International economic order:

The developing countries mostly threw off the colonial yoke in the 1940s  and 1950s,  and ever since  they have been struggling  to stand on  their feet for the Iand of development which would benefit their people.  You would have realised  that a crying need of our times is development which would satisfy the national needs as well as  the aspirations of the common people of the developing  countries. Right now, there exists a cumulative backlog of poverty, ignorance, ill-health, unemployment and untold misery among vast sections of populations  in these countries. These problems are mounting day by day. Lack of resource for all-round  human development is known to be continuing cause of explosive growth of population and environmental pressures. Many of the countries  have tried  to reconstruct  a society where satisfaction  of the minimum needs of the entire. population would be the first priority of development. But this development has mostly eluded us. We have not been able to make policy choices in keeping with our national needs and aspirations. The strategic, industrial and commercial interests  of the countries  criss-cross in  %highly  interdependent  world of today.  Experience has shown that the developing countries are  forced by circumstances  to do what suits the developed countries most.  For example,  to defend ourselves, we have to buy modern weapons from the developed countries, and replace them as new weapons are introduced  by  them; we buy modem goods or import technologies from them to produce those goods. This has given rise to discussions in the developing countries about adopting  a totally different path of development,  i.e.,  a path of development which would not be an  imitation of  the stages  through which the developed countries hie  passed. The term "alternative development  strategies" is used for this purpose.  We would not be copying any one, we would be findmg our own way of sati&ing  the most urgent needs of our We would like  to evolve a new economic and political system, which would combine competition and enterprise with human welfare and planning. A strategy would have to be developed in which the character,  content, direction  and pace of development would be firmly under national control.

The strategy would need to be followed by  a plan to rearrange production, to mobilise resources and allocate  them to all relevant sectors. Steps would have to be taken to generate and put to use appropriate science and technology  for national devcloprnent. Internationally, such feelings were so strong  that, in  1974,  the United Nations passed a resolution called the "New  International  Economic Order-Declaration and Programme of Action"  We give you  just a few lines from it, whlch reflect the conditions whch prevail. Para 1 of this resolution say, "The greatest and the most significant  acllievement during the last decades has been the independence from colonial and alien domination of a large number of peoples and nations which has enabled them to become members of the community of free peoples.

 Technological progress has also been made in all spheres  of economic activities  in the last three decades, thus providing a solid potential for improving  the well being of all peoples. However, the remaining vestiges of alien and colonial domination, foreign occupation racial discrimination,  apafheid, and neo- colonialism in all its forms continue to be among the greatest obstacles to the full emancipation and progress of the developing  countries and all the people involved.  The benefits of technological progress are not shared equitably by  all members of the international community.

The developing countries which constitute 70% of the world's population, account for only 30% of the world's income. It has proved impossible to achleve an even and balanced development of the international community under the existing  international order.  The gap between the developed and the developing countries continues to widen in a system which was established at a time when most of the developing  countries did not even exist as  independent states and which perpetuates inequality."