The Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East

Abstract

THE Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East (known generally as ECAFE, pronounced Ee-caf-ay), which was established in March 1947 by the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations, is, in the light of the publicity bestowed upon it, attracting world-wide attention to its deliberations and to its functi,ons and aims. The object of this article will be in the first part to give its factual background, and in the second part to attempt an analysis of its potentialities and of the political and economic forces that are directing its activities and its policy. The genesis of ECAFE is to be traced to the resolution of the Economic and Social Council, June 21, 1946, establishing the Temporary Sub-Commission on the Economic Reconstruction of Devastated Areas. At its 55th Plenary Session on December 11, 1946, the General Assembly of the United Nations took note of the preliminary report of this Temporary Sub-Commission and recommended inter alia that in order to give effective aid to the countries devastated by war, the Economic and Social Council should at its next session give prompt and favourable consideration to the establishment of an Economic Commission for Europe and another for Asia and the Far East. Meanwhile the Sub-Commission had divided into two Working Groupsone for Europe and Africa and one for Asia and the Far East. That for Asia and the Far East was composed of representatives of Australia, Canada, China, France, India, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Peru, the Philippine Republic, the U.S.S.R., the United States and the United Kingdom. After a preliminary meeting in London it was the intention that the Working Group should re-convene in Nanking, but since this was found impracticable for various reasons it assembled at Lake Success on February 14, 1947, for its second session. Here it divided into two sub-groups, one to study and redraft the factual material on war devastation and the progress of reconstruction in various countries that the Secretariat had laid before it, and the other to produce a general analysis leading to specific recommendations. The reports of the two sub-groups were then brought together into the Report of the Working Group.2 More than a thousand million people (said the Report), approximately half the population of the globe, inhabit this region, and the physical devastation and the disruption of the existing means of livelihood caused by the