After the Seventh Special General Assembly Session: Africa and the New Emerging World Order

The Seventh Special Session of the United Nations General Assembly Devoted to Development and International Co-operation, which ended on September 16, 1975, after round-the-clock negotiations between developing and developed nations, succeeded in producing a resolution which was adopted unanimously. The preamble of the resolution reaffirmed the General Assembly's intention “to eliminate injustice and inequality which afflict vast sections of humanity and to accelerate the development of developing countries” (U.N. General Assembly, 1975: 1). The resolution identified measures the international community could take to accelerate the pace of development. The Seventh Special Session is another indication of the developing world's determination to create a “New International Economic Order.” This article will discuss what is meant by this increasingly invoked phrase and examine the changing political realities which account for international economic issues becoming the dominant concern of bodies such as the United Nations. We will then analyze the decisions taken at the Seventh Special Session and discuss some of their possible implications for development in Africa. The Seventh Special Session, which had been planned for almost two years, came only eighteen months after the General Assembly had convened in a Sixth Special Session to consider problems of raw materials and development. Two extraordinary sessions in such a short period of time (the first special sessions ever convened to discuss economic issues) demonstrate the seriousness of the economic crisis confronting the world. The Sixth Special Session, convened in April 1974 on the initiative of President Houari Boumédienne of Algeria, met at a time of deepening economic turmoil.