Rich World, Poor World

...The common fund is seen by the third world as a step on the way to an international economic order which is more tuned in to its needs...

...Its members see the fund as the acid test of whether rich countries are prepared to cooperate with them in the building of that order...

...We looked for a tiger," an East African delegate told me in Geneva...

...Domestic producers in the West, farmers for example, receive a considerable amount of shielding from market forces in the form of price guarantees etc., but third world producers are usually subject to the full icy blast of market forces...

...Lefebvre and the princes and princesses, marquis and marquises, counts and countesses, barons and boronesses who gather around him belong to a world that no longer exists...

...EEC Heads of Government had agreed at their March summit meeting that "there should be a fund...

...view there are many technical points which need to be thrashed out and a lot of detailed work to be done before any kind of fund can be considered...

...They might be willing to settle for an efficient donkey if one can be put on the road fairly quickly...

...To the third world that misses the point that it's lack of finance that stops producers and consumers from signing agreements...

...But as the Geneva Conference dragged on, it became clear that a common fund means many things-and it can mean virtually nothing...

...The 77 also found encouragement in the EEC position...

...Third, that the Bank guarantees that no commodity buffer stock be held up because of lack of finance...

...delegation, Mr...

...they offer us a mouse...

...But a trade-off could be possible...

...If coffee producers agreed together to permanently reduce coffee acreages by a certain percentage, they could probably achieve a substantial long-term increase in earnings...

...The tragedy was that little hard negotiation took place to find an animal in the middle...

...Third world delegates were stressing in Geneva that they really doubt the value of international conferences which get bogged down, as they see it, in technicalities and miss essential principles...

...This was seen by the 77 as an encouraging step forward from the U.S...

...They would, it is true, have to overcome many difficulties among themselves in order to do that, but the failure of the Geneva talks just might have given them more will to try...

...No steps, no negotiation," characterized the Geneva Conference...

...They maintain that lack of finance is the chief factor which has so far largely hindered commodity agreements from getting off the ground...

...In the early stages of the Geneva Conference, the Head of the U.S...

...Lefebvre, of course, is right...

...At first, this suggestion positively horrified the 77, who want the new fund to be independent of existing institutions...

...The aim of the common fund is to stabilize and eventually improve their export earnings from commodities...

...End result: substantially higher revenue from the lower output...

...There is already a stock of tin and of the remaining commodities, only cocoa, coffee, rubber and copper are really suitable...

...Stephen Bosworth, said that the Carter administration accepted the principle of a common fund...

...The search for that donkey is now a matter of some urgency if rich-poor relations are not to deteriorate into bitter confrontation...

...They seek two accounts to this fund, one to finance buffer stocks of up to 18 raw commodities and so stabilize prices...

...The third world just might agree to giving up the idea of an independent fund, and allow it to operate as the fourth window of the Bank, if they received three things in return...

...They have changed his refigion, a religion of rigid tradition that refuses to accept the changing world...

...It is unfortunate that President Carter's first few months in the White House have been marked by a worsening of the relationship between rich and poor countries, but a new initiative from the U.S...

...The third world is angry and frustrated about the lack of progress at the Conference which was held as a followup to last year's UH Trade and Development Conference in Nairobi...

...That is the question, and it was made even more urgent by the subsequent failure of the Paris Conference on International Economic Cooperation at which Secretary of State Cyrus Vance represented the United States...

...It is being noted that probably only five out of the 18 UCTAD commodities are suitable for buffer stocks...

...The 77 are now expected to seriously consider whether they might do better to "go it alone...

...They are at any rate living symbols of the drama--and the evolution =that both the Church and the civil society have experienced in the last centuries...

...Canada, Japan and Australia back the U.S...

...Some third world delegates were ready to admit in Geneva that their own concept of the common fund is not technically perfect...

...They recognize that a common fund would not work without the trading heavyweights of the U.S., the EEC and Japan...

...Fears expressed about a common fund interfering with market forces need to be put into perspective...

...Patterson, the Jamaican Foreign Minister, said shortly after the Conference ended that the patience of the developing world was wearing thin...

...Western countries cannot accept that the fund should be the "central source" of finance...

...also made it clear that it believes talk of establishing a fund now is premature...

...The Group of 77 want a $6000 million common fund to act as the "central source" of commodity finance...

...In the U.S...

...Although a proportion of that price rise is due to speculation, the current 25 percent or so cutback in coffee output has led to an 800 percent increase in price...

...However the West did agree to consider a fund--its member-nations too have an interest in steadier commodity prices...

...First, that they are given an assurance of a large say in the management and control of the fund...

...Trying to call back the ghosts of the past, the lefebvrians and the "black nobility" are at best a source of folklore and at worst a pole of attraction for reactionary movements across Europe and South America...

...was floating the idea, behind the scenes, o~ a common fund acting as the fourth window of the World Bank...

...MARGO HAMMOND ( Margo Hammond, a previous contributor who writes regularly Jor the Christian Science Monitor and other publications, is an American ]reelance writer based in Rome...

...But the West takes the view--sign the commodity agreements first --and then talk about finCommonweal: 423 ance...

...position at UNCTAD 4 when the Ford administration had seemed implacably opposed to the fund idea...

...The cynic might say that domestic producers have votes, third world producers don't, not in the West anyway...

...The world is no longer the world of the Papal noble guard dressed in white trousers, tall boots, embroidered red tunics with gold buttons and sashes and plumed helmets...

...In what form...

...line...

...In the later stages of the Geneva Conference, the U.S...

...We are now at something of a major crossroads...

...The Conference ended on a note of bitterness with no agreement on a final statement and with no date fixed for a future meeting...

...UNCTAD 4 ended with a resolution which said "steps will be taken towards the negotiation of a common fund...

...This sense of detachment is more profound for the believer: the tradition which Lefebvre claims to represent is only a segment of the past, a moment which he isolates from the life of the Church of our time and of the great experience of the Council...

...Somewhere between a mouse and a tiger, there just might be an efficient donkey that is acceptable to both sides...

...An efficient donkey is worth seeking...

...An agreement like this might perhaps be the "efficient donkey" that bumps the world along the path of cooperation and not confrontation...

...could do much to heal the rift...

...It may be argued that producer cartels would not work, but attempts to operate a cartel could themselves cause considerable uncertainty in world markets, and at worst lead to a trade war, in which no one, rich or poor, would benefit...

...The nations of the third world have the idea of a common fund as something which is set up quickly, in advance of negotiations on individual commodities...

...If the third world nations are not to see confrontation as the way forward, they need some convincing that the West has the political will to cooperate in finding a solution to commodity trade...

...The rise in the world price of coffee has, for example, shown what happens if the output of a cash crop is cut back...

...Members of the Group of 77 are distinctly unhappy about any watering down of their concept of the fund...

...But at the same time, the third world nations are well aware that they possess a considerable degree of latent power if they can organize themselves to use it...

...The more one sees the roots from which Lefebvre's movement springs, the more one has--from an historical point of view---a feeling of distance and detachment from his revolt, as from a thing already dead," said Pietro Scoppola, a progressive Catholic historian, in a recent article in Corriere della Sera...

...Both the West and the Group of 77 (now 114) developing countries stuck rigidly to their point of view and refused to move...

...The issue now is whether a sterile clash between rich and poor countries can be avoided...

...The West does not like the idea of such a vast common fund because it believes it might lead to an unacceptable degree of intervention in world trade market forces...

...Some third world countries feel that producer action m~ght be able to do that more effectively...

...Is cooperation between the two sides possible or is the future to be marked by confrontation...

...the other to finance measures to help them diversify their economies away from dependence on cash crops and minerals...

...But third world producers do have latent sanctions, and the West would be foolish to ignore that...

...In Geneva the U.S...

...They want the common fund, not a common fund...

...Concerted attempts over the next crucial few months to reach agreement could pay dividends...

...JOHN MADELEY (John Madeley is an international development economist who contributes to the London Observer, the Guardian, Church Times and other publications...

...8 JMy ]977:d24...

...Something of a double standard operates...

...African countries are especially keen on the diversification account...

...0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 COMMON FUND RICH WORLD, POOR WORLD The recent failure of the Geneva Common Fund for Commodities Conference means that rich world-poor relations embark on a tense and uncertain stage...

...Second, that the fund has a substantial account for diversification purposes...