Globalization and sustainable development

During the last few decades, human dynamics, institutional change, political relations and the global environment have become successively more intertwined. This increased global economic integration, global forms of governance, globally inter-linked social and environmental developments are often referred to as globalisation.i World markets have become more and more integrated in the last decades. This process, that started long ago (at least since the Industrial Revolution), has experienced a strong acceleration in recent years by profiting of new ICT infrastructures such as TV channels, communication satellites, Internet and so on. However, empirical evidence suggests that the rapid growth of global markets has been accompanied by stagnating poverty and a world-wide increase of inequality and environmental degradation.