UNCTAD to focus on Third World

By P. S. Suryanarayana

BANGKOK, FEB. 11. A relative new strategy of reinventing globalisation as a catalyst for growth in developing countries came into focus here today on the eve of the week-long tenth meeting of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). The conference, beginning here tomorrow and bringing together representatives from diverse countries around the world, will focus attention on ways of ``enhancing the governance of the globalising world economy'' and ``making markets work for development.'' The idea was to add a new dimension to globalisation, which had already come to signify the pervasive influence of the developed countries across the international spectrum.

These and other prospective trends of the conference were variously hinted at by the UNCTAD Secretary-General, Mr. Rubens Ricupero, and several other key participants. The shift in emphasis within the overall framework of a sustainable globalisation was necessitated by the UNCTAD's primary goal of ensuring ``the right kind of integration of developing countries into the world economy and the trading system.'' A view was that the ``quality of integration'' would be more important than its ``degree'' even as more developing countries presently join the global economic mainstream. A related prescription was that developing states should avail themselves of the UNCTAD's ``assistance'' to ``negotiate'' their entry into the globalising system and to make this larger entity ``more responsive'' to their ``needs.''

The U.N. Secretary-General, Mr. Kofi Annan, who will address the UNCTAD-X tomorrow, is of the view that the voice of the developing countries should actually be ``listened to'' by the richer nations instead of being merely ``heard'' by them. Towards this end, the UNCTAD, as also the World Bank and several donor countries besides the World Trade Organisation, were already trying to put the developing countries through their paces for their ``negotiations'' with the advanced States. A related priority was to improve the lot of the lesser developed countries (LDCs).

In an alternative view of the developed world, Mr. Kofi Annan does not tend to see it as a united, monolithic entity. In one sense, the failure of the developed countries to agree on their own collective trade priorities during the recent Seattle talks was eclipsed by the popular perception that some form of a worldwide grassroots revolt was beginning to happen against the Western mantra of globalisation.

Given, however, the preponderant accent in Bangkok now on the concerns of the developing world, the prospective new round of the UNCTAD's deliberations here did not evoke the kind of frenzied public opposition that characterised the countdown for and the actual ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organisation held in Seattle recently. Much was made on the eve of tomorrow's meeting about the differing centres of gravity within the WTO and the UNCTAD - a tilt towards the rich states in the original format of the recent Seattle talks and a generalised bias towards the developing countries in regard to the meeting beginning here tomorrow.

In spite of the conspicuous absence of any significant unrest on the eve of the latest UNCTAD meeting, the security authorities of the host country, Thailand, left nothing to chance in beefing up security on the streets ahead of the main event. The obvious effort was to prevent any marring of the UNCTAD-X in the context of the unrest that punctuated the recent Seattle meeting and the subsequent World Economic Forum summit in Davos.

On a parallel track in Bangkok at this time, the Inter- Parliamentary Union (IPU) and the Thailand National Assembly joined hands with the UNCTAD Secretariat to launch a ``declaration'' on the interplay of globalisation and development. With Mrs. Najma Heptullah, President of the IPU Council, playing a key role, the international ``parliamentary meeting'' here today, called on legislators to get ``more closely involved in the international negotiating process on trade, finance and development issues.''

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Section  : International
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