ABSTRACT
Whilst the 1980s and 1990s can be considered a time of crisis, the period from the 1950s to the 1970s was one of great optimism concerning the prospects for development in the Third World. The 1960s was declared the United Nations’ First Decade of Development, with the declared aim to be ‘the attainment in each less developed country of a substantial increase in the rate of growth, with each country setting its own target, taking as the objective a minimum annual rate of growth of aggregate national income of 5 per cent at the end of the decade’ (UN Yearbook 1961, cited in Leys 1996:109). This growth rate target was increased to 6 per cent per annum in the Second Development Decade (the 1970s), and ambitious industrialisation targets were also set. These growth rate targets were far higher than those achieved by most of the earlier industrialised countries. Perhaps even more important, development practitioners generally believed that such growth rates would lead to the alleviation of poverty in the developing countries.
