Introduction

A number of factors have recently called for a review of the development cooperation policies of industrialized countries.

First, the profound transformations in the global political landscape following the collapse of communism and the end of the East-West confrontation.

Second, the notion of security has been extended beyond defence and the military sphere to include economic cooperation as well as a number of other issues: environmental protection, management of migratory flows, population, war on poverty, democratization and the protection of human rights.

Third, the international economic system tends to create regional poles around strong actors in the North (the US, Japan, the European Union).

Fourth, regionalization produces asymmetrical flows of resources from the North to the South: these flows are not distributed evenly among Less Developed Countries (LDCs) and are concentrated in a few areas or countries.

Fifth, the countries of the developing world have become increasingly differentiated with regard to growth prospects, economic policy options, transformation of the political system. This diversification, which throws doubt upon the idea of a single entity - "the South" - can fuel either processes of integration or marginalization of the LDCs.

In this context, the instrument of cooperation, specifically created to respond to development problems, can play an important role, if it is provided with greater financial resources and made more effective than it has been the case in the last thirty years.

1. Development Cooperation: Shortcomings and Problems

In the last decade, Official Development Assistance (ODA) has become one of the main instruments of North-South relations. Since 1984, it has been the most important item (over $ 50 billion a year) in the net transfer of financial resources from North to South, making it an essential source of financing for LDCs, especially the poorer ones. However, rather than an increase in real terms of the total value of ODA to LDCs, this figure reflects a decrease in other flows.

Unlike other international financial flows, ODA is disbursed only by governments and multilateral agencies; loans are concessional, with a high grant element: minimum 25%, according to the regulations set out by Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Its stated aim is to promote growth and well-being in the recipient countries. Yet, development cooperation has come to include a wider range of objectives and now exerts greater influence on the economic policy-making of the LDCs.

Despite the importance of ODA in North-South relations, there is general consensus that the cooperation system has not contributed effectively to development to date. The persistence of underdevelopment in many countries has even cast doubts on the validity of the instrument as such. The shortcomings manifested by development cooperation can be related to four factors.

First, the scarce linkage of cooperation funds to the declared objective, that is, development. The official figures on ODA disbursed are undoubtedly higher than the resources actually used for development in the recipient countries. This is mainly a result of the frequent conflicts of interest between the priorities of development and the real or presumed requirements of the economic and security policies of the donor. Although it is almost impossible to quantify this diversion of resources, many examples can be cited of ODA being used for export subsidies or to support crisis-ridden sectors in the donor country with little or no fall-out in the beneficiary country. The specific instrument most frequently used to this end is tied aid, that is, aid tied to the supply of goods or services by the donor.

Second, the impact of aid on the development of the recipient. Experience during the last decade has shown that consistency is needed in the various North-South economic flows. In the '80s, ODA tried to compensate for the diminution of other flows, rather than play a complementary role to other instruments. It did not, however, manage to compensate totally, as shown by the difference between inflows (ODA) and outflows. The lack of consistency among the various instruments and their specific objectives can also be seen in the use of aid in relation to consumption when the reduction in other commercial and financial flows affected investments and productive imports.

Despite both positive and negative experiences, the problem of the impact of ODA programmes is closely linked to the general limits of the cooperation system. In particular, the dominant organizational model is characterized by static planning, based on a pre-determined definition of development policy, from which a set of techniques and procedures for ex-ante evaluation, for decision-making and for monitoring, and a structure organized to conform with the decision-making and implementation process is derived.

This organizational approach takes little account of feedback as an essential element in a continuous decision-making process aimed at correcting the strategy; it provides little room for the social and economic subjects for whom the planning is destined; it assumes that the scope of planning is limited to the planning approach and does not include the strategy approach. In other words, it does not ensure the flexibility needed to affect those factors that most experts now consider indispensable for positive impact on development: social and cultural factors; the use of appropriate technologies that can be interiorized by the LDCs; the mobilization of endogenous resources and self-development.

Third, adoption of the wrong development models. One of the main and now widely admitted mistakes was the concentration on physical investments, on the assumption that they would automatically generate development. Other factors, such as culture, the expectations of the recipient population, the organization of social and political relations, the institutional order, and the mechanisms reproducing poverty, were neglected.

It is obvious that the production of a physical object is the easiest to achieve and evaluate through formal aid procedures. It incorporates autonomous and self-sufficient knowledge; furthermore, its political and economic returns are clearly visible. Yet, these physical objects have too frequently ended up as scrap metal, or worse, have drained immense resources for their operation.

Fourth, the low level of coordination among donor countries. Although development aid has become a consolidated system of bilateral and multilateral institutions, the level of coordination among the donors, and between the donors and the recipients is still minimal. Four main conceptions of bilateral cooperation can be distinguished:

a) ODA as an instrument of security policy (the United States);

b) ODA as an instrument of foreign economic policy (Japan);

c) ODA as an instrument of foreign policy aimed at consolidating former colonial ties with LDCs (France);

d) ODA for humanitarian reasons, without any utilitaristic ends for the donor (the Scandinavian countries).

These bilateral models are alternative (and sometimes competitive) rather than cooperative, and none has managed to function as a frame of reference for all aid policies.

Then again, the fragmentation of bilateral ODA has not been counterbalanced by the action of international bodies. The multilateral agencies established by donor countries for coordination have only partially fulfilled this role. This is because they have managed only a third of total ODA and because they have added two alternative models to the existing bilateral models: that of the UN development agencies and that of the World Bank.

The new international situation has highlighted the limits of the various national policies. Revision of the American model is necessitated above all by the end of bipolarism and the new dimensions of international security; the Japanese model is under discussion because it has aggravated the already strong trade contrasts with the US and the EU; the French model, with the accent on bilateralism, conflicts with the prospects of a common European policy; and last, the Scandinavian model is limited by its specific characteristics (small, rich and altruistic), which make widespread application difficult. The development concepts and aid policies of the multilateral agencies are also evolving towards greater homogeneity.

2. Economic transformations and social equity

The '80s were characterized by profound economic and social crisis in the South of the world. Apart from rare exceptions (Southeast Asia and a few other marginal cases), all LDCs registered low growth and drops in income. The phenomenon was both financial and economic, thus multiplying the negative effects on the production system and on society. In addition, demographic growth has brought enormous problems to bear on already weak governments and socio-economic systems.

In order to deal with the crisis, international financial institutions worked out and sometimes imposed plans for economic stabilization, which partially brought macro-economic variables back into acceptable bounds. However, these policies were socially costly: increase in the number of poor, accentuation of the dualism and disarticulation of the socio-economic system.

Lower financial flows and monetary restrictions gave way, in turn, to a drop in production and, thus, more financial and social difficulties. In many cases, therefore, the economic reforms called for by the plans for structural adjustment aggravated the crisis. But they also swept away the previous models (equally inadequate) and created a new situation for development prospects.

Crises in the last decade took on specific characteristics in each country, deriving from the different situations already existing in the South. The indiscriminate application of the same model of adjustment only caused greater differentiation among the LDCs. Thus, a distinction must be made between two groups of countries particularly hard hit by the crisis.

One group is made up mainly of those countries which are classified as lower middle income countries by the World Bank and which occupy an intermediate position in the human development index of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). These countries have a relatively complex production structure, but with a number of weakness factors (structural disarticulation, strong dualism, slight international integration, weak institutions). For this group, the crisis has led to the progressive destruction of the production system, with a substantial drop in national income, especially of industrial origin (in many cases by as much as one quarter in a year). The high social costs have often combined with regressive income redistribution, resulting in an increase in disequalities and extreme poverty. These characteristics are shared by many Latin American countries and have also created serious difficulties for the more advanced African countries and the large Asian countries.

A second group is composed of all the least developed countries (LLDCs). These countries are characterized by socio-economic systems with very weak institutions, extremely deficient infrastructures, the progressive destruction of the environment and indiscriminate use of natural resources for survival. In short, these systems are close to structural collapse. Many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and some countries in Asia are in this state.

To the internal crisis of the LDCs must be added some external factors of particular importance related to the three main aspects of North-South relations: international trade, direct investment flows, and LDC debt.

International trade tends to be concentrated increasingly within the industrialized area (OECD countries account for three fourth of world exports) and tends to be heavily protected (before the completion of the Uruguay round, some 80% of world trade was subject to tariff or non-tariff barriers). This makes access to the international market difficult for the LDCs. Only the semi-industrialized countries of Asia have managed to increase their share of the international market in recent years, thanks to the exceptional increase in their exports (12% annually in the second half of the '80s, as compared to a 6% world average). Furthermore, the growing concentration of manufactured exports in the industrialized area (approximately 90% of the total) strengthens the specialization of the LDCs in primary products (that is, in products that have lower value added, and of which the terms of trade have worsened drastically).

Foreign direct investments (FDI) have been one of the most dynamic components of financial flows: between 1983 and 1989, direct investments rose by 29% per year (more than three times the growth of exports). However, almost all FDI originates in developed countries (three-quarters in the US, Japan and the EU) and is directed mainly (again three -quarters) towards the same countries, once again leaving the LDCs in a marginal position.

In the first half of the '80s, the foreign debt problem of the LDCs took on great importance in both the South and the North. But while the danger to the international financial system has largely passed, the implications for the LDCs are still very serious. Suffice it to recall that financial flows towards debtor countries fell so much that LDCs recorded a negative balance in net transfers of resources as early as 1984.

Two typologies of countries and situations can be distinguished in this case, too: the countries of Sub-Saharan Africa (with 5% of the total debt, of which two-thirds is of official origin) and the most indebted countries, in particular Latin American countries (with over 30% of the total debt, of which only one-third is of official origin). In the former case, the problem is one of insolvency, not volume. In the latter case, the problem is mainly the size of the debt and its negative impact on economic recovery.

To undertake new strategies, two general conditions are essential: on the one hand, a redefinition of the development process in the LDCs (favourable internal conditions); on the other, important changes in international economic relations (favourable external conditions). As the legacy of the '80s shows, these conditions are complementary and must be given coherence by a strategy of sustainable development.

Generally, such a strategy calls for the construction of internal socio-economic equilibria (between development and the environment, between production sectors, between the government and society) as an essential factor of economic growth. More specifically, it calls for a concept of development that combines economic transformation with social equity. Debate on the subject has already begun in the LDCs and has resulted in the indication of some initial concrete choices that must be taken into consideration in formulating a concept of development cooperation aimed at promoting a strategy of sustainable development.

The goal of economic transformation with social equity is very difficult to achieve in the countries of the South: first, because the process of productive transformation is an integrated and indivisible whole (each reform has its repercussions and is linked to the developments in other sectors of the economy and society); and second, because it calls for the contemporaneous mobilization of strictly economic factors and socio-political factors (thus, social and instititutional organization is considered a factor of production).

In brief, the objectives of economic transformation and social equity require consistent and simultaneous action aimed at progress in two fields: an increase in the productive capacity of the system; a reduction of dualism, i.e. differences or gaps in social and economic efficiency and functioning.

The two objectives can be brought together by basing the development process on the nodal points of the system: the social, productive and institutional nuclei that can have dynamic effects on the whole system.

A strategy of sustainable development requires not only new internal conditions, but also a new external context: basically, it calls for greater insertion of LDCs on the international market, reducing their marginality. This implies both the acquisition of international competitiveness by the LDCs and promotion of processes of regional integration, a course which some developing countries have already taken.

The acquisition of international competitiveness, means real competitiveness based on increased productivity through the incorporation of technological progress. Technology, information and organization are important factors for success on international markets, with respect to which LDCs generally have no comparative advantages. In other words, a slower but more stable process must be promoted, a process able to enrich the country (growth of productivity) and at the same time integrate the productive systems of the LDCs into the international system. The internal and external liberalization that many LDCs have undertaken may be functional to these objectives as a basis for development of the country's productive and innovative capabilities.

Promotion of South-South integration processes is one way in which the LDCs can attempt to prevent the polarizing trends in the North (EU, US, Japan) from selectively coopting only some LDCs, leaving the rest of the South to a fate of widespread marginalization.

In fact, regional integration favours policies promoting trade, allows for the implementation of infrastructural cooperation programmes in the integrated area, and provides for the definition of common positions towards third countries in international negotiations on trade. Furthermore, regional and integrated LDC markets can provide a platform for export of manufactured goods to industrialized countries.

Opening the market of industrialized countries to the products of the LDCs is thus probably the single most important action required to change economic North-South relations. This is a consequence of the greater direct impact that trade has on the productive structure of the LDCs, as well as of the dominant economic models in those countries (dependence on exports as the leading factor in growth). Negotiations in the World Trade Organization (WTO) must, therefore, provide positive responses to the needs of the LDCs, above all in manufacturing and agriculture.

3. Taking development assistance seriously

If ODA is to become the indispensable instrument for the development of the South, a number of changes are in order. First, it should be freed of the goals of the donor country's foreign economic policy. Such goals can be pursued by other more appropriate instruments (export credits, direct investment, non-concessional loans).

Second, better coordination is required among donors, starting with the Europeans. A more precise definition of the purpose of the aid is one of the main prerequisites for coordination. Orienting ODA towards one priority objective can, in fact, reduce the conflict of national and particularistic interests in bilateral policies hindering coordination.

In order for aid to be coordinated and targetted, the conflicts of interest between the donors and the recipients must also be overcome. The new interdependence between North and South has divested these conflicts of their justification. Relations are no longer based on strictly economic factors (as seen, the South seems to be increasingly marginalized), but on the fact that some global issues that concern the North are concentrated in the LDCs (environment, population, security).

Then there is the question of the absolute level of resources presently going to ODA. Here the international community is in desperate need of a system of enforcement sanctions against unfulfilled commitments. True enough, this applies as well to other fields. To give just one example: Iraq would have gotten away with its violation of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, had it not invaded Kuwait and thus triggered the coalition's response.

Without a set of enforcement rules, however, ODA policies will keep showing a huge gap between their intentions and their results. Who is still believes in the commitment coming from developed countries to devote to ODA 0.7% of their income? The point is rather that, no matter what the figure of choice may be (0.7%, 1%, or even 0.5%), it is vital to arrive at rules that make the ODA pledges taken in the international fora binding. It goes without saying that as long as nation-states dominate world politics there are no ways, short of war, to impose on them an external will.

States, however, do enter agreements that imply the provision of resources. Think, for example, of the system of quotas to finance the United Nations. Countries can and do delay the payment of their dues. But they usually end up making good on their promises - the sanction, the enforcement rule, being in this case the loss of face incurred by doing otherwise.

A similar system could be applied to ODA. The UN Security Council could and should come up with a resolution that mandates the fulfillment of donors' pledges (as to the absolute amount of aid, its environmental impact, its development orientation etc.) and of recipients' conditions (as to democracy, human rights, disarmament etc.), together with a verification machinery to ensure implementation. Delinquent donors should be subject to sanctions, if ODA has to be taken seriously.

Outside the UN, private institutions, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), could do the same. Such groups as the Helsinki watch, for example, made a great job in helping fighting human rights abuses in Europe and ultimately in defeating Soviet rule. Why not having an International Cooperation watch?

Donors and recipients could also come together immediately and form a club - let's call it International Cooperation Group - based on the voluntary acceptance of rules - those at both ends of the trade that I just mentioned. On the negative control side, the group could name names and ask delinquent members to explain why they did not follow the rules agreed upon. On the positive control side, the group could lobby the international institutions, financial and otherwise, to have higher-profile development cooperation policies.

Beyond the enforcement of aid pledges, the question remains as to how optimize the use of ODA. Following are some priority areas of action.

Actions aimed at the growth of human resources. These should mainly involve improvement of the training system and the standard of living (health, nutrition, serious economic and social marginalization), which is essential for the development of production in general.

Actions aimed at the growth of technological capability take two directions: the strengthening of domestic resources and the transfer of technology. The latter can be promoted directly or by using ODA as an incentive for direct investment, especially in the form of joint ventures. Technology transfer must, in any case, must be seen in terms of implementing strategies rather than projects, that is, in terms of technological systems rather than technological objects.

Actions aimed at improving the efficiency of institutions. Technical and financial assistance must serve to reconstruct (or construct) a network of social services (education, health) and a network of services linked to production (management assistance, trade union training, import-export, information, setting up of consortia). Particularly important is assistance in the strengthening of public institutions, especially those that have strategic roles in development (tax office, promotion of production and savings, technical training) and those that reinforce local government.

Global objectives include the following.

The war on poverty. The situation is extremely serious in the LLDCs and calls for the mobilization of enormous resources, efforts, mental powers and culture. But given its structural nature, the crisis cannot be overcome easily or in the short term; its solution will call for the consensus and integration of the efforts of all sectors of the international community. Priority countries are the countries of Sub-Saharan Africa and more generally, the LLDCs.

A fund for extraordinary aid (distinct from emergency aid necessitated by unexpected or occasional events), aimed at acting on the structural causes of the crisis could be created. Such a fund would have to be in harmony with other programmes combatting poverty (World Bank). Coordination could be achieved through multilateral management of funds.

Reconstruction of the socio-economic system. ODA must give priority to the reduction of dualisms, both the traditional dualism between city and country and the modern dualism produced by the vast phenomenon of urbanization, the main poles of which are the formal and the informal economies. Aid should aim at institutionalizing the informal economy, reducing poverty and creating productive outlets for the sectors of the population involved in these activities, giving particular attention to support of micro and small enterprise. Priority countries are in Latin America and Asia.

Aid to a certain region from various donors could be channeled through a regional bank; the management of these regional funds would thus strengthen coordination of both the donor and the recipient countries. Another level of coordination would have to be established among the multilateral cooperation agencies, regional banks and other regional bodies.

3. Cooperation for Democracy

Consensus has been growing over the last few years on the need to consider the political conditions of development. The old assumption that authoritarian governments are needed to guarantee economic growth, greater equity and consolidation of the nation-state has been finally proven wrong. To the contrary, it is increasingly clear that the growth and liberalization of a given economy go hand in hand with the growth and liberalization of its society, i.e. with democracy.

One of the major factors in democratization is a greater awareness of human rights. Respect for human rights has, in many cases, been taken as the basis for the construction of democratic processes. This is also attested to by the birth of local organizations working in this direction and the adoption by some of developing countries organisations of charters committing their members to protect and promote these rights.

Another unifying factor is the role that the growth of civil society has played in making the more political democratic demands. This role has been emphasized in all studies of the democratization processes under way in the South and in the East.

The role of civil society is also underlined by the coincidence of the economic crisis with the growth of the democratic movements. The concurrence of the phenomena is interesting for a number of reasons. First of all, it belies the assumption that an increase in poverty leads to lower political and social activism. Quite the opposite, the crisis in the LDCs seems to have given society the decisive impulse to work out autonomous responses (in short, the phenomenon known as informal economy, which can be extended to take in informal society and informal politics) that are beyond the reach of and in some ways against the state. Moreover, it has also demonstrated the importance of longer-term factors (the social changes fuelled by the political developments of the '60s: the increase in urbanization, the formation of a young educated class, etc.)

Secondly, authoritarian regimes seems more dependent on economic results for legitimacy than democratic systems, a fact which weakens the neo-authoritarian theses predominant in Asia. From this point of view, the inability to generate development manifested by most authoritarian regimes seems to have led to the demise of a concept of state which, inasmuch as it accentuated its dirigiste and centralizing nature (in the economy and in society), tried to gain unlimited powers, and was plagued by corruption and inefficiency.

As a consequence, it seems justified to speak of a power of attraction for democracy (or a preference for democracy) in many areas of the South in that the political system is perceived as being more suited to promoting development.

The relation between development and democracy can also be seen from another, more specific, perspective. The reconstruction and austerity measures involved in economic reforms and adjustment programmes have political elements that seem to be easier to construct democratically. They include good government, transparency in decision making, and government accountability. Given the social costs of the reforms, eand distribution of costs and benefits) must be made and the consensus for those choices found.

This requirement seems to underlie many of the cases of liberalization from the top down. It is irrelevant whether these policies were dictated by a kind of survival strategy on the part of the ruling elites. Even if they are controlled from the top, processes of liberalization have a way of going beyond original intentions. This is particularly evident in the relation between economic liberalization and political liberalization: for example, although the decision to give the private sector a more active role in stimulating growth may be aimed at broadening consensus for the regime among the middle class, it can also undermine the base of the authoritarian state.

Three main areas of positive action should be incorporated into aid programmes.

First, the protection and promotion of human rights. Respect ot the fundamental rights of the individual represent the minimum and necessary basis for any process of democratization. The rights must be accepted as universal, that is, not subject to cultural, ideological, political or economic variations. It is this universal nature that justifies actions for their protection and promotion as a right/duty of the international community and, therefore, as a limitation on the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign state.

In operational terms, the application of this criterion is supported by international agreements signed by states, that is by a negotiated framework. This does not, however, make enforcement of those agreements any easier. Considerable progress could be made in this direction by combining:

a) a strengthening of multilateral instruments for verification, monitoring, and reporting on the state of human rights in individual countries; the most suitable forum is the UN, but effective action on its part would call for the creation of specific instruments (such as a High Commission on Human Rights) and the extension of competences of its bodies to the field of human rights;

b) the establishment of a more direct political link between disbursement of development assistance and the state of human rights in the recipient country; the criteria for conditionality would be established on the basis of the data supplied by competent international bodies and would be adopted jointly by donor countries (in DAC or, for European countries, in the EU) to avoid unilateral politicization of the issue;

c) the explicit integration of human rights policies into the broader context of policy dialogue between donor governments (individually or jointly) and recipient governments; the introduction into cooperation agreements of specific clauses on human rights resulting from dialogue and negotiations between the parties would increase the possibility of undertaking concrete actions;

d) the creation of funds for the support of both human rights legislation in the aid recipients and local non-governmental organizations (NGOs) operating in the field of human rights, giving the latter access, on the basis of pre-determined criteria, to financing disbursed through multilateral channels (EU, UN).

Second, actions aimed at strengthening institutions and social subjects. This line of action has the greatest potential for simultaneously stimulating democratic progress, achieving greater articulation of society, and propelling the dynamics of development. Through it, the economic and social advancement of a number of weak groups - in terms both of income and of social status - could be incorporated into an aid programme for democratization. For this kind of action, "decentralized cooperation" could no longer be conceived of as a subsidiary action, and would have to become the backbone of the assistance programme. More specifically it should:

a) base aid programmes on a broad concept of development, which includes the dimension of freedom, the equitable distribution of resources, services and income, and the full mobilization of human resources; the human development indexes set up by the UNDP offer a good basis for establishing operational criteria;

b) strengthen the associative fabric of LDCs (intermediate structures, farmers association, trade unions, professional organizations, women's and youth groups, etc.) is essential to make the democratic system function fully, to ensure transparency and control of decisions on distribution of resources and economic policy, to make political participation more effective;

c) progressively include the social galaxy of the informal economy in the political scenario: the return to the state of broad and dynamic sectors of the population of many LDCs - now marginalized - must be one of the priorities of any attempt to narrow the widening gap between citizens and the state;

d) institutionalize the role and functions of intermediate associative structures and private subjects operating in the informal sector, ensuring, recognizing and regulating their existence. This calls for the definition of appropriate framework legislation ensuing from dialogue and negotiations between the state and the various sectors of society. The formulation of legislation is obviously an internal process, but international development cooperation should be aware of the fact that an inadequate normative framework in the recipient countries can lead to the failure of attempts to stimulate development through a strengthening of the role of society; legislative aspects must, therefore, be included in an integrated aid package, possibly offering technical assistance to that end.

Third, the promotion of political and institutional changes or politico-constitutional reforms. It may be superfluous to point out that in this case the fundamental thrust for reform must also come from inside the country and that the international community can only try to flank and support processes already under way. Nevertheless, the need to provide the role of social subjects with an adequate legislative framework can only be wholly satisfied if the role is given suitable institutional and political outlets and if it can develop in parallel to the formation of regulations and channels allowing society to influence the decision-making process.

From this point of view, the right to form political parties, to compete in free elections on the basis of alternative platforms, to change governments by electoral and constitutional means, to elect a parliament endowed with real legislative powers, and to institute an independent judiciary is decisive for the stable integration of society into the political system.

Growing pressure in many LDCs for pluralistic political reforms offers the international donor community the possibility of expressing preferences in that regard through the introduction of democratic clauses, as already occurred - at the request of the parties - in the EU cooperation agreements with Chile and Argentina.

One last sector of interest for a development cooperation policy aimed at combining participative development with institutional change is assistance to political and administrative decentralization. The diffusion of power and a retrenching of the prerogatives of the central state with respect to those of the local governments offer various potential advantages as far as participation is concerned. Moreover, aid can play a direct role in this sector, by setting up networks for the exchange of information and experiences between local authorities in the North and in the South, and by ensuring specific forms of technical assistance for the strengthening of local institutions, the training of personnel, the improvement of procedures and regulations, and the strengthening and improvement of the supply of social services.

Conclusions

What precedes in this paper is nowadays part of the standard diagnosis of problems related to growth and sustainable development. There is also no shortage of cures around, and they probably enjoy a remarkable degree of consensus.

Thus, in concluding my remarks there is no need to do the usual work of summarizing this paper's main points.

Nonetheless, let me emphasize again that what we need most is a set of enforceable rules of the international aid game. As much as it seems logical, and even just, to tight aid to various conditions on the part of the recepient, we need to bind donors to the fullfillment of their aid pledges. I urge the Security Council to take up the matter soon.

Without enforceable rules of the international aid there is little doubt that we will keep meeting over and over again, always complaining about the state of North-South cooperation programs. We need to be creative to find the new rules; but we also need to be rigorous to enforce them, to enforce in this field as well the rule of law.

The author gratefully aknowledges the assistance of the Center for the Study of International Politics (Centro Studi di Politica internazionale - CeSPI) of Rome and of prof. Giandonato Caggiano director of SIOI (International Society for International Organizations) in the preparations of these remarks