Development in Practice

1 May 2024 will mark 50 years since the UN General Assembly resolution A/RES/S-6/3201 ‘Declaration on the Establishment on a New International Economic Order’ (NIEO). The resolution called for a new order ‘based on equity, sovereign equality, interdependence’ and cooperation amongst states to correct inequalities, redress injustices and ensure development, peace and justice.

It was one of the last concrete programs to come from the Third World Project and in many ways can be seen as its death knell. In a globe facing the same sense of crisis as was the case when the NIEO was declared, it is important to celebrate and challenge the vision and reflect on its strengths and weaknesses. Given the aim of the journal Development in Practice is to critically reflect on how development is done and its implications, the journal is planning a special issue on the NIEO. Submissions on the following issues are particularly welcome:

• Papers reflecting on the strengths and weakness of the NIEO agenda on independence, sovereignty, and social justice and what might be revived or abandoned to assist progressive social change today.
• Progress and problems in global cooperation and South-South cooperation for equality.
• The response of non-state actors to the NIEO.
• Special measures for the least-developed countries and those impacted by crisis or calamity.
• Country-specific papers that could examine the impact of the NIEO in a particular sector or broader country-level politics and the way NIEO ideas interacted with them.
• Reflections on how the agenda impacted development thinking in the wide range of sectors the agenda noted, which includes:
  • Control of, and prices for, natural resources and commodity exports of developing countries;
  • Regulation of transnational cooperation to ensure development;
  • A just and equitable relationship between the prices of raw materials, primary commodities, manufactured and semi-manufactured goods produced by developing countries in relation to those from developed states;
  • Social assistance;
  • Reform of the international monetary and financial system, net transfers of resources from the developed to developing world, debt cancellation;
  • The environmental elements of the NIEO;
  • Food production and storage;
  • Support for industrialization and technology transfer

Reflecting the aims of the NIEO to narrow the divide between developed and developing countries and the analysis of the ‘close interrelationship between the prosperity’ of both groups, we will prioritise submission from the Majority World and co-authored submissions reflecting diverse viewpoints.

Given the NIEO anniversary, we would like to complete this special issue quickly, so please submit abstracts to Susan Engel ([email protected]) and Matthew Mabefam ([email protected]) by 26 February 2024 or earlier. We will respond within a week with whether we would like you to submit a full paper. Full papers will need to be submitted by 22 April 2024, earlier if possible. Papers should be up to 7,000 words inclusive of references, etc. Shorter viewpoints and practice notes are also very welcome and will have a shorter review process.

Full papers should be emailed to the guest editors for approval before being uploaded to the DiP online submission system.

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