How to make globalization truly sustainable

The past few days have seen world leaders mobilize in order to bring about much needed confidence and coordination so as to confront the challenges posed by a financial crisis which has rapidly spread evenly affecting developed as well as developing economies.

As such, we have witnessed concrete commitments by G7, G20 and APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) leaders, all of which are cemented upon two undeniable facts: first, the financial system and the multilateral institutions which have been operating since the end of World War II need to be transformed as they no longer are able to serve the purposes for which they were established; second, through an interdependent world, all systems are linked and, one way or another, markets are bound to be affected regardless the country or region that they operate in.

Without any doubt, unlike the crisis which began in Asia and spread to the rest of the world in the late 1990s, the current debacle which evenly affects markets in all corners of the planet at the same time is an example of how globalization has truly emerged as the concept which engulfs political, social, economic and commercial aspects of our development.