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Impact Of Trade Liberalization On African Countries Essay

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The scholarship examining the extent at which trade liberalization (henceforth refers to as economic globalization) impacts poverty levels is limited. This essay examines the relationships between economic globalization and poverty levels in African countries. For instance, a 2006 UNDP report illustrates that just 7.2 percent of Bayelsa and Rivers State (Nigeria) residents were poor in 1980, but in 2004, the poverty index figures rose exponentially to 44.3 percent; Nigeria’s national rural poverty index jumped from 28.3 percent in 1980 to 48 percent in 2000. Also, the 2010 Human Development Report on Nigeria’s Multidimensional Poverty was at 43.25 percent and its population living below $1.25 a day was at 67.98 percent . The reason for this decline, the report noted, must do with the destructive impact of globalization on the local economy in Nigeria. The report avers that more than 70 percent of the residents’ income comes from the informal sector; consisting of farming, fishing, and other related income-generating activities . As Nigeria’s economy, has been fully incorporated into the international economic system, the country’s poverty indexes too seem to have been rising alongside. This seeming relationship between globalization and poverty in Nigeria may run contrary to how economic globalization has been publicized as something beneficial to all. Western institutions have touted trade liberalization as essential for the stability of advanced economies, and as a

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