Globalisation and Sustainable Development: a Southern African Perspective

This paper examines a two-way relationship between globalisation, technology and sustainability. It traces the impact of globalisation on sustainable development while at the same time arguing that low sustainability in developing countries can thwart efforts towards their global integration. The concept of globalisation is presented as being intensive and extensive in form, the former applying to developed and the latter to developing countries. Three different and often conflicting notions of sustainability are also examined, namely environmental, human and macroeconomic sustainability; and the issues of globalisation and sustainable development are discussed with reference to the experiences of Botswana, Malawi and Zimbabwe, all of which are members of regional groupings in Southern Africa.