North-South: A Programme for Survival – The Brandt Report: A Summary

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The Brandt Report: A Summary

Arguably the most comprehensive and solutions-oriented analysis of critical global economic issues to date was a report by the Independent Commission on International Development Issues, chaired by Willy Brandt (former Chancellor of West Germany) in 1980 – widely referred to as the ‚Brandt Report‘.

The report, entitled North-South: A Programme for Survival , received much publicity and broad acceptance as a pragmatic way for nations to reduce economic disparities between the rich North and developing South. However, the proposals put forward by the eminent and diverse members of the Commission were never adopted by governments due to the Cold War and a collective lack of political will among world leaders.

The Brandt Report was updated in 2001 by James B. Quilligan, who was the director of Brandt Commission Research, a public information agency on the Independent Commission on International Development Issues between 1980 and 1987. His report, ‚The Brandt Equation – 21st Century Blueprint for the New Global Economy‘ can be downloaded here as a PDF file.

The report remains an extremely informative publication written from a truly humanitarian perspective by a body of people with great expertise in this field, and we present a summary of it below.

Contents

• Members
• An overview
• North-South: The Setting
• Dimensions of Development
• Mutual Interests
• The Poorest Countries
• Hunger and Food
• Population: Growth, Movement and the Environment
• Disarmament and Development
• The Task of the South
• Commodity Trade and Development
• Energy
• Industrialisation and World Trade
• Transnational Corporations, Investments and the Sharing of Technology
• The World Monetary Order
• A New Approach to Development Finance
• International Organizations and Negotiations
• A Programme of Priorities
• An Emergency Programme
• A Summit of World Leaders

https://www.sharing.org/information-centre/reports/brandt-report-summary