ABSTRACT
The maiden issue of the Third World Quarterly, published by the Third World Foundation in London, projected a grim outlook. Editor Altaf Gauhar wrote: 1979 could well determine the outcome of the North-South debate. The year 1979 opened with negotiations on the renewal of the International Wheat Agreement, which confirmed the prevailing sense of pessimism rather than dispelling it. The food crisis of the early seventies had led to the November 1974 World Food Conference in Rome and to recommendations for urgent and sweeping international measures to meet the immediate and long-range problems of the world food supply. United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) Secretary-General Gamani Corea convened the Third Session of the UN Negotiating Conference on the Common Fund on March 12, 1979, and he stressed the need to reach agreement before UNCTAD v. He had tried, but without success, to persuade Group B countries to send delegations at the ministerial level, but the auspices were good.
