North South : a programme for survival

This report is the result of a unique and independent investigation by a remarkable group of international statesmen and leaders from many spheres, headed by Willy Brandt, into the urgent problems of inequality in the world and the failure of its economic system.

The report takes its title from the belief that major international initiatives are needed if mankind is going to survive. For the hundreds of millions of people who live on the edge of starvation in the developing countries, the South, this is a matter of obvious fact. How can these countries be ensured an economic environment in which they can cope with their own problems? The industrialized countries, the North, have not been willing in the past to go very far towards accepting the South's case that the world economy works to the South's disadvantage. The report argues that today, in almost every field of the world's present troubles, a substantial number of the solutions depend on recognizing the mutual interests between North and South.

With striking unanimity, the eighteen members of the commission, coming from five continents, and different points of the political spectrum have agreed on a set of bold recommendations, including a new approach to international finance and development of the monetary system. They propose long-term reforms by the year 2000, priority programmes for the 1980s and emergency action to avert an imminent economic crisis. Behind everything they have discussed loom the traditional questions of peace andar and the massive expenditures on armaments which take resources away from urgent needs. This is a political report, and it deals with world problems politically. It calls on all countries to make an imaginative response. If its proposals were followed, they would indeed amount to a 'Programme for Survival'.