Globalization
Major megatrends shaping today's world include demographic change, urbanization, globalization and energy change. These megatrends are interdependent and likely to only reveal their ultimate effects over a period of decades.
Globalization is perhaps best understood as being the intensification of worldwide relations - cultural, economic, industrial, political and social - to create a world in which historical boundaries are transcended as part of a unified global marketplace.
Technological advances made in the last 30 years have allowed goods, services and capital to be more easily moved across international borders.
Information and knowledge have become the currency of the globalized age as the expansion in world trade and investment has brought major benefits to countries in both the developed and developing worlds.
Globalization has also brought with it new challenges and risks as the international financial crisis of 2008 and beyond has shown. Properly harnessed, globalization provides greater global opportunity in terms of more efficient and competitive markets, increased access to goods and services, affordable imports and improved exports.
The globalization of the world's financial markets has allowed emerging markets and developing countries to record the most rapid capital flow increases while becoming more financially integrated.
But globalization is about much more than international economic integration. It is also about the transglobal migration of ideas and people. Globalization impacts upon us all on a daily basis in terms of the economic, personal and political choices we make.
This too brings not only opportunities but also hugely complex challenges. Economic growth, financial stability and education and living standard advances made to date must be safeguarded while ensuring that regional disparities are redressed.
Smart solutions developed in Germany are providing innovative answers to the challenges created by globalization.
