UN Trade and Development: The 1964 Conference and the Emergence of a Permanent Institution

The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, or UNCTAD, emerged in response to developing countries' concerns about international trade rules and opportunities for development. In July 1962, economic ministers from Africa, Asia and parts of Latin America met in Cairo, calling for discussion within the UN of trade, primary commodities and economic relations between developing and developed countries. Cross-regional action turned dispersed demands into momentum for an international conference.

Argentine economist Raúl Prebisch accepted the position of conference secretary-general in 1963, organizing staff, agendas and documentation and consulting in numerous capitals. The 1964 Geneva conference brought these questions into one negotiating forum. It was not an aid agency established by a single state: collective advocacy by developing countries and negotiations among different countries both shaped its eventual institutional arrangements.

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On 15 June 1964, developing countries including Argentina, Brazil, India, Ghana and Yugoslavia issued a joint declaration that became a key document in the formation of the Group of 77. It connected resolutions and shared positions from Cairo and earlier gatherings and pledged continued contacts, consultation and joint action programmes. Membership did not replace national governments; it coordinated their positions in international conferences.

The declaration also explicitly judged progress insufficient on primary-commodity trade, preferences for manufactured exports and compensatory financing. Acceptance of the conference outcome preserved a basis for further cooperation rather than implying that major economic disagreements had been resolved. Developing countries particularly valued a continuing institution to discuss problems, formulate policies and examine results. This original declaration makes both the achievements and limits of institution-building visible.

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On 30 December 1964, General Assembly Resolution 1995 (XIX) established UNCTAD as an organ of the Assembly. Membership covered UN member states and members of specialized agencies or the International Atomic Energy Agency, with conferences to meet at intervals normally no longer than three years. Its tasks included promoting trade for development, proposing principles and policies, and cooperating with relevant bodies to advance negotiations on appropriate multilateral legal instruments.

Alongside the conference, the resolution created a fifty-five-member Trade and Development Board to sustain work between sessions, review implementation of recommendations, initiate studies and prepare the next conference. A third level was a permanent, dedicated secretariat within the UN Secretariat, serving the conference, board and subsidiary bodies. Its secretary-general was appointed by the UN Secretary-General and confirmed by the Assembly. These arrangements connected periodic political deliberation, continuing oversight and day-to-day specialist work.

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Paragraph 29 of the founding resolution placed the expenses of the conference, subsidiary bodies and secretariat in the UN regular budget under a separate budget heading. Participating states that were not UN members also had to contribute under the relevant arrangements. Funding for documentation, personnel and research was therefore not raised solely by the Group of 77, and the resolution supplied no figure that could be treated as total founding capital.

The system combined voting with consultation. Each state had one vote; substantive conference decisions required a two-thirds majority of those present and voting, while the Board used a simple majority. Proposals for specific action significantly affecting particular countries' economic or financial interests could also undergo conciliation before voting. A majority could produce recommendations, but sustained cooperation still required accommodation of differing interests rather than declaring problems solved by vote totals alone.

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The Board held its first session in New York in April 1965, establishing committees on commodities, manufactures, invisibles and financing related to trade, and shipping, and defining their tasks and work arrangements. The location of the secretariat was also debated. That year the General Assembly decided to place it permanently in Geneva while retaining a New York liaison office. Meeting venues and the permanent institution's address were thus determined through separate processes.

Early work already addressed specific trade barriers. In June–July 1965, UNCTAD convened a conference on transit trade of landlocked countries, drafting and adopting a convention that subsequently opened for signature. Sugar and cocoa market issues also entered conferences and consultations. The organization's role was to bring governments, information and negotiating arrangements together to develop rules states could subsequently accept; opening for signature did not mean all countries had already assumed treaty obligations.

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Commodity trade was already an important field of work for the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. The FAO Council's 1965 report recorded that FAO had helped prepare and service the first UNCTAD conference and that the heads of the two bodies subsequently consulted to reduce duplication while maintaining agricultural-commodity services for member states. The new institution did not immediately displace existing specialist organizations.

The FAO Council asked the Director-General to present the scope and work programme of its Committee on Commodity Problems and subsidiary bodies to the first meeting of UNCTAD's Committee on Commodities and propose ways to offer support. The report also acknowledged that precise boundaries of responsibility would have to be clarified through practice. Cooperation therefore involved not only new committees but also exchange of plans, use of existing expertise and adjustments to responsibilities. The 1964 founding resolution was the institutional starting point of this continuing process.

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