Has Globalization Failed to Alleviate Poverty in Sub‐Saharan Africa?

This article reviews the arguments surrounding globalization and the business model that it promotes and its effects on world poverty, with a particular focus on sub‐Saharan Africa. Globalization, supported by modern technology, involves the elimination of trade barriers that had previously restricted transnational corporations and banking institutions access to Third World markets and resources. The processes of globalization are geared toward a global culture that promotes a change in traditional export/import patterns in favor of what the world market demands. However, it is these market forces and economic objectives that are driving the growing inequality within and between nations, resulting in billions of people living in varying states of poverty. The people and institutions who adopt and promote this business approach do not play nice—as can be attested by the millions who are trapped in poverty in sub‐Saharan Africa and the rest of the world. This article argues that an equitable global market based on the globalization business model is an unattainable utopia.