The historic importance of G-77

Abstract

When the Group of 77 (G-77) emerged on the world economic scene at the end of the first United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in 1964, it was hailed in a front page headline of the prestigious Sunday Observer, a London weekly, as “the most important phenomenon of the Post-War period”. When the first UNCTAD convened, the Group was already functional, but it had 75 members, including Australia and New Zealand. By the end of the Conference, G-75 was transformed into G-77 with the exit of Australia and New Zealand and the entry of four more developing countries. The first substantive and authoritative document issued by G-77 was its Declaration containing an assessment of the outcome of the Conference and outlining the objectives to be pursued in the future, particularly through the UNCTAD forum. It was a seminal document in which the developing countries proclaimed for the first time their resolve to work for a new international order. This was a decade before the adoption by the United Nations General Assembly of the Declaration and Plan of Action for the Establishment of a New International Order.