The editorial team running this web broadcast hails from New Zealand (which if you are not aware is a small island nation just to the right of Australia). Among the reasons why this team was chosen has been a desire by the State Of The World Forum and Forum sponsor Saatchi & Saatchi to have a new perspective on current issues of moment.

While we may now live in a global community, from a New Zealand perspective, we are talking about a completely different world than the average Californian may have in mind.

As we approach the millennial climax Down Under, the world is becoming a far less optimistic place to live than it was just 12 months ago.

The global economic crisis began in Asia in July, and its impact in our region has been severe.

New Zealand, like most of Asia, is now in recession. This means job lay-offs, anxiety and increasing levels of poverty.

Nearby the situation is far worse. Countries such as Indonesia are now facing the prospect of wide-scale starvation, meanwhile the political situation is volatile if not downright dangerous.

Elsewhere in Asia, previously dynamic economies such as those of Thailand and Malaysia are now in recession and there is a significant likelihood that things will shortly get worse - especially if China joins the ranks of the economically troubled nations, which is a distinct possibility.

For developing nations small and large the source of the solution to our problems is obvious.

The leading nations of the first world, the USA, Europe and Japan need to wake up.

They need to wake up to the fact that their future prosperity requires the rest of the world to also prosper.

And they need to wake up to the fact that, for this to happen, they will most probably have to forego at least some of the privileges and prejudices to which they have become accustomed.

In the long run, future world prosperity depends on emerging markets progressing. The only - undesirable - alternative is a world divided and made safe in the first world solely through greatly enhanced border controls designed to keep the great unwashed at bay.

Naturally, the responsibility to improve the situation does not solely lie with First World countries, or the United States for that matter.

Countries who receive IMF help have to agree to liberalize their trade - a sensible suggestion, however, there is one problem.  

The people with whom they will want to trade (the same ones who had all the good advice), and who have all the money, also have bulky bureaucracies administering complex tariff and non-tariff structures with which you will have to do battle.

New Zealand is a model of IMF openness. We eliminated trade barriers and subsidies. And yes, it worked. It made us more efficient, and the sky did not fall on our heads.

The sad truth is that if the New Zealand economy weathers the Asian contagion, it will be mainly thanks to its high earning markets in America, Europe, and Japan.

Unfortunately, many of our trading partners in the East and West do not have the benefit of these special relationships to cushion the impact of current crisis.

If Europe and America lowered their trade barriers - or even showed willingness to consider doing so - they would engender confidence in the rest of the world that the trading environment is likely to improve.

They can't do so, however, because their voting public will not stomach the potential labor disruption that trade reform is likely to result in.

Thus the key to solving the world's difficulties as we approach the 21^st century lies squarely with the voters of these established, wealthy economies.

What is needed is a sea-change in the attitude of first world voters to their global companions. Rather than seeing the developing world as a burden, they ought to be seen as an opportunity.