- Author(s):
- Parliamentary Assembly
- Origin
- Assembly debate on 4 May 1976 (2nd and 3rd Sittings) (see Doc. 3759, report of the Committee on Economic Affairs and Development). Text adopted by the Assembly on 4 May 1976 (3rd Sitting).
- Thesaurus
The Assembly,
1. Taking note of the report of its Committee on Economic Affairs and Development (
Doc. 3759) and of the 1975 annual review of the Development Assistance Committee of OECD (
Doc. 3701) ;
2. Recalling its Resolutions 567 (1974) and 591 (1975), on development co-operation ;
3. Recognising the relative failure of official development assistance as an instrument of development co-operation, and underlining the necessity of redefining the role of aid in a broader context of measures better matched to the developing countries' requirements ;
4. Aware of the generally underprivileged situation of women in developing countries, and especially of rural women who bear a disproportionately high burden of work ;
5. Concerned at the persistent trade deficit of most developing countries ;
6. Realising that the recent turmoils of the international economy have affected most developing countries more seriously than the industrialised countries ;
7. Considering that developing countries- as well as industrial countries- would be assisted in their social and economic progress by a monetary system that guarantees stable relationships between currencies ;
8. Recalling the 7th Special Session of the UN General Assembly, of which the Final Declaration constitutes a constructive basis for an effective improvement of the international framework for economic co-operation, and hoping that the present Conference of Paris (North-South dialogue) will be a dynamising element for negotiations elsewhere ;
9. Welcoming the recent decision of the Council of the European Community to speak with one voice at the Paris Conference ;
10. Reiterating that the Council of Europe member states should make every effort to co-ordinate their contributions to development assistance through bilateral and multilateral programmes, with a view to achieving fairer distribution among the different geographical areas, and concentrating official development aid on concessionary terms in favour of the poorest developing countries, e.g. those with a per capita income of less than $ 1 000 ;
11. Emphasising that the developing countries themselves have the prime responsibility to cater for their own social and economic development
12. Resolves to exert all possible pressure at national and international level in order to achieve a gradual reform of the international economic system, with the aim of facilitating a fairer distribution of wealth and growth on a world scale, and urges the Council of Europe member governments :
a on trade and industrialisation
to work towards the establishment of commodity agreements between importing and exporting countries, and to make every effort to achieve a reconciliation of the diverging views on the usefulness of international buffer stocks acceptable to the developing countries ;
to favour agreements on the stabilisation of export earnings, on the model of the Lome Convention ;
to support efforts in the appropriate international bodies to improve, simplify and harmonise the generalised system of preferences, as an important means of fostering developing countries' exports to industrial countries ;
to favour closer economic co-operation among developing countries ;
to support UNIDO in its efforts to promote industrialisation in developing countries, and to support efforts in UNCTAD to update international legislation on intellectual property, such as patents, trademarks and copyrights, and to establish a code of conduct for the transfer of technology with a view to taking more fully into account the interests of developing countries ;
b on aid
to give higher priority to employment and rural development programmes, and to involve women to a greater extent in such programmes ;
to improve multilateral aid mechanisms, inter alia by contributing to the increase of capital of the World Bank and to the replenishment of the International Development Association (IDA) for its fifth period of activity beginning mid-1977 ;
to support the redistribution of international liquidity (SDRs), while bearing in mind the risk of inflation, in favour of developing countries, either directly or indirectly through international development agencies ;
c institutional matters
to stimulate the rationalisation of the economic and development functions of the United Nations Organisation ;
to respond positively to the proposals of the Group of 77 at the current multilateral trade negotiations in the framework of GATT and at UNCTAD IV (3-28 May 1976), in order to improve the international trade system in favour of the developing countries ;
to strengthen the reform of the two Bretton Woods institutions, IMF and the World Bank, with a view to an increased participation in their activities by all countries, regardless of their political and economic systems ;
to continue the evolution towards a more equitable influence of all countries in the decision-making process in international organisations.
