Many activities and goods that are critical to human development are provided outside the market, but these are being squeezed by the pressures of global competition. The challenge is to find the rules and institutions for stronger governance . . . to preserve the advantage of global markets and competition but also to provide enough space for human, community and environmental resources to ensure that globalization works for people, not just for profits. The gap between people, like the one between nations, also is growing in the global economy, the UNDP report said. Businesses and institutions in the same 10 control 95 percent of all patents issued by the U.S. government over the past 20 years, it said. The major countries and the global corporations may have earned their dominance, but, the report said, this monopoly of power is cutting poorer nations off from a share of the economic pie and, often, from decent health care and education.
Corporations define research agendas. . . .
Money talks, not need. Global patent laws, intended to protect intellectual property, are blocking the ability of developing countries to develop their own products. Even within the Third World, inequality is sharp. Thailand has more cellular phones and Bulgaria more Internet users than all of Africa except South Africa, the report said. The report was not all gloom and doom.