Group of 77

Since the 1960s there has been increasing public awareness of the "North-South Conflict" referring to the existence as neighbors and as opponents of countries of great poverty and of much wealth. At the outset of the 1970s, 25 million persons die each year of starvation.

The causes of poverty in the countries of the Third World are varied. They include geographic and climatological disadvantages (shortages of raw materials and of water; periods of drought), high rates of population growth, wars and civil wars, insufficient supplies of food stuffs, illiteracy, deficient infrastructure, low per capita income, high unemployment, and a lack of domestic capital, which has the consequence of a high external debt. According to the views of the representatives of the developing countries of Asia and Africa an additional factor is the fact that the conditions of the worldwide free trade system established by the industrial countries after the Second World War favors the growth of those countries and handicaps the development of the countries of the Third World.

In the mid-1970s a group of developing countries form a community of joint interests (the Group of 77). They call for the introduction of a "new world economic order", which will above all facilitate access to the markets of the industrial countries for finished products of the developing countries. The income of the poorest countries, which depend upon raw material exports with large price fluctuations, is to be stabilized through an assistance fund that would be financed by the industrial countries.

In viewing assistance for the poorest countries of the world, it becomes clear that the concept of "development" has different meanings. The "North-South Commission" under the Chairmanship of Willy Brandt in 1977 defines the goal of "development" as follows: "Development is more than the transition from poor to rich, from traditional agriculture to a complex urban society. It includes not only the idea of material welfare, but also the idea of human worth, with increased security, justice, and equality."