United Nations Development Decade Research Articles

Первые десятилетия сотрудничества для развития. Участники, достижения и трудности

The sustainable development goals (SDGs) adopted in 2015 by the United Nations (UN) in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development collectively serve as a universal guide for developed and developing countries in their national policies and international cooperation aimed at combating global challenges. The SDGs build on the outcomes of the Global Partnership for Development Co-operation (GPEDC), the foundations of which were laid in the 20th century. This article explores the system of international development cooperation as it evolved in the UN from 1946 until the adoption of the UN Millennium Declaration in 2000. It analyzes the resolutions and official records of the main UN bodies, with emphasis on the General Assembly (GA) and the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). Content analysis of the records reveals the delegations’ positions, interests, contradictions and tensions which may have been concealed by the smooth text of the resolutions.Four development decades culminated in adoption of the Millennium Declaration. Each stage had its achievements and problems. The main principles, mechanisms and areas of cooperation were molded in early sessions of the GA and ECOSOC. The creation of development support instruments began in mid-1940s, when the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the Expanded Programme of Technical Assistance (EPTA) and later the UN Special Fund were established. The dollar monopoly was entrenched. The expansion of international trade and removal of barriers to trade issues gained prominence in UN resolutions in the 1950s. In 1960 the goal of increasing flows of assistance and capital to developing countries to 1% of the combined national incomes of economically developed countries was set for the first time.The period from 1961-1970 was marked by the adoption of the Programme for International Development Co-operation - including the First United Nations Development Decade and the World Food Programme (WFP), the establishment of the UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), and by the elaboration of the international development strategy for the second development decade. The need for international monetary reform was debated in conjunction with the UN’s pursuit of a solution to the problems of rising debt and international liquidity.The key milestones of the second decade include the gradual integration of development and environment issues, efforts to resolve the international monetary crisis and alleviate the rising debt burden, an increase of pledged targets for the UN Development Programme (UNDP), the WFP and Special Fund, the decision on the Charter of Economic Rights and Duties of States, efforts to implement the differential treatment principle with regard to developing countries within the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), adoption of theInternational Development Strategy for the Third United Nations Development Decade, and a failed attempt to launch “global negotiations on restructuring of international economic relations on the basis of the principles of justice and equality in order to provide for steady economic development.”In the third decade, progress was made toward strengthening the science and technology capacity as well as the industrial and resource development capacity of developing countries. The UN endorsed the Global Strategy for Health for All by the Year 2000, adopted the Declaration on the Right to Development and theInternational Development Strategy for the Fourth United Nations Development Decade. The transition to a sustainable development model was a major achievement. The economic recession,high rates of interest, inflation and mounting deficits, the problems of liquidity and balance of payments, protectionism and structural imbalances in the world economy required a comprehensive decision on the reform of the international monetary system. However, global negotiations were deadlocked due to the position taken by the Group of 7 (G7) that the independence of the specialized agencies such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank (WB) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) should be guaranteed. Despite efforts by the Group of 77 (G77) to deal comprehensively with thefull range of economic issues, the G7’s insistence on the 1982 Versailles summit formula blocked global negotiations, definingthe system’srigidity for many years to come and contributing to its failure to prevent the 1998 and 2008 crises.The Agenda for Development adopted in June 1997 and the UN Millennium Declaration adopted in September 2000 became the landmarks of the fourth decade and development cooperation history.The international community came a long way in building and consolidating development cooperation in the second half of the 20th century. The UN became a cradle and a driver of this process and was a factor in its success. Indisputable achievements resulting from collective efforts over 55 years include a consistent consolidation of its foundational programme documents from the first development decade to the Millennium Development Goals (MGDs), continuous improvement of the review and appraisal process, integration of environmental issues into the development agenda, establishment of key development cooperation institutions and a significant increase in financing for development. However, efforts to create the conditions for sustained progress and development restructuring of the international economic system taking account of the interests of developing countries failed. The 21st century inherited the systemic problems of the international monetary and trade systems.

Adult literacy benefits? New opportunities for research into sustainable development

Understandings of “literacy” broadened after the United Nations Development Decade of the 1960s. The corresponding research into the benefits of literacy also widened its focus beyond economic growth. The effects of adult literacy and its correlates appeared diffuse with the rise of New Literacy Studies, and the scholarship on consequences seemed less essential to advocates following the rise of a human rights perspective on education. In 2016 the agenda for literacy research has returned – but at a higher level – to concern over its benefits. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have reintegrated literacy research within an agenda to understand the channels through which literacy skills might effect change. This article briefly reviews progress in adult literacy, touches on existing perspectives on literacy, and then illustrates four recent sources of information useful in the revitalised agenda offered by the SDGs. Data from the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) study conducted by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the World Values Survey (WVS), and the World Bank’s Skills Toward Employment and Productivity (STEP) study are now available to researchers wishing to link educational change with attitudinal and behavioural change. Another important resource are the emerging data on mobile learning. By integrating literacy into the SDGs, literacy researchers can reveal the channels through which literacy can contribute to social welfare and transformation.

The early days of the group of 77

In December 1961, the United Nations General Assembly designated the 1960s as the “United Nations Development Decade”. At the same time, it also adopted a resolution on “International Trade as the Primary Instrument for Economic Development”, in which the United Nations Secretary-General was asked to consult governments on the advisability of holding an international conference on international trade problems. These resolutions led to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). Their underlying developmental model—trade as the motor of development—shaped the outlook and approach of the new institution.

Institutions and Inequality in Latin America: Text and Subtext

The production of inequality has been one of the most enduring features of Latin American economic and social systems, and one in which the institutional structure has perhaps exhibited the greatest consistency over time. In a very real sense, inequality is what the Mexican Revolution was all about, as was the Bolivian Revolution of the early 1950s. So, too, with the rise, in the middle decades of this century, of assorted populist political parties and movements. By the 1960s, participatory development had become almost a Zeitgeist, and distributional concerns had ostensibly come to suffuse many of the development programs launched during that first United Nations Development Decade, including the Alliance for Progress. It is relevant to recall that, quite early in the postwar flowering of development studies, Viner (1952) had suggested that the chief aim (and test) of development should be the reduction of mass poverty.

International Development Perspectives for the 90s (The Distinguishedl Lecture)

Chairman, Professor Naqvi, Professor Klein, Dr Kemal, Distinguished Participants, First let me express my deep gratitude to the Pakistan Society of Development Economists for having invited me to be present on this occasion to take part in this Seventh Annual General Meeting. I feel privileged indeed to be here. It is not the first occasion I ha~e had to visit Islamabad; but on this occasion, more than on previous ones, I have had the opportunity - thanks to this meeting - of making contact with so many economists and research workers in Pakistan. I have been given a subject which seems to be a little bit removed from the issues that have been discussed, and will be discussed, over the period of this session. I have been asked to talk about international development perspectives for the 90s. No doubt the reason which prompted Professor Naqvi to suggest this title, and to invite me in fact, was that I had the honour of being Chairman of the UN General Assembly's exercise on the preparation of a Strategy for the 90s, the socalled Fourth United Nations Development Decade. The General Assembly established, as was its practice on previous occasions, what is called a "Committee of the Whole" charged with the function of formulating and negotiating the text of what might be a Strategy for the 90s. This exercise was launched in the middle of 1989 and was concluded - I am happy to be able to say - on the 21st of December 1990, just a few weeks ago, when the Strategy was adopted by consensus by the Plenary of the General Assembly. The Strategy designates the Fourth Development Decade, the decade of the 90s, as starting on the 1st January of 1991 and ending on the 31st of December of the year 2000. So, today we are in the ninth day of the development decade of the United Nations.

Food Security in South Asia

Agricultural and rural development and the eradication of hunger and malnutrition are among the chief aims of the international development strategy for the Third United Nations Development Decade. In realising these aims the major focus has to be on achievement of national and collective self-sufficiency in food in developing countries. This international concern for agricultural and rural development in developing countries and securing adequate supplies of food for the peoples of these countries to eradicate hunger and endemic malnutrition among them, is of particular interest to South Asia which is the most populated and one of the poorest geographical regions of the world.

The International Development Strategy for the Third United Nations Development Decade

The United Nations is entering the third development decade designated by a resolution which is part of the series now consisting of three texts which have guided the efforts of the United Nations over the last 20 years. The present document took a long time to produce and was the object of particular care and attention. The General Assembly resolution of 17 December, 1977, provided that:— all negotiations should be conducted within the framework of U.N. institutions— an extraordinary session of the General Assembly should be held in 1980 to assess and to identify the new strategy for development— a plenary committee should be established, open to all member states, to prepare for the meeting of the Extraordinary Session in 1980.On the one hand the third decade was to open “global negotiation” and the plenary committee was to prepare the ground for these negotiations; on the other hand, a committee was to devise the new strategy and to present it to the Eleventh Special Session. Those were the two aims; and the Group of 77 were determined to link them in a single ten-year-plan, in what is called in the U.N. terminology a ten years strategy. Three of these strategies have been adopted so far. The General Assembly in its resolutions A/1710 (XVI) and A/1715 (XVI), 19 December, 1961, declared the period 1960–70 the first U.N.Decadeof development: a period in which special efforts should be made by all, in favour of those who live in the less developed countries.

Policies and Progress Towards Universal Primary Education

In 1961, soon after the beginning of the first United Nations Development Decade, a conference of African Ministers of Education was convened by Unesco. The meeting resolved, inter alia, that by the year 1980 primary schooling throughout the continent should be ‘universal, compulsory and free’.1 As we have now reached that date, it is appropriate to review progress. A few countries have achieved the goal, but many others have fallen short. This article will examine the experience of the last two decades, and assess its implications for ultimate objectives and the strategies for achieving them. Despite national policy variations and divergent social and economic conditions, instructive overall patterns may be discerned.

A Banner of Hope? North-South Negotiations and the New International Development Strategy for the Eighties

Holm, H.-H. A Banner of Hope? North-South Negotiations and the New International Development Strategy for the Eighties. Cooperation and Conflict, XVI, 1981, 197-215. In this article the development strategy for the Third United Nations Development Decade is analysed through a comparison with the previous UN development strategies and by looking at the negotiations preceding the adoption in the General Assembly. It is shown that the development strategy is without realistic goals and has no means for ensuring that the development is guided in the direction wanted. Through discussion of the content of the new development strategy, the North-South debate is treated on the basis of four different models: the union-bargaining model, the ideological model, the power model and the economic structure model. The co-existence of confrontation and compromise, posi tive-sum game and negative-sum game is explained by combining factors from these four models, and it is concluded that there is a great need for concrete analysis of the political economy of international negotiations.

Human settlements and the new international development strategy

At its sixth special session, held in May 1974, the General Assembly, in its resolution 3201 (S-VI)’ adopted the “Declaration on the Establishment of a New International Economic Order” and, in its resolution 3202 (S-VI)’ the “Programme of Action on the Establishment of a New lnternational Economic Order”. Subsequently, at its 33rd session, the General Assembly adopted resolution 331193, entitled “Preparations for an international development strategy for the third United Nations development decade” in which it affirmed that the new international development strategy “should be formulated within the framework of the new international economic order and be directed towards the achievement of its objectives.” in that resolution, the General Assembly also decided to establish a Preparatory Committee for the New International Development Strategy and requested the executive heads of all organs, bodies and organisations of the United Nations system to co-operate fully in the formulation of the new international development strategy.

Time for Transition: A Mid-Term Review of Progress in Attaining the Employment and Income Distribution Objectives of the Second United Nations Development Decade.

Time for Transition: A Mid-Term Review of Progress in Attaining the Employment and Income Distribution Objectives of the Second United Nations Development Decade.

Development: The Third Way

The coming of independence to new nations means, besides self-government and management of resources, responsibility for the total welfare of the population as a whole and minimum disruption of the ecosystem. When options are available, what is the wisest way to development? The problem confronting the developing countries today is poverty. This poverty is characterized by unemployment, under-employment, illiteracy, malnutrition, disease, starvation and bad housing. How is this problem to be solved? The urban way or the rural way to development? The imitation of the patterns of development of the industrialized nations or the adoption of development patterns suited to indigenous traditional and cultural conditions? The lessons of the First United Nations Development Decade have shown quite clearly that given the pressure of time (constantly aggravated by the increase in population) the urban way to development and the imitation of the patterns of development of the industrialized nations are incapable of handling problems as complex and deep-rooted as those faced by many developing countries. What is required is the rural way to development from the bottom up (at micro-economic level) and not the urban way from top to bottom (at macro-economic level).

Physics in the developing countries

Physicists in the US, and other scientifically advanced countries, can make a significant contribution to the growth of less developed countries throughout the world. Yet, probably only a few members of the physics community know that we are now living in the Second United Nations Development Decade, designed to aid in the evolution of the less developed countries. Because of the crucial role that science and technology must play in this development, a World Plan of Action for the Application of Science and Technology has been established, and is now being studied by the various bodies of the UN with the aim of eventual adoption by the General Assembly (see box for details of plan). Obviously, if this plan encounters indifference from the scientific community, it is likely to fail even if the governments of the more developed countries formally agree to participate in the plan. The lack of adequately trained manpower and a scientific isolation from the rest of the world are the two main problems facing these less developed countries. Therefore, in this article, I will propose some programs with which we physicists in the more advanced countries can mitigate these problems and thus contribute to the scientific emergence of the developing countries. I do this, however, with the full realization that the main task of science development must be carried out by indigenous personnel and manpower and that outside assistance must be primarily catalytic in nature. The purpose of international assistance is to make itself superfluous in the shortest possible time, and thus scientific help must aim at the vigorous development of local scientific infrastructures that can be self‐sufficient and productive in the not too distant future.

Books Reviewed Comptes Rendus

Book reviewed in this article:Administration publique QuébécoiseThe Structure of Canadian Government By J. R. mallory.The Report on Maritime Union By the governments of new Brunswick, nova SCOTIA AND PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND.Les tribunaux administratifs et la Constitution Par gilles pépin.Economic Evaluation of Municipal Expenditures — PPBS By a. J. robinson.Economic Consultative Bodies: Their Origins and Institutional Characteristics By paul malles.The Commons in Transition Edited by a. h. hanson and bernard crick.Public Administration in the Second United Nations Development Decade: Report of the Second Meeting of ExpertsToward a New Public Administration: The Minnowbrook Perspective Edited by frank marini.

Evironmental Considerations in Development Finance

The current concern with the human environment, which has given rise, in part, to the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in 1972, comes at a time when the energies, efforts, and resources of the developing countries are being harnessed as never before to achieve their respective development objectives. The compelling urgency of the third world's development efforts found endorsement in the proposals for the Second United Nations Development Decade (DD II). While to a large extent the concern with environmental issues has arisen out of the problems experienced by the industrially advanced countries, the developing countries are not unconcerned with or even immune from these problems. It was with this general thinking in mind that the Preparatory Committee for the Second United Nations Development Decade unanimously decided to include in the strategy for the decade the following statement which was accepted by the General Assembly: “Governments will intensify national and international efforts to arrest the deterioration of the human environment and to take measures towards its improvement and to promote activities that will help to maintain the ecological balance on which human survival depends.” The General Assembly in a recent resolution on the matter of the human environment further affirmed that environmental policies should be considered in the context of economic and social development, with account taken of the special needs of development in developing countries.

Assistance to Local Governments during the Second United Nations Development Decade

Assistance to Local Governments during the Second United Nations Development Decade

Restructuring Africa's Trade in the Context of the Second United Nations Development Decade

Restructuring Africa's Trade in the Context of the Second United Nations Development Decade

A Fresh Look at the Local Remedies Rule

The 1960’s have been designated by the General Assembly as “United Nations Development Decade.” The main economic objective for the decade is the creation of conditions in which the national incomes of the developing countries will increase by 5 per cent yearly by 1970, and will continue to increase at the same rate thereafter. The means by which this objective is being pursued are many; among others are national planning, technical training and capital assistance, by both multilateral and bilateral agencies. Successful as these public sector assistance schemes have been, however, it is now recognized that an increasingly large share of responsibility must be borne by the private sector of the economies of the developed nations by means of overseas investment and international trade.

The United Nations Development Decade. Proposals for Action, A Handbook of Public Administration. Current Concepts and Practice with Special Reference to Developing Countries and Agenda for International Training

The United Nations Development Decade. Proposals for Action, A Handbook of Public Administration. Current Concepts and Practice with Special Reference to Developing Countries and Agenda for International Training