Together with domestic reform and development assistance, increased integration into the world economy has stimulated growth and improved living standards in numerous developing nations. The economic emergence of developing countries has produced export and investment opportunities for advanced industrial states, but it has also produced more conflict. Over the past decade, developing countries have become key actors in most of the major multilateral issues and disputes. One critical issue on which there is growing disagreement between developing and industrial countries is the impact of trade and investment on labor and environmental standards. Many lower-skilled workers in industrial economies believe their jobs are threatened by competition from a developing world with poor labor standards and low wages.
Environmentalists worry that trade competition and rules harm the environment.
Developing countries generally regard efforts to promote standards with trade penalties as a thinly disguised form of protectionism that threatens their comparative advantage. Issues like these can only be successfully addressed in a multilateral context, but developing countries have been disappointed by the record of multilateral trade negotiations to date. Special provisions for developing countries were adopted in each of the major trade rounds, but developing nations believe these measures have been too weak or inadequately implemented. Developing countries are critical of the outcome in a number of major Uruguay Round negotiations, including those covering agriculture, textiles, and intellectual property. Marginalization of the Least-Developed Countries Despite the progress made by the developing world as a whole, many of its members, especially in Africa, remain effectively isolated from the global economy.