Volume 4 Number 4 July 1972 Edited by: David Scott-Palmer
This Bulletin looks at Conflict and Aid in a number of different countries, namely:
It also looks at Foreign Military Assistance and Political Attitudes in Developing African Countries.
Volume 5 Number 1 January 1973 Edited by: Clive Bell
Those who still entertained fond hopes that UNCTAD, in its present form, could help bring about a more equitable distribution of income among the world's nations should have few remaining illusions after the third conference in Santiago.
There is little doubt that the obdurate selfishness of the rich proved to be a major stumbling block to progress on most issues. Even the better-informed sections of the western press conveyed as much, though in guarded terms. Yet a fundamentally practical question remains: Is a regular but infrequent jamboree, at which national representatives must find it difficult to do otherwise than declaim and posture, the right setting for the long, difficult and patient negotiations of agreements required to achieve a more just distribution of world income? Past experience suggests that new initiatives and approaches are now called for. The single forum for bargaining needs to be split up into a number of much smaller ones each with terms of reference which are specialised and perhaps, in certain cases, related to regions, trade blocs or other groupings.
Agreements on trade in commodities show the way forward in the matters of trade in manufactures and the reform of the international monetary system. In all this, there would be a prominent role for the present UNCTAD secretariat, the work of which has acquired a well-deserved reputation for depth and analytical force.
Volume 6 Number 1 January 1974 Edited by: Jake Jacobs and Bernard Schaffer
This issue of the Bulletin comprises a digest of some of the research completed during the past two years by members of the Planning and Government Problem Area Group (PGPAG), at the Institute of Development Studies. It does not include descriptions of all the work which was done over this time. There was, for example, research into rural development policies in Ghana, regional developments funds in Tanzania and a comparison of local government systems in Tanzania and Cameroon. In addition, work was also done on the use and development of decision-making games and simulations.
Volume 6 Number 2 May 1974 Edited by: Frank Ellis
The increase in the international price of oil from $2.70 per barrel in October 1973 to over $8.00 per barrel from January 1974 has most profound and widespread implications for world development in the rest of this decade. The additional revenue of the 11 major oil exporting countries has been estimated to exceed 1973 total revenue by some $65 billion in 1974. Of this, some $55 billion is estimated to come from developed countries and the remaining $10 billion from non-oil producing developing countries. Although such estimates obviously only give us the rough order of the size of financial transfers involved, there is a risk of becoming so pre-occupied with margins of error that the magnitude is missed. Indeed the magnitudes are so large that their significance may be missed without some comparative figures. Total net official development assistance from OECD countries was less than $9 billion in 1972. Total net flow of private overseas investment trom OECD countries to less developed countries was $9½ billion in 1972. Total exports (including oil) from all less developed countries were only $74 billion in 1972. Thus the increase in export earnings of the oil producing countries in one year alone is almost as great as total Third World export earnings (including oil) two years earlier. As a shift in world income distribution arising from an increase in the price of a single item of world trade, and taking effect in such a short space of time, it is difficult to think of any change of comparable magnitude and significance.
In this issue of the bulletin we explore the background and some of the main implications of this "watershed" in international relations; particularly the extent to which it will affect the development prospects of poor countries and the climate of trade between poor and rich in the next few years.
Volume 6 Number 3 July 1974 Edited by: John Oxenham
Researchers in the Human Resources Problem Area Group (HUMPAG) at the Institute of Development Studies work on questions of improving the quality of life for people: population growth with its manifold implications, employment and self-employment, patterns of industrial organisation, the effects of new modes of production on older patterns of economic and social organization, manpower planning, the relationships between employment and schooling, the distribution of income, the distribution of social services such as health care. Most of this work is represented here and most of it is offered as preliminary reflections on research which has been completed only very recently.
This issue of the Bulletin can claim then to be narrowing - even if in a minor way - the lag between research and dissemination. It helps to soften the complaint of the urgent practitioners of 'development', that the insights of research too often come too late to be of use.