ABSTRACT: The first text is from a speech by John Langmore, a member of the Australian parliament and President of "Parliamentarians for Global Action", addressed to the 20th Conference of the Society for International Development (SID); the second is from a speech by Maurice Williams, Secretary General of the SID and, in the last few years, Executive Director of the World Food Council.

(The Party New, n.2, July 1991)

At the moment there is an unprecedented range of opportunities to obtain greater cuts in military spending.

These cuts would release human and financial resources for economic and social development, which is dramatically necessary. This would help to reduce the threat posed by armed conflict to the natural environment, as the Gulf War demonstrated. Next year will be crucial to see whether there is a change of direction towards the reduction of military spending, both in industrialized and in developing countries.

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The real question facing the United Nations is the following: is the 1945 vision of an international organization dominated by the major powers suitable to deal effectively with the emerging problems of the twenty-first century?

Is it possible to conceive of a model of international organization capable of promoting reflection and negotiation between a relatively confined number of participants, both public and private, that are genuinely representative of the interests of the major areas of the world? It should be possible to strengthen the role of the multilateral regional organizations with regard to problems relating to economy and security.

But the fundamental change in the existing international organizations is a medium or long-term process. In the immediate future the key to the approach is to make the existing international structures work for the peaceful resolution of conflicts, disarmament and the essential realization of the peace dividend to deal effectively with the urgent problems of poverty, environmental destruction, the reconstruction of the areas devastated by war, problems relating to debt and resources in low-income countries, and the other problems of social and economic development that remained unsolved in "development's lost decade", the 1980s.