ABSTRACT
This chapter views the history of the Group of 77 (G77) through the lens of its relations with UN Conference on Trade and Development's (UNCTAD) establishment in 1964, its unsuccessful struggle for the NIEO in the 1970s, and the subsequent loosening of ties. The history of the G77 is so intimately bound up with the history of the UNCTAD that it is hardly possible to narrate the history of the one without also narrating the history of the other. In the UN an Afro-Asian bloc began to operate in the 10th General Assembly after the Bandung conference of 1955, calling for an international trade conference. However, at the 1961 General Assembly, Latin American countries, with the notable exception of Brazil, still remained lukewarm to the idea of a new conference on trade and development. The G77 was frustrated and questioned Prebisch’s credibility after so little progress had been made on the UNCTAD agenda.
