50th Birthday of UNCTAD

By: Verónica Velásquez Zuluaga * (vvelasq5@eafit.edu.co)
Law student at Universidad EAFIT, Colombia

In its half-century, UNCTAD has made a book about its history. As we know, this organ of the UN was created after the Second World War because an international rebuilding in the economy was a necessity, and the spirit that motivated the group that worked at that attempt of changing the world was a sense of devotion which was very enhancing of the quality of relationships and the quality of the work itself, that’s why it builds something, UNCTAD.

For the creation of this organ, they have to perform many meetings to organize and decide how was going to work. At this time, 1964, there were 120 countries that decided to join the organization, then they establish some rules and 3 central elements that Raul Prebisch, the executive secretary at that time, laid out for UNCTAD. There were: general framework for international commodity agreements, new forms of financing – supplementary and the demand for temporary preferences for the industrial exports that developing countries exported to developed country markets.

The Trade and Development Report have maintained a continuing focus on the interaction of the international economic environment with the development prospects of developing countries. Its policies have been implemented by other institutions that want follow the same principles. UNCTAD became a new international order for the economy and trade.

Nowadays, besides others function that UNCTAD has, it is responsible manly for design policies for international trade and development of the economy. In this globalized world where we live, this organ has a very important role in the trade and development: it looks for increasing the opportunities for the developing countries and integrate them to the world trade. UNCTAD has already constructed a new investment policy framework, and its technical assistance capacity is already strong through the Investment Policy Review mechanism. Other international bodies recognize its expertise on investment, trade and development.

Bibliography

Toye, John (2014) Unctad at 50: A Short History. Available online at: http://vi.unctad.org/resources-mainmenu-64/digital-library?i=VI&op=all&q=UNCTAD+at+50%3A+A+short+history&act=search&option=com_gslink

Taking the human factor into account when designing development policies

Opinion article by: David Ricardo Murcia * (dmurcias@gmail.com)

Political Sciences student, Universidad EAFIT, Colombia

There is one thing that is usually forgotten when someone design a complex system to give a population the key to development, especially when those designs are made by a mostly economic perspective. For instance, assuming that the individuals are rational and that they are circumscribed to an institutional frame were actors –collective or not- are constrained to certain rules, which determine the actions that could be done, it would be  naive statement.

This column is not pretending that the economic perspective lacks on value to the development thought, but it, by itself is not enough. There they left the sociological and political structure of the peoples they’re willing to help without attention, and that course they attempt to failure.

Let me explain myself with a real example. Professors Oughton, Landabaso and Morgan make a significantly contribution to the institutional thought of development in their joint paper The RegionalInnovation Paradox (2002). There they sustain that for acquiring a greater impact in helping people develop there should be more governmental support to programs “promoting inter-organizational learning, improving existing regional innovation capacity and exploiting possibilities for investment and innovation activity”, going further the mainstream programs that rely on the increase of external inversions, and the isolated attempts of the public sector and universities to give the region an opportunity of growth (Oughton, Landabasoand Morgan, 2002).

That’s quite a point. If the state promotes ways in which regions actually learn how to innovate in coordination with universities and, the private and public sector, there for sure are the creation of a functional program for development. But, what the authors of the paper left behind are the social-political character of the regions they study. All are place in the EU: the most highly develop regional political institution, which have the capacity to intervene in its on jurisdiction with little resistance of the folk. That would give the paper and its conclusions reduce space of validity for a global application.

It is not, that what is done by de European Union in Europe could be done in other region. For example, the UNASUR has got low power to help intra-state region develop, and even if it has a way to actually intervene, the people of South America wouldn’t react so softly due to their political customs and social constitution. There, in Europe, the people have gain used to obey the institutional actors: organizations with little link to the person. But here, we are used to see people as the power and the closer the person in power is, the more obedient the folk are. In these sense, if national leaders as presidents are incapable of gaining the control of its entire legal jurisdiction, something as far as UNASUR couldn’t be more irrelevant in order to organize, or even help society.

As a short coming conclusion the institutional agreement proposed by Oughton, Landabasoand Morgan (2002) could only be applicable to Europe due to the sociological political structure of the region and can’t easily be transported to other global regions, just as one would think, they pretended. Each region requires a deep study of the social and political structure before proposing a development scheme. It would be premature to said so, but South America needs the state to stop pretending a transliteration of external programs and start figuring out how to use the human factor that actually exists. 

Reference:

Oughton, Christine; Landabaso, Mikel & Morgan, Kevin (2002). The Regional Innovation Paradox: Innovation Policy and Industrial Policy. The Journal of Technology Transfer. Vol. 27(1), pp. 97-110.