Assessing the G77: 50 years after unctad and 40 years after the nieo

Abstract

This article views the history of the Group of 77 through the lens of its relations with unctad’s establishment in 1964, its unsuccessful struggle for the nieo in the 1970s, and the subsequent loosening of ties. The debt crisis of the 1980s, the Uruguay Round negotiations, and the arrival of the wto are seen as crucial forces unravelling the previously close links. Growing differentiation among developing countries and the changing leadership of the G77 are also cited as important influences on its current relationship with unctad.

Keywords:

• Group of 77
• UN Conference on Trade and Development
• debt crisis
• World Trade Organization
• economic differentiation

Notes

1. Williams took this approach in his Third World Cooperation, 2–3. He wrote: ‘The central assumption of this study is that an investigation confined to the G-77 in unctad will provide an adequate explanation of the nature and behavior of the wider coalition’.

2. For more on the findings and influence of the Haberler Report, see Toye and Toye, The UN and Global Political Economy, 215.

3. United Nations, The History of unctad, 10.

4. Dosman, The Life and Times of Raul Prebisch, 378–379, 381–382.

5. “In Geneva: Global Collective Bargaining.” Newsweek, April 6, 1964, 28.

6. See Williams, Third World Cooperation, 71, 88, 166.

7. Quoted by Dosman, The Life and Times of Raul Prebisch, 420.

8. ‘Much of the so-called agenda of the G-77 was articulated by the UN secretariats rather than by the G-77 itself…Whatever we put down as the course of action on any issue, whether on commodities, the Common Fund, the transfer of technology, shipping – you name it, that was taken by the G-77 and made into their own platform.’ See Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies (rbi), “Oral History Interview of Gamani Corea.”

9. The delegate from Guinea praised opec for ‘its brilliant victories in bringing about a just and more harmonious equilibrium in international economic relations’. See General Assembly, Oral Records, 5–6.

10. “A Report of the unctad IV Encounter for Journalists, 29–30 April, Nairobi, Kenya.” Judith Hart Papers, 8/37.

11. Weiss et al., UN Voices, 262.

12. Lavelle, “Ideas within a Context of Power,” 45.

13. “The Awkward Newcomers” is the title of Chap. 5 of Cable, The Storm, 93–114.

14. Boucher and Siebec, “unctad VII.”

15. This point is extended in Williams, Third World Cooperation, 167.