unitex@rubbs.fidonet.org (unitex) (09/16/89)
levels. The strategy should also include a programme of
concrete political measures and mechanisms to eliminate hunger
and poverty as well as maintaining an ecological balance.
JEAN S. CAMARA, representative of the Food and Agriculture
Organization (FAO), said that FAO attached great importance to
the IDS as a framework for international co-operation towards
social and ecological objectives. It had prepared regional
studies on prospects and policy issues for food and agriculture
for Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Europe, and an
updated version of its global study, "World Agriculture: Toward
2000". The Director-General had decided to begin preparation of
a long-term Strategy for the Food and Agriculture Sector for the
1990s and Beyond, which would analyze major issues, identify
medium- and long-term objectives, and consider policy options
and responses for the next decade.
At its ninety-fifth session in June 1989, the FAO Council
emphasized the importance of FAO's contribution to the IDS, in
view of the key role of the food and agriculture and rural
sectors in revitalizing economic growth, as
well as in achieving nutritional, poverty alleviation, human
development and the environmental objectives. At the
twenty-fifth session of the FAO Conference in November, it will
consider a long-term strategy for the food and agriculture
sector, focusing on economic growth and agriculture; poverty
alleviation and human resources development; and natural
resources, environment and sustainability. Following
consideration by the FAO Conference, that strategy will be
revised and expanded to serve as background for preparing
further contributions to the United Nations work on the IDS.
RATTAN J. BHATIA, of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), said
that the new IDS must be realistic and flexible, and enable
Governments to co-operate in its implementation. It must not
envisage exaggerated targets, nor imply exaggerated demands. It
should be more qualitative than quantitative, suggesting
desirable objectives and desirable alternative means of
achieving them. The IDS aimed at the advancement of developing
countries, which were characterized by low levels of income and
savings. The developed countries should not be expected to
supplement those savings alone, but should know that their
contribution to development included maintenance of the
international economic environment. The responsibility of
developing countries was to maximize resources for investment
and to assure their efficient use; the responsibility of
developed countries was to strive to maintain adequate and
non-inflationary growth rates within their borders and to assure
that the reform efforts of developing countries bore the
greatest fruit. The structure of the new IDS should recognize
and elaborate on those responsibilities.
The adversities of the 1980s had "sensitized us" to such
essential, non-economic aspects of development as environment
and human resources, and compelled development of appropriate
institutional practices and procedures. Concerning prospects
for the 1990s, the IMF's World Economic Outlook estimated that
the growth of output in the industrial countries would average 3
per cent per annum during the first half of the decade, with an
inflation rate of about 3.25 per cent, while the large current
account imbalances between the larger countries would prevail.
If those deep-rooted fiscal imbalances were tackled, that would
make a major contribution to a healthier expansion of the world
economy, and especially to resolution of the problems faced by
the indebted developing countries. The new IDS should therefore
take account of developing countries' sensitivity to
developments in the external environment, in the interest of
achieving sustainable development.
For the industrialized countries, their responsibilities under
the IDS should include improvement in the global trade
environment; adoption of appropriate industrial policies
influencing the level and composition of industrial output;
subsidy-free agricultural policies; structural reforms to
enhance the flexibility of domestic markets; and private and
official capital flows toward developing countries. For the
developing countries, their share in advancing IDS objectives
should include macro-economic management and structural policies
to help them integrate into the world economy; making their
economies more efficient and resilient; and an increased supply
response to adjustment effects. In the macro-economic area,
they should place emphasis on raising domestic savings and
utilizing those savings more effectively, strengthening public
finances, and pursuing realistic exhange and interest- rate
policies.
* Origin: UNITEX --> Toward a United Species (1:107/501)
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Patt Haring | UNITEX : United Nations
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