns and
list the pros and cons of free trade. Choose a side to debate and do a 2-minute quick-write describing your stand on
the free trade issue. Find a peer with an opposing view and share your writings with each other.

3. Why have Asia’s poorest countries been left behind in the world economy? In small groups, list the factors cited in the
case study and then share your findings with the class as a whole. As an extension, use a current issue of USA TODAY
to report on the status of one the countries mentioned in the case study.

4. Summarize the findings of the World Health Report concerning maternal and child health. Use a current issue of USA
TODAY to learn the current status of child and maternal mortality rates. Are improvements being made? What conclu-
sions can you draw? Write a brief two-page essay describing the current status of this issue.

5. Business leaders, celebrities, politicians and other individuals seem to be getting more involved in many of the issues
addressed by the Millennium Development Goals. For example, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Bono’s Product
Red, UN Goodwill Ambassador Angelina Jolie, Oprah Winfrey’s Leadership Academy have all been featured promi-
nently in the news. Using current issues of USA TODAY, track the progress of the work of a known leader in this area
and compare the work of individuals vs. the work of government organizations and the impact of each. Create a 2-3
minute oral presentation to share with your class.

1. Choose a company that makes a product that you own.

Using USA TODAY, find current news articles about the
FUTURE IMPLICATIONS
company. How is this company affected by the world
economy and globalization? How far along do you think we are in reaching the UN’s goal of developing global partner-
ships for development? Create a 2-3 minute oral presentation addressing these questions to share with the class.

2. Research the coverage of the global AIDS issue in current issues of USA TODAY. What is the current status in regards to
eradicating AIDS around the world? What is your opinion of the coverage? Write a brief 2-page report describing the
status of this particular Millennium Development Goal and how is it portrayed in the media.

3. Choose a developing country mentioned in this case study and report on its progress towards meeting one or more of
the Millennium Development Goals. Using current issues USA TODAY, create a presentation for your class.

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 FUTURE IMPLICATIONS … continued

4. In groups of 3-4, brainstorm ideas for solutions to global health-related issues. Choose an issue and come up with a
creative solution to share with the class. Include a description of the issue, your solution, and how you would imple-
ment it. Elect a panel in the class to serve as judges to choose the best presentation/solution.

5. How best can individual citizens get involved to help with the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals?
Choose one of the MDGs that interest you most and explore resources and opportunities for how you can get involved
in helping with that goal. Summarize your findings in a brief 2-3 page report and share with the class.

Additional Resources

v United Nations Millennium Development Goals v The World Health Organization’s Site for MDGs
www.un.org/millenniumgoals www.who.int/mdg/en

v United Nations Development Programme v Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS

www.undp.org/mdg www.unaids.org/en

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