Overview

Fifty years ago this year, and twenty years after a new multilateral framework for governing the post-war global economy was agreed at Bretton Woods, a confident South gathered in Geneva to advance its demands for a more inclusive world economic order. The first United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) added a permanent institutional fixture to the multilateral landscape, with the responsibility “to formulate principles and policies on international trade and related problems of economic development”. Moreover, and moving beyond the principles that framed the Bretton Woods institutions (and later the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT)), it was agreed that “Economic development and social progress should be the common concern of the whole international community, and should, by increasing economic prosperity and well-being, help strengthen peaceful relations and cooperation among nations”.

Related Subject(s): Economic and Social Development