World Food Council

MAC/WFY

Page-228

0230_553559_22_cha18

228

197090. The World Food Crisis of the 1970s and its Aftermath

The director-general of ILO, addressing ECOSOC in July 1978, attempted to

dispel these misunderstandings and misgivings. Pleading earnestly for action to
create growth and employment as necessary conditions for meeting the basic
needs of the very poor, he explained that the basic-needs approach was not an
alternative to the strategy for economic growth but represented the introduc-
tion of a new variable into the general equation of development. It was not a
collection of non-productive social assistance measures, which some had called
`charity', but an instrument of growth, an instrument to create economic infra-
structures and, accordingly, and an instrument to stimulate employment. He
recalled `three convictions' that underpinned the approach. The first was that
insufficient attention had been given to the relationship between capital and
labour in the production process. The second was that more vigorous national
action against poverty, based on the expansion of productive employment, could
help the self-sustained development of the less developed countries by permit-
ting a more rational and productive use of their human resources and `natural
genius'. The third proposition was that vigorous implementation of those meas-
ures or policies was meaningful only in a new international economic framework.
This last point was fundamental. In the eyes of developing countries, progress
in establishing this new international economic framework had been slow, even
halting.

In the face of strong, and sometimes over-zealous, advocacy, the basic-needs

approach risked eliciting scepticism, and even suspicion. As the DAC chairman
of the OECD countries expressed it, there was a `fear that Northern development
agencies will seek to apply it [the basic-needs approach] according to their own
values and experience use it to condition economic assistance, in an interven-
tionist way perhaps as an excuse for not tackling international issues of structural
change and economic development' (OECD, 1978, p. 29). It was recognized that it
would be difficult to overcome such fears unless industrialized countries improved
their performance in development assistance and made it clearly responsive to
needs as perceived by the developing countries themselves, and faced realistically
the need to encourage appropriate structural adjustments in the world economy.

Perhaps the most significant development that occurred since the World

Employment Conference was the increasing stress laid on the need for parallel
changes, in favour of poorer people but also poorer countries, and the relation
between the two in the world economic order. This was apparent in the conclu-
sions adopted by the conference of ministers of labour of non-aligned and other
developing countries in Tunis, Tunisia in April 1978. The conference, while stating
as a first objective in a programme of co-operation among developing coun-
tries the need `to accelerate the formulation and implementation of policies for
full, productive and remunerative employment

in the interest of better satis-

faction of national basic needs', emphasized that employment and basic-needs
policies, among various objectives of development, would be facilitated by the
fundamental changes that were urgently needed in the international economic
order to create favourable conditions for rapid economic growth of developing
nations.

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Useful links	World Food Council MAC/WFY Page-228 0230_553559_22_cha18 228 197090. The World Food Crisis of the 1970s and its Aftermath The director-general of ILO, addressing ECOSOC in July 1978, attempted to dispel these misunderstandings and misgivings. Pleading earnestly for action to create growth and employment as necessary conditions for meeting the basic needs of the very poor, he explained that the basic-needs approach was not an alternative to the strategy for economic growth but represented the introduc- tion of a new variable into the general equation of development. It was not a collection of non-productive social assistance measures, which some had called `charity', but an instrument of growth, an instrument to create economic infra- structures and, accordingly, and an instrument to stimulate employment. He recalled `three convictions' that underpinned the approach. The first was that insufficient attention had been given to the relationship between capital and labour in the production process. The second was that more vigorous national action against poverty, based on the expansion of productive employment, could help the self-sustained development of the less developed countries by permit- ting a more rational and productive use of their human resources and `natural genius'. The third proposition was that vigorous implementation of those meas- ures or policies was meaningful only in a new international economic framework. This last point was fundamental. In the eyes of developing countries, progress in establishing this new international economic framework had been slow, even halting. In the face of strong, and sometimes over-zealous, advocacy, the basic-needs approach risked eliciting scepticism, and even suspicion. As the DAC chairman of the OECD countries expressed it, there was a `fear that Northern development agencies will seek to apply it [the basic-needs approach] according to their own values and experience use it to condition economic assistance, in an interven- tionist way perhaps as an excuse for not tackling international issues of structural change and economic development' (OECD, 1978, p. 29). It was recognized that it would be difficult to overcome such fears unless industrialized countries improved their performance in development assistance and made it clearly responsive to needs as perceived by the developing countries themselves, and faced realistically the need to encourage appropriate structural adjustments in the world economy. Perhaps the most significant development that occurred since the World Employment Conference was the increasing stress laid on the need for parallel changes, in favour of poorer people but also poorer countries, and the relation between the two in the world economic order. This was apparent in the conclu- sions adopted by the conference of ministers of labour of non-aligned and other developing countries in Tunis, Tunisia in April 1978. The conference, while stating as a first objective in a programme of co-operation among developing coun- tries the need `to accelerate the formulation and implementation of policies for full, productive and remunerative employment in the interest of better satis- faction of national basic needs', emphasized that employment and basic-needs policies, among various objectives of development, would be facilitated by the fundamental changes that were urgently needed in the international economic order to create favourable conditions for rapid economic growth of developing nations. back to top Next page
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