CONFIDENTIAL
Aid
55. The High Level Group on Development Cooperation, mandated in November 1972 to report by 1 May 1973 to the Council of Ministers on the establishment and progressive implementation of a world-wide policy of development cooperation, is discussing improvements in the volume, terms and conditions of aid and in its geographical distribution. The UK (supported to a considerable extent by other Member States, particularly Germany and the Netherlands) has pressed for the recognition of the principle that aid should be distributed on a basis of need and for finding ways in which the Community as such can provide development aid more widely than to associated states. The High Level Group has also considered the possibility of improved coordination of aid, including bilateral aid, which still constitutes the vast bulk of aid from Community members. In the meantime Asian countries have received food aid from the Community's own programme, and will continue to do so. The Group's report is likely to be short on precise and binding conclusions in favour of a more equitable distribution of aid - but we strongly believe that it will have brought the enlarged Community to see more clearly the nature of its responsibilities towards some of the largest and most needy countries in the developing world, and will have prepared the ground for further work leading to concrete action in favour of these countries.
Australia and New Zealand
56.
A note on the EEC and Australia/New Zealand will be contained in an addendum to the present brief.
DOWN-GRADING OF NON-REGIONAL MEMBERS
57. The question of downgrading non-regionals in the Economic Commission for Latin America was raised informally recently at that Commission's biennial session but we do not yet know whether the subject was pursued. There are however no grounds for believing that our status will be questioned at the present session.
58. Although the UK is concerned with the developmental aspects of any reduction in our status, the implications of any such eventual change are in our view essentially political in character both in relation to Asia and our non-regional colleagues and in relation to UN membership generally. If we lost full membership status, and thus our vote, we should not be able to continue our efforts to steer ECAFE towards sensible schemes of regional co-operation and we would probably lose an opportunity to exert a restraining influence in Bangkok and the Commission on the source of proposals for uneconomic and unnecessary activities. Despite the move of ECAFE towards an exclusively Asian approach to regional economic questions, exemplified by the Asian Council of Ministers for Economic Co-operation, the UK and other non-regional powers have continued to play a fairly active part in the Commission and its subsidiary bodies. The chief advantages of our membership of ECAFE in recent years have been opportunities to demonstrate our continued interest in the economic development of Asia and to provide a counter to the effects of the reductions of the British military presence in South East Asia.
59. The Australians and New Zealanders may resent a retreat by us from an organisation which they have come to regard as some importance to themselves.
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CONFIDENTIAL
/60. If