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The UN General Assembly Resolution 54/254 that authorized the Millennium Summit stated that it would “provide an opportunity to strengthen the role of the United Nations in meeting the challenges of the twenty-first century.” The General Assembly requested the Secretary-General "to seek the views of Member States, members of the specialized agencies and observers and to propose, after a process of intergovernmental consultation, a number of forward-looking and widely relevant topics that could help focus the Millennium Summit within the context of an overall theme, for consideration by the Assembly at its resumed fifty-third session". The UN Secretary-General states the purpose of the Millennium Summit in the conclusion of his 10 May 1999 report: The Millennium Assembly of the United Nations: Thematic framework for the Millennium Summit:

Firstly, that the occasion of the third millennium presents a timely opportunity for the only global organization, in terms of its membership as much as of its areas of work, to identify the challenges that it will face in the future and to engage in an imaginative exercise to enhance and strengthen a unique institution; secondly, that the Millennium Summit will prove to be more than merely a celebratory event. It is essential that it should provide an opportunity for a moral recommitment to the purposes and principles laid down in the Charter of the United Nations and spur new political momentum for the international cooperation and solidarity that the peoples of the world increasingly demand.

The Millennium Summit has been in harmony with the traditions of the UN in dealing with development issues, and it has also opened a new chapter in the history of the World Organization.

Global development is a multidimensional change and while international cooperation plays a key role, it is taking place within the framework of about 200 political units, out of which 191 are members of the UN. In the final analysis, the outcome of the development efforts must be related to human security. The concept of human security is certainly not new, but still its definition is the subject of different debates. For some, it may sound too broad and rather utopian. Its meaning, in my view, is not just the material needs essential for survival but includes dignity, opportunity, and empowerment, for a still fast growing number of people who will have to share this finite globe. The nationally compartmentalised character of the development process, its different components and implications, involved practically all the existing international organizations and contributed to the establishment of a number of new structures. The growth of the international organizations during the past 60 years has been, to a large extent, the consequence of the perceived needs of, and the international bargaining about, development issues.

The division of labour which developed and prevailed between the international organizations placed them on separate and diverging tracks. The focus of the UN was on development “with a human face” and more specifically on the linkages between social, economic and environmentally sustainable development. The approach of the BWIs, GATT and its successor organization WTO was to promote the globalization of the world economy through market based trade and investment policies as means to achieve higher levels of welfare.

Past Experiences

International multilateral organizations influenced the failures and/or successes in the development process in the past in many ways. In fact, in almost all areas which were important in the development process, there has been international institutional contribution. Offering information and analysis, building up education and skills (human capital) , creating an effective and secure financial system, (savings, investments) , responsible macroeconomic management making allocations more efficient, helping adaptations, helping in emergencies Promoting productivity helping technology imports, promoting specific industries, exalting and recommending strategies, external orientation, promoting regional cooperation, sustainability, drawing attention to social factors, involved practically all the existing international organizations and contributed to the establishment of a number of new structures.

Historically, the UN was the very first international intergovernmental organization which put the intolerable and illegitimate character of colonialism and the global anti-colonial crusade onto its agenda as vitally important international issues. The UN became the central forum for the process of decolonization. Similarly, while recognizing that the principal responsibility for promoting development of a country lies with the country itself, the UN system revealed the international interconnectedness of the development process and put it on the international agenda as an integral component of collective global responsibilities and cooperation, together with the issues of peace and human rights. This was, of course, primarily the consequences of the legitimate demands of its new members, especially after the 1960s. It is well known that the less developed participants of the wartime negotiations about the UN pressed for an effective international machinery to accelerate their economic development through external financial assistance, and favourable trade policies for their industrialization.

The growth of the network and activities of international organizations during the past 50 years has been, to a large extent, the consequence of the perceived needs of, and the international bargaining about, development issues.

The emergence of systematic, multi-purpose and harmonized development policies and the practices of development planning (as instruments for large-scale and long-term socio-economic modernization) have been considered as quite valuable contributions of development economics to the practical solution of redistributing and mobilizing resources for the acceleration of economic growth, the restructuring of society and the economy, for the achievement of major institutional changes. The United Nations system has been playing a major part in the dissemination of the practical experiences of development policies and improving the practices of development planning. .It reflected the dominating views, ideas and theories of development economics. The United Nations system approached development issues in a number of ways; declarations, conventions, development decades, strategic conferences, the initiatives, related to a possible new international economic order (NIEO), economic and humanitarian assistance, development cooperation projects, analyses of the social and economic factors and processes. The contribution of the U.N. has been substantial and valuable in the emergence of systematic, multi-purpose and harmonized development policies and the practices of development planning (as instruments for large-scale and long-term socio-economic modernization) While development has been on the agenda of the international organizations during the past decades, the approaches have changed radically since the late 1970s, and early 1980s.

The most comprehensive global programs of the UN system in the development process have been the development decades. On the 19th of December 1961, the UN General Assembly adopted its historical Resolution 1710 (XVI), entitled "United Nations Development Decade: A Programme for International Economic Cooperation". For the first time in world history, nation states agreed on what must be termed the first International Charter on Global Progress. The Resolution designated the decade of the 1960s as the UN Development Decade. [2] [3] The resolution about The Second UN Development Decade: 1970-80, adopted by the General Assembly was a much more elaborated document. It was based on long preparatory work, including the first global projection exercise ever undertaken by the UN.

The Second Development Decade was greatly influenced by the price explosion of food, raw materials and by the first oil crisis, which slowed down the growth of the world economy, and resulted in an important change in global income distribution in favour of the oil producers. While the decade failed to achieve its goals, the developing countries (organised into the Group of 77) - encouraged by the example of the OPEC countries and with the partial support of certain other countries - initiated a major international effort for the transformation of the prevailing patterns of the international division of labour and the system of economic cooperation. A special session of the UN General Assembly adopted The Third Development Decade: 1981-90, which had more detailed goals than the second. It was strongly influenced by the ideas of the NIEO which failed from the very beginning, to achieve its goals. The declarations and the program of action did not influence directly politics. The developing countries in economic terms, in fact, never had common interests and globally a real collective bargaining power. Even in the case of OPEC the North regained the upper hand rather soon. The developing countries were also divided in many important economic issues and could not sustain that unity in economic terms which they had achieved in the UN resolution on the NIEO. The only noticeable result of the NIEO has been the restructuring of the UN Secretariat, which resulted in a major increase in the staff and in the programs, without the necessary political and financial support from a number of important member states. The economic crises, begun in the closing years of the 1970s, obliterated basically all the goals of the third decade. It was buried under the debt crisis, the growing social and economic difficulties, and the adjustment programmes.

On the basis of the past experiences, one can draw certain conclusions also for any future agenda of global program for development.

If the rhetoric based on political interests have the strongest role in shaping the compromises the in the UN, instead of the real needs and pragmatic approaches, the failures will be more or less inevitable.

Any global approach must take into account the changing socio-economic conditions, the "realities", the great diversity of the countries, the asymmetries of interdependence and the character of interconnectedness of global economic processes.

Goals should not be formulated on the basis of wishful thinking, without taking into account the different interests and the instruments available. Goals set for economic development were generally over-optimistic. The First Decade target of 5 percent was mostly met. The targets of the Second and Third Decades, of 6 and 7 percent respectively, were not. Growth in manufacturing output, in agricultural output, and ODA, all tended to lag behind targets.

The analysis of the past policy and institutional experiences as a source of learning should always be the starting point of agenda setting or for the formulation of the programs.

The global "strategic" conferences played and important but not always clearly defined role. The setting of internationally agreed targets at the strategic conferences organised by UN, raised theoretical and practical recommendations and often suggested conflicting priorities. By the 1990s they have been looked at a new and more pragmatic way. They have become more realistic and less voluntaristic in their approaches.

The New Realities

At the early years of the 21st century the interaction of different old and new factors and forces define the “new realities”, opportunities and constraints for all the countries. The Millennium Program adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2000 has been in many ways a collective response to the growing concern caused by the new interactions, the new sources of risks.

• The world and in many respects the developing world at the beginning of the 21st century differs from the past. There are at the same time new challenges and needs. The combined GDP of the developing countries increased more than six times and in per capita terms close to three times between 1950-1990.The industrial output of the developing countries in 2004 is many times higher than it was in the middle of the 20th century. The share of the South in global industrial output increased from 10 per cent in 1953 to about 32 per cent by 2003.Industry became the leading sector in the economy of a large number of developing countries. Enrollment in higher education was more than 30 times higher in 2000 than in 1950.There has been a less spectacular growth in R and D infrastructure. The social changes in the developing world during the past decades were much more intensive, than during comparable periods in the development of the industrial countries. The profound structural changes which took place in their economies and societies reflected the fact that the capabilities of many developing countries to cope with difficult economic and social problems improved. Those changes however were far from universal. The speed and scope of the changes of the different components, sectors and regions differed and asymmetries increased. These problems have been raised also in the Millennium Assembly .The delegates from the developing world underlined that the ever increasing economic success of the developed countries (which globalization has facilitated) has left many in the developing countries with the opinion that they are viewed as second class citizens, or as pupils in the classroom of the developed countries. The unstated assumption is that, since economic success is all that matters, those who wish to achieve it should learn from those who have achieved it. In addition, many speakers from the developing countries felt that the large multinational corporations represent a political power over which they have no control. The vulnerability of their economies to large movements of capital or to low commodity prices undermines their sense of being the political power within their borders. As the delegate of India said in his speech at the Millennium Assembly: nearly a quarter of the people this Assembly represents have neither prospered nor gained from these developments. Often, they find themselves further marginalized and more vulnerable as development economics gives way to unbridled market economics and social objectives are erased by profit motives.
• The new global political processes have major influence on the international environment of development in many ways. The cold war and the global arms race have been considered in the past as major constraints and obstacles for development, wasting the resources of the developed world and the developing countries. It was expected, that in the post cold war era, there will be a peace dividend, which will accelerate global development. These expectations have not been realized so far. There are however some other changes. With the disintegration of the bipolar system of the global power structure, the South is not needed any more as an ally or proxy in different East-West conflicts. It is not just the development demagogy of the Cold War which lost its political ground, there is also dwindling political support for development as a key issue on the international agenda. Non-alignment has, by and large, lost its old meaning and cohesive force and with that an important political component of the Southern solidarity became substantially weaker or was completely lost. The developing world has also lost a large part of its political bargaining power.
• In economic terms, the world the developing countries are facing is characterized by increasing globalization of the markets, fast technological changes resulting in high performance systems in production and services. The countries on the lower level of development cannot compete any more only on the basis of cheap labour or abundant natural resources. More sophisticated and efficient production systems must be developed in order to be able to produce tradable goods and services in a competitive manner, including capacities to sustain and control quality and manage flexible, information based systems. This requires more educated labour force highly skilled technicians and managers.
• Technological and structural changes in the global economy, together with the problems of economic growth weakened further the position of many primary products and created new difficulties in the market for many countries, particularly for those heavily dependent on the production or exports of a few commodities. It is of course true that there are fewer countries at the early stage of the 21st century which depend only on raw material exports. Still the terms of trade of these countries is influenced to a large extent by the price movements of commodities. The division between the "needies" and the "speedies" in economic performance made the developing world more diverse. On this basis some experts question the relevance of using the traditional terms. The idea, that the ongoing differentiation of the developing countries in industrial development, R and D capabilities, policy options, domestic administrative and managerial capabilities, possibilities in international trade and capital markets, etc., made the traditional North-South approaches irrelevant is only one true for a handful countries. The global inequalities in incomes, competitiveness, and the quality of life, between the developed and developing countries and within the countries have been on the increase particularly since the 1970s.
• The limitation of trade policies of the industrial countries to take into account the global structural changes, the new needs and problems of the developing countries and their actions to determine new global social and environmental standards in trade, have become increasingly acute problems in the evolving new global trading system. They are in the center of the Doha round.
• The phasing out of the “cold war factors” from North South relations, the disillusionment with past experiences in foreign aid, and the new domestic problems of the industrial countries resulted in an "aid fatigue" of the public and the declining interest of decision maker in international assistance programs during the later part of the past century. Even humanitarian assistance became more difficult. The new conditionalities became also delicate issues. At the beginning of the 21st century there have been efforts to start a new dialogue and make new commitments. The Millennium Development Goals and the increasing role of the European Union have been particularly important factors in the new initiatives.
• One of the important consequences of the recent changes, the global spread of democratization opened the road for increasing participation of the masses, the decentralization of responsibilities and authority. It has also facilitated the greater articulation of conflicting interests, but often without promoting tolerance and institutional guarantees for the different minorities, ethnic or religious groups. The accountability of the local elite in the developing countries for the appropriate management of domestic economic and social problems has become clearer and more articulated. The issue of good governance became a centrally important task.
• The domestic issues related to the role of the state and the character of governance in the developing countries moved even further into the international limelight. The debate about the role of the state (the role of the governments) in society which emerged, or re-emerges from time to time in social sciences and especially in economics with a number of ramifications, came into the forefront again in the context of the development process. In the past, it oscillated between ideologies; one extreme of which had been the totalitarian etatism, and the other the dogmatic liberalism. By end of the 1990s, the debate has become intense again, but also broader, enriched by theories, by empirical experiences, by new issues raised in global politics and economics, including the consequences of the systemic changes in the former socialist countries, and the collapse of the central planning experience. The representative of Singapore in the Millennium Assembly stressed the essence of the problems from the perspective of the developing countries. ” The power within states is flowing downwards and being localized in provinces and cities. At the same time, state sovereignty is being circumscribed by regional and multilateral organizations. Furthermore, new actors, for example, global corporations, some of whom have larger outputs than the GDPs of some member states, and NGOs, some of whom have more international clout than some governments, are now a prominent and integral part of international life. How do we engage these new power players in a constructive way in the United Nations? What balance can we find between the national role of sovereign states and the international mandate of multilateral organizations?”

On the basis of the Millennium Development Goals and the speeches of the Assembly one could trace the emergence of a global intellectual consensus on certain areas.

1. There is a broad recognition that growing mass poverty, unemployment and inequality, social disintegration and environmental degradation should not be allowed on the globe. A more responsible and comprehensive approach would be needed to population growth, employment creation, anti poverty measures and environmental sustainability. It is also better understood, even by the Bretton Woods institutions, that the goals of macro-economic stability alone are not sufficient and conducive for the moderation of the present problems.
2. It is has been re-emphasized, that the ultimate purpose of development should be to provide increasing opportunities to all people for a better life. Empowerment through education and training, improvement of health, housing, access to livelihood through employment, entrepreneurship and other forms, such essentials as to bring about a more equitable distribution of income and wealth for promoting both social justice and efficiency have been some of the main the suggested components of policies in the new era. The qualitative and structural changes in the society should go hand in hand with the environmental sustainability of economic development.
3. In the era of globalization, a new approach, in practical terms, a new partnership is needed for international cooperation and especially cooperation between the industrial countries and the rest of the world. The progress within the regional blocks and the establishment of new regional blocks cooperation structures should be conceived in such a way which takes into account, more than in the past, the interests of the developing countries in general and especially of those traditionally involved in trade and other relations with the countries of those regions. At this stage it has become even more indispensable to deal with demographic, socio-economic, technological and ecological processes in an integrated global framework, based on long term commitments and effective harmonized actions.

The emerging intellectual consensus, however, is not based as yet on a greater compatibility of interests and objectives. It is not supported by a political consensus and even less, by new collective actions, required by the new realities.

One can anticipate, with a high degree of probability that decades of the 21st century for the majority of the population of the world will continue to be a turbulent and difficult era, full of political uncertainties and unsettled economic and social problems. Many of the trends, policies, approaches and modes of understanding which presently shape the coming decade do not allow optimistic conclusions. There will be more problems connected with the asymmetries of interdependence, globalisation, regionalisation and domestic socio-economic preferences. The resolution of the conflict between economic growth and sustainability is entering into a critical stage. The reconciliation of economic interests of the main actors will be more difficult in an era of more intense competition. The alleviation of disparities between the North and South will become an even more critical issue. The intellectual and institutional capacities of the countries and IGOs are behind the needs of the new era. There will be, at the same time, more intensive and deliberate efforts for the solution of many problems within the countries and in the international system of cooperation, which will have to take into account the increasing diversity and complexity of the world through ethnic regions, states, institutions and subcultures. In the era of globalization, with actors having predominantly short-term views, there is a growing need for a longer-term vision on the global development process, on its different alternatives in an internationalized world with strong forces of unilateral universalism and conformity.

International cooperation in the development process has never been a single task, handed over to the UN, World Bank, IMF or WTO. It has involved, first and foremost, the policies of those governments who have been major actors in the global economy, and also in shaping the policies of any given organization.

It goes without saying that every presently functioning international organization could work more efficiently; there are many overlapping activities which could be eliminated. One must make here two important qualifications.

During the past decades the different international organizations have developed certain comparative advantages in dealing with development issues. The UN has been more responsive to the needs of the countries, offered more objective diagnoses and policy advice, and less biased technical assistance, than the Bretton Woods institutions. In this context, the proven comparative advantage of the UN lies in its comprehensive mandate, which cuts across political, economic, social and cultural concerns, in its experiences and role in the global policy dialogue and consensus building on the key issues of development where there are or may be conflicting interests. It can also raise the normative goals and standards of development and mobilization of international support for primary human needs. The UN system proved its potential for helping national governance capacity building in democratization, sustainable development, and poverty alleviation. The UN agencies have also extensive experiences in international emergency assistance, post-conflict, rehabilitation, and a multidimensional capacity for ground responses. [4]

Global multilateral cooperation has of course never been the only form of the international interaction of countries. Bilateralism and different unilateral approaches have always been present even in the years of the global honeymoon with the multilateral organizations of the post Second World War era. At this point, the role of regional organizations, other than the regional structure of the UN system is on the increase. The European Union represents a particularly important example for the impact of redistribution of functions, related to trade policies, regulations, and norms, and is taking place between the regional and global structures.

It is still an important problem that many of the existing international organization have gone over and beyond their mandates, and the often inadequate performances of the multilateral organizations are in most cases are rooted outside their boundaries. It reflects first and foremost the past results of political bargaining, the "shopping list" approach of the member states, the pressure of the governments related to the staffing and the propensity and capacity of governments to work together. The Millennium Assembly of the UN and the Millennium Development Goals wanted to avoid the shopping list approach and the past shortcomings of the UN system in setting goals without instruments or basing resolutions on empty rhetoric. In this context its intention was to open a new era for the global development policies and institutions.

The Millennium Development Goals represent the most comprehensive framework for the development process in the beginning of the 21st century. These goals which are derived from the UN’s Millennium Declaration are focusing on a few, but crucially important areas. The first seven goals refer specifically to the alleviation of poverty and its causes, and to six closely related objectives. They are all linked to goal 8 – partnership for development – which commits governments to develop further an open trading and financial system that is rule-based, predictable and non-discriminatory and to more generous official development assistance for countries committed to poverty reduction.

Achieving any one of the eight goals requires that all the other goals be reached as well. Each country is required to define its own approach and responsibilities for achieving the goals.

The MDGs are proving very dynamic as an instrument of political impetus and integration.

• They are based in a Declaration adopted at the highest level of governments.
• They are a positive expression of a people-centered multilateralism.
• They involve unprecedented cooperation between the UN and its many agencies (UNDP, UNICEF, WHO, FAO), the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Trade Organization (WTO), regional development banks, governments, business and civil society.
• They state broad but measurable goals and targets, and set specific time lines.

The UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan has been asked to present annual global reports on implementing the Millennium Declaration, which include a chapter on the MDGs and summary statistics for all the MDGs, aggregated at the global and regional levels. The first report was presented to the General Assembly in October 2002.

The UN is helping to integrate the MDGs into all aspects of its work at the country level, in response to the priorities identified by each country.

The MDG include the reforming global institutions

The UN and other multilateral organizations do require significant reforms.

The reform of the international intergovernmental structure should be conceived as a multilevel democratic exercise, reacting more strongly also to the needs of the less privileged members of the international community. Especially in today's world - when there are many question marks and nagging doubts about certain national policies and capacities related to the future level and intensity of multilateral cooperation - it is vital to have more multidimensional dialogue and collaboration to assist the reform process.

The reform should be conceived in such a way which creates institutional guarantees for coordination and cooperation, between the different levels and structures of national governments, between international organizations and national governments, between national governments and between international organizations. An additional important dimension of the reform should be the development of new institutional forms for the dialogue and interactions between the intergovernmental organizations and the different NGOs, on all the key issues of development. Many important elements of suggested institutional changes have been elaborated by non-governmental bodies.

It is evident that in the developed world a key future issue will be to win the necessary political acceptance for deepening the global dialogue, coordination and cooperation. In this context, much more attention should be paid to the new balance of interests, to the value of the accumulated experiences and human resources that now exist in the different organizations.

In order to gain more support in the developing countries it is necessary to prove, that the international organizations are not becoming instruments of the developed world in the context of the North-South issues for imposing new conditionalities and unilateral commitments through collective pressures. The weaker countries must be equal partners in all efforts for the improvement of the institutional, policy, and procedural responses in the light of the new challenges. The outcome of the UN System-wide special initiative on Africa could be an important proof for the potential role of intergovernmental organisations. This initiative is a comprehensive, longer term program of IGOs and government for promoting African recovery.

The future of the world depends on the collective capacity and readiness of people to develop efficient cooperation in different forms, in all those issues which require multilateral approaches. The vitality of the multilateral organizations, and their ability to serve more efficiently the community, will depend on the responses, and on the outcome of the reform process. A multiple approach to the reform dialogue would not only create better foundations for multilateral cooperation in the 21st century, but it could improve also the coherence of national policies in many areas related also to a number of internationally important domestic issues.

Half-way through the first five years of the Millennium, the entire UN system and all the other international organizations are mobilized towards the analysis of the global trends in realization of the MDGs. Reports highlighting progress (or lack of progress) toward their achievement are due to the General Assembly and can be expected to build pressures for further change. Meanwhile, the structured engagement of business organizations and NGOs continues as planned within the GA and ECOSOC. “Dialogues” and “Hearings are organized and are planned for the coming year. This may give further impetus to a process that requires a greater degree of accountability by all parties concerned to the extent that they all claim to have adopted poverty eradication as a normative goal and accepted the notion that the economic, social an financial dimensions of development must be dealt in an integrated manner.

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[1] Draft, for the Hungarian National Conference on Development Cooperation.

[2] There are several points which are remarkable about Resolution 1710 - or DD-I. They are worth noting because the First Development Decade Programme set the style for its followers.

First, while the decade was concerned with "development", its subtitle "A Programme for International Economic Cooperation" mentioned only "economics". The word "social" was noticeably absent. Second, the world "social" as mentioned only twice in the six preambular paragraphs, and that was always as part of a composite phrase: "economic and social development", or "economic and social progress". Third, in the first 22 operative paragraphs, and sub-paragraphs, it is mentioned only once, almost as an afterthought; placed there perhaps upon the insistence of some delegation whose conscience might have been concerned with so much exclusive concentration on economic issues. These were, indeed, heady days for growth economists. Fourth, there were, to be fair, two operational sub-paragraphs - (4.)(d.) and (4.)(e.) - which dealt with social issues. They may be quoted in full for they were indeed the fountainhead of what followed later:

(4.)(d.) Measures to accelerate the elimination of illiteracy, hunger and disease, which seriously affect the productivity of people of the less developed countries;

(4.)(e.) The need to adopt new measures, and to improve existing measures, for further promoting education in general and vocational and technical training in the developing countries with the cooperation, where appropriate, of specialized agencies and States which can provide assistance in these fields, and for training competent national personnel in the field of public administration, education, engineering, health and agronomy.

[3] In the early 1960s, the UN Secretary-General's proposals for action: 1962 was an other major step, influencing future approaches.

The Resolution 1710 (XVI) had requested the UN Secretary-General to present his proposals for a programme of action on "principles of international cooperation directed toward the improvement of world economic relations and the stimulation of international cooperation" (operative paragraphs 6 and 7).

U. Thant, still the Acting Secretary-General, submitted a report in 1962 containing his proposals for action. In his foreword, the social goals were given much stronger emphasis. Of the nine new approaches he outlined, he placed refreshing emphasis on the importance of issues of development.

(2.) There is now greater insight into the importance of the human factor in development, and the urgent need to mobilize human resources. Economic growth in the advanced countries appears to be attributed in larger part than was previously supposed to human skills rather than to capital. Moreover, the widening of man's horizons through education and training, and the lifting of his vitality through better health, are not only essential pre-conditions for development, they are also among its major objectives. It is estimated that the total number of trained people in the developing countries must be increased by at least 10 percent a year if the other objectives of the decade are to be achieved.

The importance of social development, of the human factor, was forcefully stressed in the very opening chapter of the report, "Setting and Problems for the Development Decade". The chapter summarized ten major pillars of development which had by then "won general acceptance". Its point (vi) underlined "the importance of the human factor in economic development" and concluded that "the contribution of physical capital alone is by no means as dominant as had at one time been imagined". The ideas were further developed in the next point (vii.) which also was considered as having gained worldwide acceptance. It stated:

(vii.) It was also increasingly recognized that social reform and economic strategy are two sides of the same coin, the single strategy of development. This realization came about through several intermediate stages in which an original opposition of these two ideas was replaced by a parallelism expressed in such terms as "balanced economic and social development". This ultimate identity can best be expressed by saying that the problem of the under-developed countries is not just growth, but development. Development is growth plus change; change, in turn is social and cultural as well as economic, and qualitative as well as quantitative. It should no longer be necessary to speak of "economic and social development", since development - as distinct from growth - should automatically include both. A direct corollary of this new approach to development was that the purely economic indicators of progress were seen to provide only limited insight and might conceal as much as they indicated.

This was a clear, bold and succinct statement of synthesis of the issue of growth versus development. That was in the spring of 1962. Since much heat was to be generated in development economics on the conflict between growth and development in the late 1960s and 1970s, it is pertinent as an act of historical justice to restore primacy to the birth of this ideas to the UN as early as 1962.

[4] UNDP for example has a number of offices globally which are working with central governments, municipalities, and NGOs.