From the Department for International Development

Globalisation too - as a process - has been with us a long time in the sense that growing interdependence has been a characteristic of human activity for thousands of years, although it has, of course, gathered pace and reach greatly in the last 50 years.

And it is a measure of that interdependence that when the people who took up Osama Bin Laden's invocation to kill Americans launched their attack upon the World Trade Centre towers, they in fact killed people from 60 different countries; from the Caribbean as well as Queens.

It is not easy to disentangle the various elements that make up 'globalisation': concern about loss of ability to influence events; the pace of change; its impact on the poor across the world; and a fear of loss of identity and culture. At times one could get the impression that globalisation - in the sense of economic growth, more trade, and investment - is the source of all that is wrong in the world and, in the case of developing countries, is responsible for a worsening impoverishment of their people.

And yet the truth is a bit more complex. And one of the things I think we need in this debate is more common ground about what is happening while we discuss what should be done in future. And it is about this I want to reflect in my contribution.

To begin with, it is the case that since the 1960s - the very period in which globalisation has reached its peak:

• Average life expectancy in developing countries has risen from 46 to 64 years of age
• Infant mortality rates have halved;
• Polio is close to eradication;
• The proportion of children in primary schools has increased by 80%; and
• Access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation has doubled.

As the latest UN Human Development Report put it: "The impressive gains of the past 30 years demonstrate the possibility of eradicating poverty".

And yet at the same time, and to our shame, at the start of the new Millennium, one in five of the world's population - 1.2 billion people - still live in abject poverty, without adequate food, clean water, sanitation, healthcare or basic education for their children.

The second point we have to recognise is the power of technology as an engine of change; what it makes possible, we as human beings have a propensity to make happen. We also need to honest that while - in overall terms - this technological change, combined with increased trade and economic growth, has proved an effective way of reducing poverty; there are also losers as well as winners from any process of change.

We know this from our own history. It was as true of the enclosures of the 18th century and the growth of the factories and mills, as it is about the consequences of globalisation for developing countries. Our industrial revolution involved painful economic and social change, but should we have - could we have - called a halt to that process, or were we dealing with a profound and irreversible historical shift?

In any case, economic growth has proved to be a good way of assisting poor people; indeed we will find it much harder to reduce poverty worldwide without economic growth. Growth is particularly effective for lifting people out of poverty where initial levels of inequality are small.

Look at China; the country where more people have been lifted out of poverty in the last generation than any other on earth. In 1975, average income per head of population in the USA was 19 times larger than in China. Now it is just 6 times higher.

By contrast, Africa remains the biggest single development challenge in the world. Its share of world trade has fallen. 40% of savings leave the continent. It has been torn apart by conflict and civil war. And its economic progress has been uneven, with parts of the continent having slipped below where they were 5,10 or even 25 years ago.

It is not the case that Africa has been over-exploited by trade and foreign investment; in truth, it has had too little of either. So it is strange sometimes to hear the argument that multinational companies should get out of developing countries when in fact governments in Africa want more such investment.

And even when it comes to rates of pay, the facts show that wages paid by multi-national companies operating in low-income countries are on average double those of domestic company manufacturing wages. There are of course serious problems with conditions of work and exploitation. But surely the response is to do what the trade union movement did in the 19th century - to organise to improve working conditions - as opposed to saying to the companies; 'take your factory or mill and get out of town'.

Thirdly, there is the issue of democratic control and influence. Is it really the case that those we look to to regulate - elected governments - have given up the ghost in the face of the corporate challenge? Of course, the nature of the relationship has changed as the nature of the economy has changed and as what one government can do alone within its own borders has also changed.

And yet because business has moved to the global level does not mean that the power of politics to regulate has disappeared. What it does mean, however, is that this power has to learn to operate at a regional and global level as well.

Climate change demands a global response.

So does poverty alleviation. That's what the International Development Targets embody the determination of the international community by 2015 to:

• Reduce the proportion of people living in poverty by half;
• Ensure that every child is in primary education;
• Measurably improve the health of mothers and children and begin to roll back the scourge of HIV/AIDS.

And so does trade. Which is one reason why the principle of a rules-based, international trade organisation should really commend itself to all those who wish to regulate in the social interest rather than become an object of hatred and suspicion. Where we do need to make progress is to ensure that those rules work in the interests of developing countries so that we achieve:

• An explicit WTO commitment to poverty reduction;
• More open trade in agriculture where the developed world still protects its markets to the disadvantage of developing countries;
• More openness in the way the WTO operates;
• Development of countries' capacity to negotiate so that they can participate fully (something we are already doing through DFID);
• Encouragement to our societies to use the political process to hold their national governments to account for the decisions they make and the agreements they reach in the WTO and other international bodies.

If the poorest countries can participate better in the world economy and get increasing access to modern knowledge and technology, we would get closer to removing abject poverty from the human condition. But if this is not done, we will see continuing poverty, marginalisation, conflict and environmental degradation. The future is a matter of political will and choice, and only governments have both the legitimacy and the opportunity to exercise that will.

Economic development is one part of the story.

So is getting more children into school - probably the single most important contribution we can make to the development of a country, and in particular for girls who are two-thirds of the 120 million children still not in primary school around the world.

So is debt relief where we have seen real change because of public pressure and political action. $53 billion of debt relief agreed for 23 of the world's poorest countries, which this year will provide an extra $1.2 bn to be spent on health, education and other services in those countries. And as the UK we are writing off all remaining aid debts owed to us to achieve 100% debt relief.

So is the level of UK aid, where we have reversed the decline of the 1980s and 1990s. Between the 1997 general election and 2003/04, the aid budget will have been increased by 45 per cent in real terms to reach £3.6 billion - the largest UK aid budget ever.

And so is the way we spend these increased resources. Rather than just supporting individual development projects, we now increasingly work with reforming governments to put in place policies to develop their own economies and deliver improved public services for their people, including helping these governments to design and deliver their own poverty reduction plans.

In conclusion, globalisation now dominates political debate to the same extent that the conflict between communism and the Western capitalism dominated much of the last century until the collapse of the Berlin Wall. It is right that it should do so because these are the great questions of our age. This debate - and its resolution - is critical to the future of our world, and I hope that whatever our differences we can agree on the following:

Globalisation must be managed to ensure that the new wealth being generated brings sustainable benefits to the one in five of humanity who live in extreme poverty;

• Economic growth needs to be more equitable and environmentally sustainable. Equality matters;
• Conflict is one of the biggest obstacles to tackling poverty;
• We should support people in having a say in what happens in their own country, including the poor whose voice is often least heard, especially the poor in developing countries. And can I say as an MP representing a deprived inner city area we too have further progress to make in overcoming inequality here in the UK and enabling the poor's voice to be heard; 
• All countries need effective government to regulate the private sector, promote social equity and justice, and protect workers and consumers;
• The anti-globalisation movement is right to ask hard questions - some of which we do not know the answer to - but being against something is not enough. We have to be for something as well.

Making globalisation work for the poor represents the greatest moral challenge facing our generation. It is now also a matter of self-interest - not in the sense of selfishness - because of what happened on September 11th. We must now redouble our efforts to tackle world poverty because a less unequal and a more just world will also be a safer world than the one we seemed to become just three weeks ago.

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