United Nations Conference on Trade and Development
The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) was established in 1964 as a permanent intergovernmental body. It is the principal organ of the United Nations General Assembly dealing with trade, investment, and development issues.
The organization's goals are to "maximize the trade, investment and development opportunities of developing countries and assist them in their efforts to integrate into the world economy on an equitable basis." (from official website). The creation of the conference was based on concerns of developing countries over the international market, multi-national corporations, and great disparity between developed nations and developing nations.
In the 1970s and 1980s, UNCTAD was closely associated with the idea of a New International Economic Order (NIEO).
The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development was established in 1964 in order to provide a forum where the developing countries could discuss the problems relating to their economic development. UNCTAD grew from the view that existing institutions like GATT (now replaced by the WTO), the IMF , and World Bank were not properly organized to handle the particular problems of developing countries. UNCTAD has 193 members.
The primary objective of the UNCTAD is to formulate policies relating to all aspects of development including trade, aid, transport, finance and technology. The Conference ordinarily meets once in four years. The first conference took place in Geneva in 1964, second in New Delhi in 1968, the third in Santiago in 1972, fourth in Nairobi in 1976, the fifth in Manila in 1979, the sixth in Belgrade in 1983, the seventh in Geneva in 1987, the eighth in Cartagena(Colombia) in 1992 and the ninth at Johannesburg (South Africa)in 1996. The Conference has its permanent secretariat in Geneva.
One of the principal achievements of UNCTAD has been to conceive and implement the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP). It was argued in UNCTAD, that in order to promote exports of manufactured goods from developing countries, it would be necessary to offer special tariff concessions to such exports. Accepting this argument, the developed countries formulated the GSP Scheme under which manufacturers' exports and some agricultural goods from the developing countries enter duty-free or at reduced rates in the developed countries. Since imports of such items from other developed countries are subject to the normal rates of duties, imports of the same items from developing countries would enjoy a competitive advantage.
Currently, UNCTAD has 193 member States and is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. UNCTAD has 400 staff members and an annual regular budget of approximately US$50 million and US$25 million of extra budgetary technical assistance funds.
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[edit] Meetings
The inter-governmental work is done at 5 levels of meetings: [1]
- The UNCTAD Conference – held every 4 years;
- UNCTAD XIII will be held in Doha, Qatar in 2012
- UNCTAD XII was held in Accra, Ghana in 21–25 April 2008 [1]
- UNCTAD XI was held in São Paulo, Brazil in 13–18 June 2004 [2]
- UNCTAD X was held in Bangkok, Thailand in 12–19 February 2000 [3]
- UNCTAD IX was held in Midrand, South Africa in 27 April – 11 May 1996
- UNCTAD VIII was held in Cartagena, Colombia in 8–25 February 1992
- The UNCTAD Trade and Development Board – the Board manages the work of UNCTAD in between two Conferences and meets up to three times every year;
- Four UNCTAD Commissions and one Working Party – these meet more often than the Board in order to take up policy, programme and budgetary issues;
- Expert Meetings – the Commissions will convene expert meetings on selected topics in order to provide substantive and expert input for Commission policy discussions.
Group of 77
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The Group of 77 at the United Nations is a loose coalition of developing nations, designed to promote its members' collective economic interests and create an enhanced joint negotiating capacity in the United Nations.[1] There were 77 founding members of the organization, but the organization has since expanded to 131 member countries. Practically speaking (as of 2010), the group can be described as comprising all of UN members (along with the Palestinian Authority), none of which is: 1. a CoE member (with the exception of Bosnia Herzegovina); nor: 2. an OECD member (with the exception of Chile); nor: 3. a CIS (full) member (with the exception of Tajikistan); nor: 4. a "mini" country (whose population size is under 50,000); nor: 5. Kiribati (whose population size is under 100,000).
The Republic of Yemen holds the Chairmanship in New York for 2010.[2]. Argentina will hold the Chairmanship for 2011 starting in January 2011.[3]
The group was founded on June 15, 1964 by the "Joint Declaration of the Seventy-Seven Countries" issued at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).[4] The first major meeting was in Algiers in 1967, where the Charter of Algiers was adopted and the basis for permanent institutional structures was begun. There are Chapters of the Group of 77 in Rome (FAO), Vienna (UNIDO), ParisUNESCO), Nairobi (UNEP) and the Group of 24 in Washington, D.C. (IMF and World Bank).
