The need for a positive agenda
Developing a coherent platform
Organizing the substantive work

The putting together of a new Agenda of the South raises a number of issues, other than the substantive, that are pertinent to ensuring and enhancing its efficacy. These include the interactions with the developed countries in multilateral fora, the mobilization of the developing countries around a coherent and acceptable platform, and the organization of the substantive work that determines the content of the platform. The developing countries need to address these and related questions which are central to the value and success of any platform or agenda. As mentioned before these questions have acquired a new urgency against the background of the changing global setting and developments affecting the earlier role of the United Nations Organization.

The need for a positive agenda

South-South cooperation apart, any agenda of the developing countries must serve as an instrument for their interactions with the developed countries in multilateral bodies and negotiating processes. This requires that it provide the basis for identifying developing country interests in the functioning of the global economy with a view to gaining recognition for, and the reflection of, such interests in the outcome of negotiations. Other parties to the negotiations will also have their agendas and the ultimate test of success would be the reconciliation of viewpoints in a result acceptable, as far as possible, to all.

In the absence of their own agenda the countries of the South will have little option but that of reacting to the initiatives of others and of focusing their efforts on damage limitation. A degree of confrontation is implicit in any negotiation that aims at reconciling different viewpoints. What needs to be avoided is the sterile confrontation that produces no results. In the context of the globalization and liberalization process, all groups of countries have common interests pertaining, for example, to the dynamism and good functioning of the global economy, the widening of opportunities for trade, capital flows, and technology transfers and their equitable distribution, and the avoidance of disruptions in countries on account of totally unregulated developments and premature shifts in policy. All this provides a basis for multilateral negotiations focused on shared interests. Multilateral negotiations should not be a one way street leading from those who ask to those who give or from those who dictate to those who accept.

Developing a coherent platform

In their dealings with the outside world, the developing countries have both multilateral and bilateral interests. They need to pursue each of these without subjugating the one to the other. Some problems can only be solved by multilateral accords, particularly those relating to global mechanisms and trends. Others could benefit more directly from bilateral relations with affluent countries. All countries should recognize that progress requires walking on two feet. In the recent period, the developing countries that had become vulnerable to adverse external developments have tended to afford priority to relief actions that were more immediate than could arise out of multilateral processes. But the dichotomy is unreal and unnecessary. The more the developing countries unite around common initiatives and positions the less subject would they be to pressures emanating from their bilateral connections. On the side of the developed countries, the earlier dominance of the cold war calculus must give way to a recognition of the stake they have in progress and good order in the countries of the South. There can be no iron curtain to shield them from the spread of a variety of destabilizing factors -- social, economic and environmental as much as political. Increasing inter-dependence is of the essence of a successful process of globalization and liberalization.

An agenda of the South needs to recognize not only the linkages between development and the global economy but also the commonality of many of the major problems facing the developing countries. As mentioned earlier, the developing countries have never been an homogenous group with identical problems and needs. Regional locations and degrees of development were factors of differentiation. In the recent period, however, the degree of differentiation among the developing countries has widened with, for example, the rapidly growing countries of East and South Asia having different experiences to most of the poorer and least developed countries in different parts of the world. This development has its implications for the forging of a common agenda of the South around which all countries can unite. Some countries, for example, have a strong stake in strengthening commodity markets, concessional aid and debt cancellation while others are primarily concerned, for example, with market access, capital movements and technology transfers. An agenda of the South cannot be built just around issues in which developing countries have a common and equal interest. On the contrary, it must also take account of the varied interests of all such countries. This implies that such an agenda be inclusive of all the major problems faced by the South despite the different degrees of interest on specific issues on the part of individual developing countries. The overriding need is for an agenda around which all the developing countries can unite because its elements include the concerns of each of them while the support of all is needed for success in the multilateral arena. The design of such an agenda, however, is a more challenging task now than before.

Organizing the substantive work

If an Agenda for the South is to be formulated and applied effectively, the developing countries need to address the question of how the work required for such a task could be organized. As already mentioned, recent developments are tending towards a reduction of the role played in the past by the United Nations secretariats in highlighting the development dimension of problems and proposing corrective actions that could be agreed upon, after negotiations if necessary, by all members. This is a void that the developing countries themselves would need, in large part at least, to fill themselves. At present they are not organized for such a task. Proposals made in the past to establish an OECD type secretariat for NAM or the Group of 77 did not find acceptance. If such a course is ruled out there has to be a search for alternatives.

The developing countries need arrangements for the elaboration and regular updating of their agenda. The issues broadly outlined in the preceding section all need further study if they are to be translated into specific proposals that could be advanced in a negotiating process. The developing country representatives participating in negotiations also need professional support in the course of such negotiations. In the absence of such back-up the focus will tend to be limited to general positions and approaches rather than on concrete proposals and responses.

There are various possibilities that might serve to fill the present vacuum. One is the development of a networking system between countries of the South involving specialists and researchers in the various fields of importance. This will require actions and activities at the national level that will serve to create a wider circle of developing country professionals to support the work of ministry and departmental officials who are generally the most familiar with the multilateral scene. It will also require linkages between research institutions and individual experts in different countries. Use will need to be made of modern advances in electronic communications that provide new opportunities for such linkages.

In this connection two specific proposals have been made by a member of the Panel. The first is to institute an Economic Coordination Scheme using regional focal points among NAM members to help identify and analyse aspects of international economic and trade-related issues of importance to NAM and to suggest means of increasing the negotiating leverage of developing countries in international fora. The second proposal is for a scheme to link research institutions throughout the South into networks in order to improve developing countries' scientific infrastructure and technological base. These proposals are set out in more detail in Annex 1.

Regional cooperation organizations of developing countries should also be invited to address issues relating to the impact of global developments and negotiations on their respective regions. There is too little of this at the moment but it could serve in helping to reconcile the positions of different countries and groups of countries in relation to multilateral issues and thus in forging common positions. The overarching need in respect of all such proposals and possibilities is that of coordination. The establishment of mechanisms for such coordination is a sine qua non for progress on any agenda of the South.

The developing countries would need to explore these and other possibilities that could improve coordination. Use must be made, in any case, of the overall inter-regional groupings of the developing countries. These comprise the Non Aligned Movement and the Group of 77. They have, with an overlapping membership in large part, played a mutually reinforcing role in the past and must continue to do so in the future. NAM receives its guidance from periodical meetings of the Heads of member countries. The Group of 77 is specially geared to the activities of the UN system and has "chapters" in the principal cities where UN agencies are located. The interaction between NAM and the G77 is facilitated by the fact that the latter group includes all NAM members. Another mechanism of the South is the Group of Fifteen: The Summit Level Group of Developing Countries, which during its annual summits addresses issues which are of relevance both for North-South dialogue and for South-South cooperation. There is also the Group of 24, a part of the Group of 77, which focuses on international monetary matters and the evolution of the international monetary system and institutions.