The bulk of the world population in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s were in Asia and Africa. In terms of the power configuration of the world, they were nothing, yet, in terms of population, they were nearly everything. The Third World includes over 160 underdeveloped and developing nations in the Middle-East, Africa, Asia, and Latin America. They accounted for three-fourths of the world’s population but less than one-fifth of the world’s production of goods and services.
In contrast to the industrialized nations, the third world depends mostly on the export of a single commodity or raw material, such as cocoa, coffee, copper, timber or petroleum. They are largely product of the decolonization processes which started hesitantly after the First and the Second World War. They were genuinely outside the bipolar politics and military alliances of the Western world under NATO and the USA, and the Eastern world under the WARSAW PACT and the USSR.
The Third world states, in the last two decades (1956-1976), developed a considerable sense of unity and solidarity among themselves, and they also established institutions within and outside the United Nations, such as Non-Aligned Conference and Afro-Asian solidarity organization, in which they have used these organizations to press for freedom, independence, equality and justice. An emerging characteristic is that it is from its ranks that the powerful OPEC was formed. It had influenced and will continue to influence the course of world politics and diplomacy.
Conclusively, the term Third World arose during the Cold War, when the two opposing blocs appeared to dominate world politics. Within this bipolar model, the Third World countries consisted of economically and technologically less developed countries (LDCs) belonging to neither blocs. Originated by the Martinique-born Marxist writer, Frantz Fanon, the designation was essentially negative and not always accepted by the countries concerned.
Although, political and economic upheavals in the late 1980s and early 1990s marked the collapse of the Soviet power bloc, “Third World” remains a useful label for a conglomeration of countries otherwise difficult to categorize. Politically, they are generally Non-Aligned. Some are moving out of their previous situation and may soon join the ranks of industrialized countries. Others, with economies considered intrinsically in capable of development, are at times lumped together as forming a “Fourth World”. Both the Western and the defunct Soviet blocs have tried to entice the Third world to follow their own example, but the countries concerned generally prefer to create their own institutions based on indigenous traditions, needs, and aspiration; most choose pragmatism over ideology.
The Third world states display little homogeneity; it is divided by race, religion, culture and geography, as well as frequently opposite interests. It generally sees world politics in terms of a global struggle between rich and poor countries in the industrialized North against the backward south. Widely advocated within the Third world is a so-called New Economic Order, which through a combination of aid and trade agreements would transfer wealth from the developed to the developing nations.
Right to development is a recent claim by the Third World countries arising from their predicament and thorough consideration of the antecedent of their colonial experience. The issue of development therefore becomes an issue of human right and justice. From the perspective of a Third world political economist, the history of Third world is the history of regrettable annihilation and derailment of developmental processes. It is the history of injustice and human right violation. These countries persistently suffer from neglect and indifferent attitudes from other developed countries for the past 60 years having been co-opted into the mainstream of the European economy and latter being adopted by their organized union- the United Nations.
They could trace their development progress prior to the infiltration of the Europeans in the 15th century and the actual occupation, imbalance and unequal exchange and later the political domination which had been seen by the analyst from the Third world as injustice of the deprivation of the right to self governance. Since the colonial era, the countries of Europe have been in the far front of world economy, they became the world powers in terms of economy and technology. Attention is also paid to some of the recent issues aimed at accelerating the development of Third world, such as, fight against corruption, food security, poverty, drug abuse, children and women issue.
Bearing in mind the purposes and the principles of the Charter of the UN relating to the achievement of international co-operation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural or humanitarian nature, and in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion.
Recognizing that development is a comprehensive economic, social, cultural and political process, which aim at the constant improvement of the well-being of the entire population and of all individuals on the basis of their active, free and meaningful participation in development and in the fair distribution of benefits resulting there from. Recalling further the relevant agreement, conventions, resolutions, recommendations and other instruments of the UN and its specialized agencies concerning the integral development of the human being, economic and social progress and development of the people. Recalling the right of people to self-determination, by virtue of which they have the right freely to determine their political status and to pursue their economic, social and cultural development.
Considering that international peace and security are essential elements for the realization of the right to development. The hallmark of economic policy in the Third world since the 1950s has been the rejection of orthodox free market economies. The countries that failed most spectacularly India, nearly all of sub-Saharan Africa, much of Latin America, the Soviet Union and its satellites were the ones that rejected the orthodoxy most fervently. Their government claimed that for one reason or another, free market economics would not work for them.
Indeed, development is the central topic of negotiation, if not a preoccupation, in the contemporary relationships between the South and North. It is however, a nebulous concept subject to radically different interpretations. To the United State Agency for International Development (USAID), development may mean increasing agricultural productivity or opening up Southern markets to American supports. Development to the World Health Organization (WHO) may mean expanding rural health clinics to stop babies from dying from dysentery. To environmentalists, it may mean creating a sustainable economy that generates minimal waste and pollution.
To Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, it may mean producing a nuclear bomb or other weapons of mass destruction. To Economists, development means substantial reduction in poverty, unemployment and inequality. Because the development standard is a constantly moving target, countries that do not sustain economic growth find themselves rapidly falling behind. Many Third World countries, particularly in Africa, have not achieved significant economic development in the post-World War II era, meaning that the gap between the "haves" in the North and the "haves not" in the South, has widened dramatically. For
instance, between 1950 and 1990, the GNP of the USA tripled while its population increased by two-thirds. For Japan and the countries of Western Europe, which were devastated by World War II but today have standards of living roughly equivalent to that of the US.
By contrast, some Third World produce less total economic output in the 19990s than they did in the 1960s because of civil wars or political instability, while the population in these countries had been increasing at rapid rates. During the first period of colonialism, several Western European countries- led by Portugal, the Netherlands, Spain, France and
Britain- used their colonial territories to provide them with goods for consumption and trade. In the late eighteenth century, the Industrial Revolution brought mechanized production to many nations and ushered in a second period of colonialism.
Industrialized nations could produce much larger quantity of goods and resources than had previously been possible. To achieve this level of production, they relied on the colonies to provide the raw materials for building and powering machines and for supplying their factories. The colonies in Africa, South-East Asia, and what is now Latin America did not share in these gains. In the colonies, the production of food and raw materials for manufacturing diverted indigenous people from doing subsistence works, such as gardening or tending livestock. Native Africans, Asians and Americans had been self-sufficient, now they become dependent, for the first time, on outsiders for their basic needs, and many became poor.
In other cases, colonies were centres of trade in slaves. Many European nations, including Portugal, Britain, Spain, the Netherlands, France and Denmark, set up outposts in West
Africa from which they shipped slaves to the colonies of Americas and the Caribbean. These countries also used slaves for free labour in their own lands. Slaves suffered a total loss of home, land, and livelihood.
According to the Orthodoxy school of thought or the modernization theorist, they defined development as the increasing increment of per-capita income. This school believed that the protectionist system must be removed to facilitate free trade, that is, it is believe that trade-protectionist was one of the reasons that led to the Second World War. Due to the massive destruction rendered by the war, it was made expedient for those affected to be revamped; hence, various means were put in place which was among what led to the establishment of UN, IMF, and IBRD (otherwise known as World Bank). As a result of these, the US became the major donor to affected countries through the Marshall Aid Plan (MAP) to revamp their economic.
The Orthodoxy conception sees development as associated with economic growth in the context of International Trade. The purpose of this school of thought is the transformation of backward economic, traditional subsistence economy into modern and industrial economy which means production of surplus goods and increase cash flow. After the end of the Israeli-Arab War in 1973, the price of the oil fell and there was crisis. The flow of cash was reduced and development went down. It was the stumbling price of oil that made it impossible for the developing states to sustain the economic growth. Thus, they needed to rely on the developed states for aid.
That was the beginning of the problem of the developing states. Due to the economic recession caused by dwindle oil, thus, they undertook massive borrows of cash from Western Banks to sustain economic growth. Dependency theorists argued that the existing international Economic System is inherently biased against the South. The roots
of this unequal relationship between the periphery (the third world) and the core (the First world) can be traced to the sixteenth century, when European countries began to colonize the southern hemisphere.
In this relationship, the periphery exported raw materials to the industrializing states in Europe (and later to the US and Japan), and in turn the North exported manufactured goods to the periphery. More recently, MNCs based in the North have replaced the colonial powers in sustaining this relationship. According to dependencistas (adherent of dependency theory), this unequal relationship has ensured that the Third world states
remained global economy’s "hewers of wood and drawers of water."
This fundamental inequality of the economic relationship between North and South fueled development in the North and stifled it in the South. The disadvantaged position of the South stems from the fact that most Southern countries economies depend heavily on the export of primary products-that is, raw materials, such as, timber, oil and metals, and agricultural goods such as coffee and bananas.
Beginning in the sixteenth century, the periphery supplied the raw materials and foods for the economies of Europe, and then for the Industrial Revolution in Europe and later US. In turn, the periphery imported manufactured goods from the industrial states. They contended that this division of labour encourages the Third world to remain exporters of primary goods and discourage the development of a modern manufacturing sect
By 1970s, it had became apparent that the Orthodoxy had failed and people started advocating for another paradigm of development, especially during the debt crisis after the end of the Israeli-Arab war, and hence, the massive borrowing of capital from the developed states by the Third World, especially African states. To save the International Bankrupt System, SAP was introduced to the Third World countries, and as conditionality by the developed states through the financial institutions (IMF and IBRD). Some of the conditionality was reduction in the government expenditure, trade liberalization, devaluation of currency, etc, and his brought about an unintended hardship to the Third World.
Hence, 1970s was described as the "lost decade" to Third world because it was characterized by debt crisis, no impressive development, it was also the peak of the SAP. Half of the Third world states experienced declining GDP as a result of the interest
rate for debt servicing became so outrageous that the debt crisis was compounded. Thus, Third world states lost their legitimacy, the states could not fulfill their social responsibilities, and there was fluctuation in commodity, uncertainty in the global market for African product. The Western World adopted stringent protectionist policies that made it difficult for African goods to penetrate the markets of the developed states. The advocate of the Orthodoxy predicted that development would twinkle down but rather than closing the gap, it became widened, that is, between the poor and rich. Hence, it was as a result of these that there was an urgent call for the New International Economic Order (NIEO).
The NIEO emanated primarily from the Third World countries. NIEO was a call for the reform of the existing International Economic System and particularly the decline terms of trade. They were also concerned to defend their right, to exercise sovereignty over the natural resources and reform producer cartel. Also, NIEO was a call for a stable and just commodity prices, and international food and Agricultural programme, technology transfer from North to South and the democratization of the economic system. NIEO started from 1960s when the new states formed a coalition of the world poor and it was called the Group of 77 (G77) and they used their voting power to organize United Nation
Conference for Trade and development (UNCTAD).
This UNCTAD conference later became a permanent organ of UN through which the global South could express their interest concerning developmental issues. NIEO arose from the economic and political tension between the developed and the developing nations. As a result of success of OPEC in increasing petroleum prices (1970-1973), this success motivated the Third world and serve as a catalyst to pull all the members together in the call for NIEO.
In April 1974, there was a 6th special session on the UN General Assembly and this session adopted a manifesto entitled "Declaration and Programme of Action for the NIEO". The declaration had several clauses, such as, adoption of an integrated approach to price support for an entire group of developing country commodity export; price indexation; the linkage of development assistance with the creation of IMF Special Drawing Rights (SDR); etc. As part of the declaration for the establishment of the NIEO, the charter of Economic Rights and duties of states were incorporated.
The most important provision in the proposal of the NIEO has to do with the management and prices of at least 10 core commodities: cocoa, coffee, copper, rice, wheat, tea, sugar, rubber, tin, and banana. It was at the 7th special session of the UN General Assembly held in 1975 that the Resolution 3362 was adopted. The Resolution was as a compromise between the developed and developing nations and it basically endorsed the demand of the NIEO: the idea of price indexation, the 0.7% oil target, the SDR and many other
provisions on the 6th General Assembly.
The NIEO had failed to radically change the pattern of trade between the South and the North. This failure is as a result of the following factors: lack of power of the Third world in the International system; the debt burden of the new states; the course of implementing some of the proposal of the NIEO were beyond the reach of the developing states. Suggestions so far put forward or supported by the Third World states for a new world economic order have not proved acceptable to the major powers, these was as a result of, one, lack of power of the developing states, two, their growing debt; three, the course of implementing some of the proposal were beyond the reach of the developing states, etc.
Conclusively, in spite of the agitations of the Third World, such as the call for NIEO, UNCTAD, United Nation Conferences on Human Development, etc, the right to development of the developing states is still being denied. It should be noted that some of the developing states have improved in development, for example, the Newly industrialized Countries (NIC), the Asian Tigers. The present agitation of the Third World states is the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) which they are using in
achieving their right to development.
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