Explain the role of the Third World countries in the promotion of NIEO. (1997)
The New International Economic Order (NIEO) was the Third World’s attempt to complete decolonisation by changing the rules of trade, finance and technology that kept former colonies as suppliers of raw materials. The North did not offer it; newly independent states built it over two decades. They used numbers in the UN, ideas from structuralist economics and, briefly, commodity leverage.
Building the coalition
- Bandung (1955) and the Non-Aligned Movement (Belgrade, 1961) set the principle of collective bargaining, and the 1962 Cairo conference on economic development turned it towards economics.
- UNCTAD (1964), with Raúl Prebisch as Secretary-General, gave the South a one-state-one-vote forum. The Group of 77 formed at its close to negotiate as a single bloc.
- Intellectual foundation: the Prebisch–Singer thesis on deteriorating terms of trade and the centre–periphery model of Latin American structuralism, later sharpened by dependency theorists, supplied the diagnosis. Southern intellectuals such as Mahbub ul Haq (The Poverty Curtain, 1976) carried it to Northern audiences.
Converting numbers into documents
- Algiers NAM summit (September 1973): led by Algeria, the movement’s agenda turned from political to economic and demanded a new economic order.
- OPEC’s 1973 price shock showed that producers could reverse the terms of trade. Southern leverage peaked.
- Sixth Special Session (April–May 1974), convened at Algeria’s request, adopted the Declaration and Programme of Action on the Establishment of a NIEO without a vote.
- Charter of Economic Rights and Duties of States (December 1974), proposed by Mexico’s Luis Echeverría, passed 120–6 with 10 abstentions and asserted permanent sovereignty over natural resources.
- The Lima Declaration (1975) set a target of 25% of world industrial output for developing countries by 2000. UNCTAD IV at Nairobi (1976) adopted the Integrated Programme for Commodities.
Who did what
| Actor | Contribution |
|---|---|
| Algeria | Initiative at Algiers and the 1974 Special Session |
| Mexico | The Charter of Economic Rights and Duties |
| India | Drafting continuity, host of UNCTAD II (1968), GATT Part IV and the Enabling Clause |
| Tanzania | Julius Nyerere’s collective self-reliance and the South Commission |
| OPEC states | Leverage, plus the OPEC Fund for International Development |
Negotiation and its limits
- The G-77 kept a common platform through the Manila Declaration (1976) and the Arusha Programme for Collective Self-Reliance (1979), and pressed it at the Paris Conference on International Economic Cooperation (1975–77); the Brandt Report (1980) echoed it, but the Cancún summit (1981) ended the global dialogue.
- Gains: the Generalised System of Preferences, non-reciprocity in trade law, sovereignty over resources as customary law, and the Common Fund for Commodities (in force 1989).
- Weaknesses: General Assembly resolutions bind no one, and oil exporters and importers had opposed interests. The 1980s debt crisis then forced each state to bargain alone with the IMF.
- Stephen D. Krasner (Structural Conflict, 1985) argued that the South wanted authoritative rather than market allocation of resources, a goal that a more powerful North would not concede.
Conclusion
The Third World was the NIEO’s author, campaigner and enforcer-in-waiting. It won the argument in the General Assembly and lost it where economic decisions were actually made. Its legacy survives in special and differential treatment, common but differentiated responsibilities and the Global South’s present claims for representation. The General Assembly still reaffirms the goal, as in Resolution 73/240, “Towards a New International Economic Order” (2018), adopted 133–48–5 with the major developed economies voting against.