The paper seeks to explain the renewed attention in UNCTAD to ECDC (economic cooperation among developing countries) despite past failures by developing countries to devise workable arrangements for economic integration. (The traditional customs unions approach has been unsuccessful, at least so far. Non‐traditional arrangements, such as regional industrial planning, have progressed only extremely slowly.) The main stimulus to renewed effort has been the slow‐down of growth in Western markets and the rise of protectionism there. But there is support also from the expansion of inter‐ldc trade—which has occurred despite the failure of formal groupings, and also from the success of the Andean Group and ASEAN in exercising greater bargaining power from a position of collective solidarity. New ideas are being considered and some tried out: planned complementarity between developing countries, global preferences, monetary cooperation. But problems involved in economic integration are great, as are those in welding developing countries into a more coherent negotiating unit.