In addition to the uneven distribution of benefits that often occurs, critics also point to the ways that resources are diverted from the local population into foreign exports. For example, some of the land in Cape Verde could be planted and harvested to feed people but is planted instead with cash crops for foreign exchange. Fresh produce is regularly sold or changed to a nonperishable type, such as canned tuna for export, rather than consumed by the population. Widespread malnutrition is one of the effects of this foreign dependency.
Finally, economic globalization may result in unequal economic relations of dependency between developing and developed countries. Instead of acting independently on behalf of the people in the country, governments of developing countries may act more in the interests of MNCs and of other nations on whom they rely on for aid. They may feel that without these forms of economic connection, their country cannot survive.
Thus, dependent relations that were formed in the colonial period continue on today in the form of what many scholars call neocolonialism or economic imperialism.