In Latin America and the Caribbean, in Asia and in Africa, millions of people cannot meet their basic needs for food, shelter and basic services. For them, consumer safety and a fair relation between price and quality are unattainable ideals. The globalisation process, free trade and the predominance of transnational corporations have promoted new consumption patterns. On the one hand, the absence of tariff barriers allows products to move rapidly around the world. On the other hand, the manufacture and production of goods has become a fragmented process that poses new challenges to provision of information and accountability.
New problems arise for consumers, like verifying the origin, quality and safety of products.
The global market makes it difficult to regulate, thus endangering the concept of consumer protection. In this context, consumer organisations must confront not only local suppliers but supranational corporations as well. For this reason, there must be a concerted effort to harmonise consumer protection legislation in different countries and create supranational bodies to this effect. As the economy becomes more global, consumer action must also become global. The consumer movement has a long history of influencing the decision-making processes of government and the marketing practices of business.