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Unit 30 : UNCTAD, IMF, World Bank and Asian Development Bank

UNCTAD VIII had five key areas on the agenda : resources for development, international trade, Notes
technology, services, and commodities. In order to evolve consensus on these issues, the conference
decided that the focus should be on their analysis rather on negotiations. It was, therefore, agreed
that the UNCTAD should have a new structure on the lines of the OECD secretariat so that it could
devote itself to the analysis of issues which was set up in April 1992, as detailed above. Thus UNCTAD
VIII focussed on new issues such as services and sustainable development and on its new organisational
structure.
The UNCTAD IX held at Midrand (S.A.) in May 1996 urged its members to provide more resources
for sustainable development and debt relief to developing countries and to carry on the issues relating
to technology, services and commodities in the light of the WTO Agreement 1994 of the GATT.
AN APPRAISAL OF UNCTAD
Since the UNCTAD is a conference, it added a group approach to negotiations. Till UNCTAD VII,
there were four groups : Group A of the developed countries, the Group of 77 of developing countries
(G-77), Group C of China, and Group D of the socialist countries of Eastern Europe. These groups
were pitted against each other in a giant conference invariably every four years. Now there are only
two groups—the developing and developed countries.
During the 1970s, with the breakdown of the Bretton Woods system, oil crisis, inflationary pressure
and accumulation of debt by many LDCs, the UNCTAD became a large debating forum between the
North and the South.
During the 1980s some of the newly industrialised developing countries had impressive growth
rates, while others had disappointingly low growth rates. The developing countries experienced
declines in their commodity prices and terms of trade. Their debts mounted and international aid
flows were inadequate. On the other hand, many developed countries faced recessionary tendencies.
Consequently, there was nothing but hot air at the UNCTAD conferences. There was disillusionment
among the developing countries because of the hardening attitude of the developed countries towards
almost every issue raised by the former at the conferences. As pointed out by The Economist, London,
the UNCTAD was “a political circus”. So each UNCTAD was a non-event that led to its failure to
come to any agreement.
Despite long debates and disagreements at each conference, the UNCTAD has played a key role in
the emergence of GSP, a maritime shipping code, commodity agreements to stabilise the volatile
prices of primary product exporters, special international programmes to help the developing
countries, and international aid targets.

The UNCTAD was set up in 1964 as an international forum to discuss and analyse
trade related development issues which might lead to negotiations between the
developed countries and LDCs.

IMF, The World Bank and Affiliates, and ADB

The world emerged into a new monetary system transcending the frontiers of individual countries,
after the conference at Bretton Woods, where John Maynard Keynes dominated the proceedings
with his startling macro concepts. It was in pursuance of the covenants established at Bretton Woods
that the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the International Bank for Reconstruction and
Development (IBRD) or the World Bank, and such other international institutions were set up and
started functioning.
The par value system, the quota system, the drawings and repurchases of currencies were the principal
characteristics of the performance of the IMF. In the early 1970s, as a sequel to the devaluation of the
dollar, both the par value system and fixed exchange rates came to an abrupt end, and the different
currencies of the world started to float. Ten European countries linked themselves together in a joint
float against the dollar and other currencies.

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