A Year of Decision Development
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0t -J -A YEAR OF DECISION DEVELOPMENT N° 96/JANUARY 1979 OECD OBSERVER N° 96 January 1979 Published bi-monthly in English and French by THE ORGANISATION FOR Contents ECONOMIC CO-OPERATION AND DEVELOPMENT 1979 ... A YEAR OF DECISION FOR DEVELOPMENT EDITORIAL OFFICES Central Issues in The North-South Dialogue by James Grant, President, Overseas Development Council 3 OECD Information Service, Château de A Third-World View la Muette, 2, rue André-Pascal, F 75775 by Iqbal Akhund, Ambassador of Pakistan to France 5 PARIS, CEDEX 16. Elements of A New International Economic Order by Hans de Koster, President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe 7 Individual articles not copyrighted may be Common Problems ... Mutual Interests reprinted providing the credit line reads by Emile van Lennep, OECD's Secretary General 7 "Reprinted from the OECD Observer" A Parliamentarian's View plus date of issue, and two voucher copies byJoep Mommersteeg, the Netherlands 8 are sent to the Editor. Signed articles Growing Disparities Among the Developing Countries 8 reprinted must bear author's name. The Case of the Newly Industrialising Countries (NICs) by Stephen Marris, Economic Adviser to OECD's The Organisation cannot be responsible Secretary General 9 for returning unsolicited manuscripts. A Low Income Region The Sahel Signed articles express the opinions of the A Progress Report 11 authors and do not necessarily represent Interdependence and Development 1 5th Anniversary of OECD's Development Centre 13 the opinion of OECD. TAXATION OF CAPITAL - SOME POLICY OPTIONS 14 Annual Subscription Rates: £ 3.60, $ 7.50, F 30.00. Single copies: £ 0.75, $ 1.50, F 6.00. HIGHLIGHTS FROM OECD ECONOMIC OUTLOOK FOR 1979 The Effects of OPEC Oil Price Decision on the OECD Economic Outlook 1 EDITOR: JaneBussière Associate Editor: COAL: FUEL OF THE PAST ... OR FUEL OF THE FUTURE ? 25 Ulla Ranhall-Jeanneney The Environmental Hazards of Coal ... And Art, Production and Layout: the Cost of Control 29 Marc Delemme ASSISTANT: Gerald Tingaud TOURISM AND THE ENVIRONMENT Photo Research: by Gerald Eldin, OECD Deputy Secretary General 31 Silvia Lépot INNOVATIVE MANAGEMENT OF URBAN TRANSPORT FOR A BETTER ENVIRONMENT All correspondence should be addressed by Ariel Alexandre and Christian Avérous, to the Editor. OECD Environment Directorate 33 DRINK, DRUGS AND DRIVING 38 PHOTOS : Cover: Noguès-Sygma; pages 6, 8; L. Jouan OECD; page 10: Laffont-Sygma; NEW OECD PUBLICATIONS 42 page 12: Noguès-Sygma; page 13: L. Jouan OECD; page 25: EDF; page 28: South African Embassy; page 32: (top left) Vauthey- Sygma; (bottom left) Pavlowski-Sygma; (centre) Roger Viollet; (right) Arthus-B ertrand Explorer; page 36; Goteborgs Spàrvàgnar; page 37: Delft Public Works Department; page 38: Le Nouveau Guide Gault et Millau; pages 40, 41: ROSPA, la Prévention Rou¬ tière, Bundesanstalt fur Strassenwesen. page 17: Cartoon by Normal Thelwell Momentum Licensing Ltd. CORRIGENDUM: OECD Observer No. 95 cover photo: IBM. 1979 -A YEAR OF DECISION FOR DEVELOPMENT The North-South dialogue reaches a critical stage in 1979 with UNCTAD V in May and other Un¬ ited Nations-sponsored meetings including one on science and technology and one on rural develop¬ ment. Throughout the year there will be preparations for the Special Session of the United Nations General Assembly which is to take place in mid-1980 to consider a strategy for the third development decade. Within OECD, discussions on the North-South dialogue are intensifying with the elements of the strategy as the focal point. In December a symposium was jointly organised by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and OECD so that development problems could be discussed by the parliamentarians whose views will be so important in determining the final results of the dialogue. Highlights of the meeting follow. CENTRAL ISSUES IN THE NORTH-SOUTH DIALOGUE by James Grant, President Overseas Development Council1 The central issues in North-South relations at this time are brought out most dramatically when one looks at children's deaths ar¬ twofold. First, to what extent is the North now dependent on ound the world. In 1975, 15V2 million children of four years or less the South for its prosperity? In 1960 or even 1970 most in¬ died in the world. Of those I5V2 million, 15 million died in developing formed observers would have said the North can prosper regardless of countries. And of that 15 million approximately half died from causes the progress of the South. Today, I think most would say it probably associated with hunger and malnutrition. cannot. Fourth if the worst aspects of absolute poverty could be overcome The second major issue is the feasibility of overcoming the worst worldwide by the year 2 000, this would mean ten million fewer people aspects of absolute poverty by the end of this century. Again this is a dying each year and some 15 to 20 million fewer people being born question which, if raised in 1960 or 1970, people would clearly have each year. answered that it could not be done. Today, people are more inclined to Fifth the OECD area can generally be put into the category of not say, yes, it probably can be done, given the political will. yet having made up its mind on exactly what to do on North-South and development cooperation issues. There is increasing vision in the Seven Conclusions rhetoric of leadership, but the action continues to lag. Sixth in our judgment it is very unlikely that there will be sustained Seven principal conclusions emerge from the Overseas progress on either the economic set of issues or the basic human needs Development Council's analysis of the present situation. First, that set of issues unless the two go together. Without the moral humanita¬ the international economic system is no longer working well for either rian impulse expressed in a mutually reinforcing way, we think it un¬ the North or the South. In our judgment, unless there are major likely that there will be forward economic movement. structural changes, the industrial democracies face the prospect through the 1980s and 1990s of persistent high inflation and slower Seventh there is need for a new "statecraft" in the last decades of growth. this century analogous to that which emerged in the late Forties and early Fifties when the OECD countries were suddenly confronted with Second there is a consensus emerging that a return to satisfactory a new set of major political and economic realities. This new foreign economic progress with lower inflation in the industrial democracies policy must accommodate the new forces on the world scene. depends on far greater cooperation with and involvement of the developing countries of the South than is currently the case. The Third World: an Engine of Growth Third the most basic human needs of some 800 million people are not being met at this time. It is worth remembering that this number is What is the economic stake? One of the striking developments of actually considerably larger than the number of people in absolute (1) Invited speaker. The Overseas Development Council is a private, non¬ poverty twenty years ago. It is a smaller percentage of the total, but profit body concerned with development research andpublic information and the total number is larger. The consequences of this I think are located in Washington D.C. 1. THE SOCIO-ECONOMIC SITUATION OF 37 LOW INCOME COUNTRIES IN 1976 GNPper GNPper Physical Quality Absolute poor Population capita growth Country capita ofLife Index as per cent of (million) 1960-1976 (dollars) (PQLI)O) totalpopulation (2) (per cent) South Asia Bangladesh 110 80.4 0.4 35 75* Burma 120 30.8 1.1 51 55 Nepal 120 12.9 0.7 25 India 150 620.4 1.6 43 36 Afghanistan 160 14.0 0.4 18 63 Pakistan 170 71.3 2.9 38 34 Sri Lanka 200 13.8 1.7 82 22 Africa Ethiopia 100 28.7 1.7 19 75* South Sahara Mali 100 5.8 1.0 14 75* Rwanda 110 4.2 0.3 25 75* Somalia 110 3.3 -0.7 19 75 Upper Volta 110 6.2 1.1 16 75* Burundi 120 3.8 1.6 22 75* Chad 120 4.1 -0.6 18 75* Benin 130 3.2 -0.2 23 75* Malawi 140 5.2 3.5 30 62 Zaire 140 . 25.4 0.9 28 60 Guinea 150 5.7 1.2 20 70 Niger 160 4.7 0.3 13 67 Lesotho 170 1.2 4.7 48 68 Gambia 180 0.5 3.8 25 45 Tanzania 180 15.1 2.6 27 54 Madagascar 200 9.1 -0.4 41 52 Sierre Leone 200 3.1 1.3 27 39 Central African Empire 230 1.8 -0.1 18 53 Kenya 240 13.8 2.2 39 43 Uganda 240 11.9 -0.2 34 64 Togo 260 2.3 3.4 25 43 Sudan 290 15.9 0.6 35 43 Cameroon 290 7.6 2.2 25 33 Mozambique 310 9.5 0.7 24 Mauritania 340 1.4 4.1 14 34 Senegal 390 5.1 -0.1 24 (36) Indonesia 240 135.2 2.3 48 51 Yemen, Dem. 280 1.7 27 Egypt 280 38.1 1.8 42 Haiti 200 4.7 0.1 32 For reference : * * Sweden 8 670 8.2 3.1 97 Ceiling value. Computed value equal to less than 5 per cent. (1) The Physical Quality of Life Index (PQLI) created by the OECD Secretariat to measure on an internationally comparable Overseas Development Council measures life expectancy, infant scale the numbers of people in each country whose per capita in¬ mortality and literacy on a scale of 1 to 100.