Development Aid for Poor Nations

Report Outline
Plight of the Underdeveloped Nations
Evolution of U.S. Foreign Aid Programs
Development Aid Policies for the Future
Limits on the Promotion of Private Investment
Special Focus

Plight of the Underdeveloped Nations

Deteriorating Condition of Have-Not Contries

Rapidly Deteriorating economic conditions in the underdeveloped nations of the world give urgency to pleas for major rescue efforts by the industrial powers. Poverty and hunger seem to be spreading through many of the three score or more poor countries, some of them newly independent, that make up the so-called underdeveloped world. Population pressures, widespread illiteracy, archaic agricultural practices, political instability, and overwhelming indebtedness form parts of the bleak picture. Furthermore, the gulf between rich countries and poor has been growing wider rather than narrower.

The rich nations show little inclination to expand their foreign aid programs, despite warnings that the alternative may be a new kind of class war that would pit the very poor states against the very rich. In an effort to reverse current trends, the Johnson administration is drawing up new aid proposals for consideration of the Congress in 1966. Their fate and the action of other prosperous nations will afford clear tests of the depth of the free world's commitment to the deprived peoples. An immediate case in point is whether or not Western European countries will make substantial contributions to the capital of the new Asian Development Bank that is about to come into being. The United States and Japan have agreed to put up $200 million apiece toward the $1 billion the bank will need.

Appeal by U Thant for a Global War on Want

United Nations Secretary General U Thant underlined the gravity of the problems of underdeveloped nations, Nov. 22, in commenting upon action by the General Assembly to merge the United Nations Special Fund and its Expanded Program of Technical Assistance into a new and broader United Nations Development Program. Calling this move a “truly significant step,” Thant went on to say: “Realism requires us to speak of the global war on want in terms ordinarily reserved for the most serious international conflicts, and to recognize the heavy casualties incurred by our failure to make swifter progress in the struggle.”