Suchergebnisse

Even as the UN General Assembly adopted the 'Declaration on the Establishment of a New International Economic Order' (NIEO) at its sixth special session (2229th plenary meeting) on 1 May, 1974, and appended to it a 'Programme of Action', Mr. John Scali, then US representative at the UN, gave notice in the clearest possible terms that his government would not cooperate in the 'unrealistic' exercise. Mr. Scali, and Dr. Henry Kissinger later, were speaking, everyone knew, not only for the US but for the Western governments in general. The fate of NIEO (which, even the proponents knew very well, could not have materialized without the willing and unreserved cooperation, at the cost of whatever sacrifice it entailed, of the industrialized West) was thus sealed. All the numerous conferences, negotiations, dialogues, etc. held since have failed to unseal it. This paper argues that even if the programme of action had been implemented in its entirety, no new order would have been in sight and the problem of poverty in the Third World-which was made out by the spokesmen of the Third World elites to be the rationale behind the demand for NIEO - would have been accentuated, as it in fact has been. The benefits, questionable at best, that have accrued from aid, loans on easier terms, better terms of trade, transfer of technology, etc., have been absorbed by a thin top layer of elites in the Third World, encouraging, on the one hand, their indulgence in a wasteful consumerist lifestyle, and deepening, on the other, the misery of the vast majority and the degradation of the environment. The article presents an alternative concept of development, at once self-reliant and self-sustaining without damaging the life-support system, that would ensure sustainable improvement alike in the standard and quality of life, and social equity. Towards this end, the article proposes that a beginning in structural change must be made in the Third World societies themselves, for a secure new international order can grow only from a new domestic order.

This paper sees in indigenous biomass and other natural resources such as sun and wind and water, especially in Third World countries (most of which lie in the torrid or semi-torrid zones and a vast majority of whose populations live in rural areas), a potential alternative to non-renewable sources of energy such as oil and nuclear power. Biomass can be transformed into various forms of energy: solids (firewood and charcoal), liquids (alcohol and oil), gases (methane and hydrogen), and electricity. They are at once renewable and non-polluting, viable and inexpensive, decentralized and labour-intensive. The paper also surveys the efforts being made in Third World countries to make use of these energy-producing resources. But it adds that care will have to be taken, using appropriate social measures, to ensure that, unlike oil and nuclear energy, biomass energy is not only decentralized (which it has to be by its nature) but also equitably shared (which mere decentralization does not guarantee) by all sections of the rural population.

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).

Omo-Fadaka, Jimoh: The mirage of NIEO: reflections on a Third World Dystopia. - In: Alternatives, 8 (Spring 1983) 4, S. 543-550