New WORLD Responsibilities

The map...is based upon the Peters Projection rather than the more familiar Mercator Projection. It introduces several innovative characteristics: an accurate rendition of the proportion of the land surface area; graphical representation of the entire world surface, including the polar regions; the Equator is placed at the centre of the map; the usual grid of 180 Meridians (East and West) and 90 Meridians each (North and South) is replaced by a decimal degree network dividing the earth both East and West and North and South into 100 fields each; angle accuracy in the main North-South, East-West directions.

The surface distortions that do appear are distributed at the Equator and the poles; the more densely settled earth zones, it is claimed, appear in proper proportion to each other. This is projection represents an important step away from the prevailing Eurocentric geographical and cultural concept of the world.

Indeed, a new epoch in man’s history began when the major of nations now in existence achieved their political independence in the period following the Second World War. As a result of decolonization in most parts of what came to be called the Third World, long-established power structures crumbled or collapsed, leaving vacuums and giving birth to new political and economic groupings. At the same time, we witness the revitalization of old cultures. And the end of false superiority-complexes.

All of us on the Commission considered it most deplorable that the process of decolonization is still not complete. And that thus, especially in Africa, valuable human potential continues to be fettered. We want this to be brought to a rational and productive end.

The countries which were released from colonial dependence, which became new or reborn nations, have been struggling to gain equality of opportunity in their development, and to be their own masters, not only politically but also economically and culturally. The new countries made it clear that they want control over their own resources. They were making efforts to increase their share in the international production of goods and in the world’s trade. And they pleaded for beneficial cooperation, assistance and transfer of resources – financial grants, low-interest loans, goods and technologies – in order to overcome their poverty and to achieve equality of opportunity.

There has been a substantial change in the international debate since the 1950s. In those years, people in the industrialized countries and elsewhere saw the problem as one of enlightened charity. And those speaking on behalf of the Third World were essentially right in pointing out that their people, with their own resources, were responsible for the lion’s share of their achievements, for which aid-givers sometimes claimed more credit than was really due.

There will always be room for humanitarian aid, I believe, even in the most perfect social system imaginable – and, of course, even more so in the world with immense distress to overcome. But the international debate on development, at the threshold of the 1980s, deals not just with ‘assistance’ and ‘aid’ but with new structures. What is now on the agenda is a rearrangement of international relations, the building of a new order and a new kind of comprehensive approach to the problems of developments.

Such a process of restructuring and renewal has to be guided by the principle of equal rights and opportunities: it should aim a fair compromise to overcome grave injustice, to reduce useless controversies, and to promote the interlocked welfare of nations. Experience has shown that much determination and purposeful effort will be required to produce structural changes with a fair balance and for mutual benefit.

A right to share in decision-making process will be essential if the developing countries are to accept their proper share of responsibility for international political and economic affairs. It is the right which nourishes the aspirations of developing countries for a new international order, and these aspirations will have to materialize if relations are to be placed on a new basis of confidence and trust in international cooperation.

On our road towards a new international order, we certainly cannot ignore one of the most tragic consequences of current conflicts and tensions: millions of refugees whose lives have been uprooted and often desperately impoverished. Speaking perhaps undiplomatically: since the death camps in Europe and the Hiroshima bomb, mankind has never been so humiliated as in Indochina recently, and especially in Cambodia.

The whole international community must take responsibility for the conditions of fellow human beings who become victims of intolerance and brutality. The burdens of countries who are close neighbours to regimes which cause an exodus of refugees should be shared in a spirit of solidarity by others who are better off.
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Source: North-South: A Programme For Survival - The Report of the Independent Commission on International Development Issues, first published in 1980. Posted is an excerption from the introduction by Willy Brandt, Commission's Chairman.

It's 2008 and nothing is overly out-dated here...