TDB celebrates UNCTAD’s 50th anniversary

As it was during the inaugural session of the UN Conference on Trade and Development that the G77 came into being, June also marked the 50th anniversary of UNCTAD. The UN body’s Trade and Development Board commemorated the occasion with a special session where speakers reflected on how UNCTAD had “strived to build a world economy that serves the interests of all”, and looked at the development challenges confronting it 50 years on.

by Kanaga Raja

GENEVA: The Trade and Development Board (TDB) of the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) on 17 June held its 28th special session to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the organization’s establishment.

Among the  keynote speakers at the session were UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, UNCTAD Secretary-General Mukhisa Kituyi, Simonetta Sommaruga, Vice-President of the Swiss Confederation, and Hamad bin Abdulaziz Al-Kawari, Minister of Culture, Arts and Heritage of Qatar, who was President of the UNCTAD XIII ministerial conference held in Doha in 2012.

The special session was also addressed (via a video message) by Eda Rivas, the Foreign Minister of Peru, which will host the UNCTAD XIV conference in 2016.

Statements were also made by Eugene Adoboli, former Prime Minister of Togo and a former UNCTAD staff member; Julio Lacarte Muro, former Minister of Industry and Commerce of Uruguay; and Jack Stone, former Head of UNCTAD’s Research Division. All three of them were at the first UNCTAD conference held in Geneva in 1964.

Aspiration

Declaring open the 28th special session, Ambassador Triyono Wibowo of Indonesia, the President of the TDB, said that 50 years ago, nations gathered in Geneva to fulfil a dream; it was a dream – an aspiration – to create within the United Nations a very special entity to bring about a just and equitable world that would promote the full realization of human potential.

He quoted from the Final Act of UNCTAD I: “The States participating in the Conference are determined to achieve the high purposes embodied in the United Nations Charter ‘to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom’; to seek a better and more effective system of international economic cooperation, whereby the division of the world into areas of poverty and plenty may be banished and prosperity achieved by all; and to find ways by which the human and material resources of the world may be harnessed for the abolition of poverty everywhere. In an age when scientific progress has put unprecedented abundance within man’s reach, it is essential that the flows of world trade should help to eliminate the wide economic disparities among nations. The international community must combine its efforts to ensure that all countries – regardless of size, of wealth, of economic and social system – enjoy the benefits of international trade for their economic development and social progress.”

“These words are as fresh and as relevant today as they were 50 years ago,” said the President of the TDB. “These words are as powerful and inspiring today as they were 50 years ago. And these words represent the unfinished business of 50 years ago. These words, these objectives, these principles, underscore the reality that UNCTAD is as relevant as ever. The world of today may be different in many ways from the world of 1964, but the magnitude of the changes is overshadowed by the magnitude of the work that remains to be done.”

Turning point

In his statement at the special session, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said that he had just come from Bolivia where he had joined heads of state in marking the 50th anniversary of the G77 and China which itself was established at the first meeting of UNCTAD.

“Over the past half century, the entire United Nations family has strengthened its commitment to fair and inclusive socioeconomic development. We have worked to reduce poverty and spread prosperity, in recent years by adopting the landmark Millennium Development Declaration and implementing the Millennium Development Goals,” he said.

“Fifty years later, our world is very different. The divisions between North and South – East and West – have blurred,” he added, noting that some developing countries have emerged to become economic powerhouses and global players.

“This birthday comes when we in the international community are facing a turning point in the drive for sustainable development. We have little over 500 days left until the deadline for achieving the [Millennium Development Goals]. We need to speed up our efforts and build on the achievements. At the same time, our Member States are on the cusp of shaping a far-reaching development agenda for the period after 2015.”

This development agenda must be bold and ambitious, he said, adding: “We need to chart a path for economic development that is inclusive and environmentally sustainable. We must look for transformative solutions that expand the boundaries of opportunity for people while respecting the boundaries of our planet.”

“There is a growing understanding that climate change is not just a threat but also an opportunity to re-orient our economies for the better,” he said, pointing out that this is one of the reasons why he will convene a Climate Summit in September to bring together global leaders and catalyze action.

“We must intensify our fight against poverty. We must tackle social deprivation and expand access to crucial services. We must empower women and girls and offer a better future to young people. We need to pursue this transformative agenda in an increasingly interconnected world.”

As it has for 50 years, said Ban, UNCTAD will continue to play an important role. “You have faced challenges linked to the big changes in international trade and economic relations over the past five decades. Your focus has widened from the trade issues that were of main concern to developing countries in 1964 to embrace a bigger, and more complex, set of questions. Your work has evolved from North-South relations and problems to today’s greater emphasis on interdependence between countries and between economic sectors.”

In the process, the contribution of UNCTAD to the United Nations’ development work has been – and continues to be – crucial, the UN chief stressed, adding that in preparation for post-2015, “we in the United Nations system are working on making ourselves ‘fit for purpose’”.

As an anchor in the UN’s development pillar, “UNCTAD has a vital role to play in helping to deliver the post-2015 agenda. As we celebrate today, let us resolve to deepen our work together for sustainable development and a life of dignity for all. For that we will need a strong UN and a strong UNCTAD,” he concluded.

Common concern

In his statement, UNCTAD Secretary-General Mukhisa Kituyi said that the occasion carried a very personal significance for him, in that as a Kenyan born at the sunset of the Mau Mau liberation struggle and the dawn of African independence, he had lived through the challenges that led to the creation and remain at the heart of UNCTAD.

Newly independent Kenya was among the poor nations which saw in the Geneva conference 50 years ago an opportunity to create an organization that embodied their aspirations and raised hopes that the great divide between the nations of the world could be narrowed and the benefits of prosperity spread across the regions.

Back in 1964, said Kituyi, trade and economic relations reflected the sharp distinction between North and South. Trade perpetuated a skewed and biased international division of labour. Developing countries relied mainly on exports of primary products to, and imported high-value-added manufactured goods from, the former colonial powers. This relationship raised doubts as to whether political independence alone could provide the economic emancipation the nations of the South aspired to.

In creating UNCTAD, all countries – both rich and poor – recognized that it was necessary to redress this imbalance, he said, quoting what member states agreed at UNCTAD I: “Economic development and social progress should be the common concern of the whole international community, and should ... help strengthen peaceful relations and cooperation among nations.”

“Since then, working with our member states, we at UNCTAD have strived to build a world economy that serves the interests of all. We have carried out analytical research and provided innovative thinking and policy proposals. We have served as a forum to foster consensus on achieving inclusive development. Through our technical cooperation, we have supported the efforts of developing countries and countries with economies in transition to benefit from globalization,” he said, noting that in the process, UNCTAD has  helped to inform and shape the global development agenda, as well as build  national capacities where needed.

He added: “Fifty years on, we have moved from a world dominated by North-South and East-West divisions to one of more complex relationships and new interconnectedness. Yet some of the same development concerns that animated discussions in 1964 remain. The need for inclusive growth is just as, if not more, compelling today.”

The same is true for the continued need to fight poverty. Despite progress in reducing the number of people living in extreme poverty, in 2010, 2.4 billion people still had to survive on less than $2 a day, only slightly fewer than was the case in 1981.

Referring to the post-2015 development agenda, Kituyi said: “The agenda we define should aim to create conditions that will allow more countries to achieve the kind of ‘virtuous circles’ of productive investment, rising incomes, poverty reduction and expanding markets that bring about lasting economic and social transformation.”

Encouraged by the ongoing discussions in New York on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), he said that he is also pleased that UNCTAD is playing a lead role in modelling appropriate means of implementation for the SDGs.

“UNCTAD at 50 has grown the capacity to take a lead role in the structural transformation needed in developing countries. I can say with confidence that despite new complexities reflected in new dynamics of trade, notwithstanding the reversals originating from uncertainties in the environment, financial crises and security breaches, UNCTAD remains fit for purpose.”

“In early 2016, less than two years from now, UNCTAD XIV will take place in Lima, Peru. Before then, in addition to the deliberations to establish the SDGs, there will be a number of important meetings held under the UN’s auspices. These are set to include conferences of Small-Island Developing States and Landlocked Developing Countries, as well as on climate change and financing for development. We will have a unique opportunity to work as One UN and make the linkages that will allow us to help shape a brighter future,” said Kituyi.

Fair and just trade

In her statement, the Vice-President of the Swiss Confederation, Simonetta Sommaruga, said that 50 years ago, the first Secretary-General of UNCTAD (Raul Prebisch) deplored the fact that developing countries did not benefit enough from international trade, and that the profits generated by trade were almost exclusively to the benefit of the industrialized countries.

His solution to these imbalances in trade was summed up in the words “trade not aid”. The purpose was to free the developing countries of their dependence on aid from industrialized countries. Already that time it was clear that this was an achievable objective, since many developing countries had much better assets than many industrialized countries in terms of raw materials and biodiversity, she said.

Later, the slogan “trade not aid” was replaced by the Aid for Trade initiative. The idea was to change the focus but not to undermine the fundamental principle. The objectives were still the same. First, developing countries needed to play an important role in a newly organized global market. Second, developing countries needed to have access to international markets and make full use of that access. And third, the developing countries needed to improve their competitiveness while respecting fair conditions and they needed to strengthen their private sector.

In some countries, poverty has declined considerably. “This is a success which we must welcome”, and a success to which UNCTAD made essential contributions, Sommaruga said.

UNCTAD has become a vital actor in the areas of trade and development. “While we need of course to recognize the progress that has been made and welcome such progress, we must also state clearly that we’re still very far from achieving our objectives,” she said, noting that the divide between industrialized countries and the least developed countries is still far too wide.

International trade even 50 years after UNCTAD’s creation still needs a strong, active UNCTAD, said the Swiss Vice-President. “It still needs a committed UNCTAD unflaggingly working for fair, just trade, trade which benefits as many people as possible, trade which is [to] the benefit of all of humanity.”

“Prosperity for all”

Minister Al-Kawari, the President of UNCTAD XIII, said that the question “Who are we?” was “a pertinent question which we should ask ourselves – who are we as an international group of nations? Have we learnt the lessons of the past? Have we been able to go past a history riven with confrontation and wars? Have we become more compassionate? Have we become better nations?”

He personally believed that “we have been able to achieve all these objectives to a certain degree. When the United Nations rose from the ashes of wars there was a main objective – to protect humanity from extinction, and when mankind rose from the flames of war, mankind also was capable of bringing destruction upon itself.” That’s why the United Nations was created, to ensure the survival of mankind. With all these problems, the United Nations flourished because it was able to achieve important goals. The United Nations has become an instrument to create a better world. “Our ambitions were noble and they continue to be.”

He noted that the United Nations was already 20 years old when UNCTAD came into being and in the 20 years that preceded the creation of UNCTAD, several nations were able to get rid of the yoke of colonialism and achieve independence. With the expansion of the United Nations, a new group was formed known as the developing countries, and with the creation of this group, a new call was made to improve the international economic system to serve mankind as a whole. This call, he said, was reflected in the motto of UNCTAD, “Prosperity for all”.

In her video message to the session, Eda Rivas, the Foreign Minister of Peru, the host of UNCTAD XIV in 2016, said that ever since its inception in 1964, UNCTAD has played a key role as a multilateral forum for analysis, discussion and consensus-building.

As president of UNCTAD XIV, she said that Peru will seek to ensure that the declarations adopted will bolster the prime role played by UNCTAD in the face of the challenges to sustainable development in the post-2015 world, “so that we can meet the particular needs of all developing countries”.

“And we can tackle the issues of greatest worldwide significance taking into account the challenges facing us as a result of the current economic situation. Thus, we hope that UNCTAD can continue to live up to current and emerging challenges and give us approaches for grappling with structural problems of development, creating the necessary consensus for all of this and fostering international cooperation in a transparent and inclusive manner as has always been the case,” she added.

Great event

Eugene Adoboli, the former Prime Minister of Togo who was present at UNCTAD I, said that he was the youngest member of the Prebisch team at the first conference in 1964, which was held in Geneva from 23 March to 16 June.

According to Adoboli, this conference was the greatest international event after the Second World War. In fact when the United Nations itself was established, most developing countries had not yet become independent. The world was in a worrying state – people lived in different, separate worlds at that time. The Cold War was at its height. It was a time of struggle for national liberation and a time for the struggle to totally eradicate apartheid.

These problems were the concerns of the international community at that time, much more than the problems of international trade and economic development in developing countries, he said, adding that economic thinking of the day and the necessary action to improve the socioeconomic situation of the peoples of the world were very limited.

The political situation in almost all of the countries of the Third World was also very worrying then. There were dictatorships everywhere, and democracy and fundamental freedoms were not considered issues of immediate importance in the concerns of the international community. Further, the Third World faced an ever-worrisome political situation. What mattered at that time for the North was “Are you for us or against us? If you’re not for us, then you’re against us.”

Adoboli emphasized that at the time of the first UNCTAD conference, problems relating to climate change and the environment, and the impact of those phenomena, were not on the agenda at all. It was thus in a world full of paradoxes – a complex world – that the conference took place against that backdrop.

He said that very few people thought that this conference was important, and yet it was the greatest event of the world at that time.

According to Adoboli, the UN General Assembly had not intended to create a new organization, but one of the greatest achievements of the conference was the creation of UNCTAD as a body of the General Assembly with its own standing secretariat.

The conference was also the first international event where the countries of Latin America, Africa and Asia came together to speak and to act collectively in North-South relations by adopting a declaration to that end – the Declaration of the Group of 77. The declaration aimed at bringing together developing countries and encouraging them to undertake common positions in negotiations with the developed countries on development. And development required fair and equitable trade – trade with a human face, he said.

“I believe this declaration was the crowning moment of the conference,” he said, recounting that the origin of the declaration was “rather strange”. He recalled that Cuba’s Comandante Ernesto “Che” Guevara and Gamani Corea of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) were sitting side by side, whereby Che Guevara turned his head slightly to Corea and told him: “Gamani, you speak English. You speak English very well and you also write English well. Why don’t you draft a declaration to be signed by all developing countries participating in this conference?”

Some 24 hours later, Adoboli recalled, Corea had produced a long draft which was adopted by the Group of 77 with very few amendments.

Despite the shifting international context and the economic and political changes that have taken place, and the changes in development assistance policy, the Group of 77 has stuck together and has not broken up, said Adoboli.

He also paid tribute to Prebisch, the first UNCTAD Secretary-General, saying that the first conference was guided by the ideas, the thinking and the courage of an intellectual giant.

“Indeed, one might legitimately ask the question today of where the world would be without Prebisch. In any event, without Prebisch, UNCTAD would not have been born. Most likely, we would not be here today without Prebisch”, who Adoboli called a great man with an outstanding mind and a visionary. (SUNS7826)                

Third World Economics, Issue No. 572/573, 1-31 Jul 2014, pp19-22