Globalization International Organizations the Commonly

Globalization

International Organizations

The commonly held belief that the world's most powerful banking, financial, military and political organizations including the North Atlantic Treaty organization (NATO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), United Nations, World Bank and others are actually used for the benefit of the world's richest nations and corporations. In fact this is quite the opposite. The WTO for example is in known for its tough policies on China and their lack of quality management and controls of children's toys, after lead paint was found on many of the children's products they produced. The IMF is better known for its outreach programs to bring greater levels of aid to 3rd world nations than for any of its other activities, even the assisting of running monetary systems in European nations (Bird, Rowlands, 2007). The emergence of multilateral trade systems across 3rd world nations is now also commonplace thanks to the work of the WTO as well (Capling, Higgott, 2009). These examples and many more like them show that these organizations are more attuned not to the needs of the rich and powerful, but to the poor and powerless. The focus of the U.N. later this year in their global summit in Copenhagen will focus on the role of women in emerging economies and the contribution their businesses make. To illustrate how strongly the UN sees their mission about helping underprivileged nations, UN undersecretary -general for humanitarian affairs, Jan Egeland called developed nations "stingy" when it came to their contributions to 3rd world nations' welfare (Sharma, 2005). The bottom line is that these organizations are all focused more on the humanitarian missions they cooperate on and less on selfish strategies for gain.