South Perspectives - 2004

PREFACE 

UNCTAD XI is taking place in Sao Paulo, Brazil, in June 2004, 40 years after the landmark first U.N. Conference on Trade and Development in Geneva, which led to the creation of UNCTAD.

To mark the 40th anniversary of UNCTAD, the South Centre has decided that it would be useful now to reproduce in a single volume the key documents that resulted from this historic first meeting, namely the Final Act that was adopted by the Conference, the report submitted to the Conference by its Secretary-General, Raúl Prebisch, entitled “Towards a New Trade Policy for Development”, the Joint Declaration by the Group of Seventy-Seven Developing countries, adopted at the end of the Conference and which marked the birth of the Group of 77, which is also celebrating its 40th anniversary in Sao Paulo, as well as the UN General Assembly Resolution 1995 (XIX) which established UNCTAD as an institution. The first two documents, originating in an epoch when ICTs were still not available, are especially difficult to find and locate. They are seldom read or even known to those who are taking part in the current work, debates and negotiations in the U.N., UNCTAD and WTO, many of whom were not even born at the time of UNCTAD I.

The documents reproduced in this publication are not just of historic or bibliographic importance. Their relevance to our contemporary situation is striking, including as regards the strengthened roles of the U.N. and of UNCTAD in the sphere of economic development, and they offer a great deal of value in evolving fresh approaches to today’s international development agenda which remains in search of answers to issues raised in 1964.

They should be of special interest to the developing countries and to the Group of 77, in their continuing efforts to revive the North-South dialogue and negotiations, in updating their platform, in evolving responses to globalization conceptualized and driven the developed countries, and in consolidating their arguments and demands.

Boutros Boutros-Ghali Chairman of the South Centre Board

 click here to download