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Commonwealth leaders will also wish to consider the wider but related problems of apartheid in South Africa and of the new pressures being faced by Commonwealth countries in the region. While exploring further areas for Commonwealth action against apartheid, including humanitarian assistance to its victims, Heads of Government will wish to note the very real value of the Commonwealth's contributions under the Gleneagles Agreement and, more recently, the Brisbane Code of Conduct.
4.
WORLD ECONOMIC ISSUES
All my consultations confirm that, as was the case at Melbourne, Heads of Government attach overwhelming importance to the discussion of economic issues at New Delhi. For some Commonwealth countries the general economic situation is even more serious now than two years ago. A process of recovery is underway in the United States, and to a more limited degree in some OECD countries; but there is uncertainty about its strength and durability. Taken as a whole, there is general agreement that the world economy remains in need of 'intensive care' and that the assessment which Commonwealth leaders made in their Melbourne Declaration remains valid, namely:
"that what is at stake, in terms of how hundreds of
millions will live or die; of the prospects for cooperation or conflict; and of the prospects for economic advance or stagnation is of such vital importance in human terms that it would be an indictment of this generation if that political will
and the readiness to find a creative compromise were
not found".
At New Delhi, Commonwealth leaders will have before them two studies which they commissioned at Melbourne. The first, PROTECTIONISM: THREAT TO INTERNATIONAL ORDER, is the work of the Group which was set up to study the impact of protectionism on developing countries in particular and its implications worldwide as well. As envisaged, the report was made available to the GATT Ministerial Meeting in 1982. The second study relates to the obstacles to progress in the North-South dialogue arising from the negotiating process itself. That report, NORTH-SOUTH DIALOGUE: MAKING IT WORK, was also published in 1982. Both reports have attracted wide international notice and been welcomed for their dispassionate professionalism, candour and practical thrust.
More specifically, however, Heads of Government at New Delhi will have before them a new major study, TOWARDS A NEW BRETTON WOODS: CHALLENGES FOR THE WORLD FINANCIAL AND TRADING SYSTEM. Commissioned by Commonwealth Finance Ministers in 1982, this Report by a most distinguished Expert Group has been welcomed just recently by Commonwealth Finance Ministers (at their September meeting in Port of Spain) "as a major contribution to the ongoing search for answers to
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