GLOCALISATION : The most strategic way to tackle our escalating social and ecological crises?

Over the past 30 years, giant banks and corporations have become wealthier and more powerful than ever before. This has happened because governments, in the name of ‘economic growth’, have supported ever-increased global trade while neglecting local business potential.  Through a series of ‘free trade’ treaties, trade and financial deregulation continues today, weakening and impoverishing governments and whole countries. This is the essence of economic globalisation.

Despite the rhetoric of inevitability that supports it, globalisation is a process of planned change — the consequence of government policies that support the profit-driven agendas of big businesses and banks.  These policies include the building up of transport, communications and educational infrastructures tailored to the needs of global corporations; the over-regulation of local and national businesses; and the use of misleading indicators like GDP.

Since globalisation is at the root of so many problems, localisation — a shift away from the global and towards the local — is an obvious part of the solution.This is what I have termed as GLOCALISATION- taking the essence of global best practices and integrating that at local level that will be a "PARADIGM SHIFT"

The central principles of Gloca-lisation

•    Localisation is the diversification and decentralisation of economic activity.
 
•    Localisation strengthens human-scale business — especially for basic needs such as food, water, and energy, but also in housing, banking and healthcare.

•    Localisation relies more on human labour and skill and depends less on energy and technology.

•    Localisation requires less transportation, less packaging, and less processing, thereby reducing waste, pollution and fossil fuel use.

•    Localisation adapts economic activity to the diversity of ecosystems, restoring cultural and biological diversity.

•    Localisation fosters a deeper connection between people and nature.

•    Localisation rebuilds social interdependence and cohesion, providing a more secure sense of identity and belonging, which in turn is a prerequisite for peaceful coexistence.

•    Localisation challenges conventional notions of international development, instead reclaiming and regenerating diverse knowledge systems, languages, aesthetics and wisdom traditions.



Global to local policy changes:

¥    The renegotiation of international trade treaties, this time putting local needs first. This means the re-regulation of global trade and finance, along with the relaxation of regulations that currently stifle local trade and finance.

¥    A shift in taxes and subsidies that currently favor the large and multinational. Rather than tax labour while subsidising the use of energy and technology, policies need to promote the creation of jobs and livelihoods while minimising the wasteful use of energy and other resources.

¥    A re-direction of public investments in infrastructure. Billions are still being invested in creating and improving trade-based infrastructures — superhighways, shipping terminals, airports — while the needs of local economies are being neglected.

¥    Government control and regulation of the creation of money and debt.   Leaving these key elements of modern economies in the hands of unaccountable banks and financial institutions has led to reckless speculation and economic collapse, as well as a widening gap between rich and poor.

What is it for India?
by 2020 India will be delivering to the world a surplus skilled and youthful population of 47 million.This is the a natural area of concern.It will bring hordes of related issues out of which the key would be:
1) Food Security
2) Engaging the population into constructive challenges
3) Employment opportunities and Income generation
With the waning power of the US economy over the world as witnessed from 2008, the economic crisis across Europe, Japan in continuous recession and finally the  performance of BRIC nations not good enough to drive the world economy, the concept of FDI and SEZ approach driving and boosting economy is on the decline.
India urgently needs to create enough space for a robust Local economy and encourage interdependence in order to meet the needs of the growing population and sustain itself internally with minimized external dependence.Engaging the communities and in a broad sense the society in this transition towards local sustenance is of paramount importance for India to continue to exist as a NATION and also insulate itself from the fallout of the global transition.We need to wake up now and break ourselves free from this invisible power of the gravitational pull of the PAST and create possibilities for the FUTURE .YES !! A FUTURE that the world will follow as an example in diversity ,innovation and sustainability
IF we fail to see this the likes of Telangana movement, Bodo, NAXALBARI will soon fragment this nation into islands of regional principalities in this life time itself.



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At the grassroots, a powerful localisation movement is emerging worldwide. India itself has a rich history of innovation and activism. Here and elsewhere, the localisation movement is showing that strengthening community and the local economy can undo many of the problems created by the mad rush towards globalisation. 

Central to this new thinking has been the local food movement, which is already demonstrating that shortening the distance between farmers and consumers creates a multitude of benefits, including: healthier and fresher food; more income for farmers; more agricultural and biological diversity; and less pollution and fossil fuel use.  Perhaps most importantly, small, diversified and locally-adapted farms actually produce more food per acre than large industrial monocultures, while reclaiming the food supply from multinational corporations.

The same logic that underlies the local food movement applies not only to other aspects of primary production (for example, fisheries and forestry), but to other quite different areas of economic life.  Amongt the countless initiatives already underway are:

Via Campesina  Transition Towns  Decentralized renewable energy  Local business alliances  Local banking  Alternative currencies and local bartering  Local stock markets  ‘Gift economies’  Ecovillages  School gardens  Non-school education   Eco-building        Biodiversity economics  ‘Counter-development’

We believe that these and many other initiatives like them can gain strength by forging alliances under the localisation banner.  Together, we can build a movement that will challenge the might of the mega-corporations and bring the economy back home where our heart lies.