TNAG-1066-FCO40-1316-Human-rights-in-Hong-Kong-1981 — Page 112

E/CN.4/1503 page 36

73. Thirdly, there is food scarcity and soaring food prices in many less developed countries. Quite apart from other factors, the spiralling oil prices of the 1970s hit the South hard and

may have made the cost of transportation prohibitive. With the need for hard currency to purchase imports even

imports even more acute,

food production has sometimes come to be sacrificed in favour of

export crops.

Furthermore, the uprooting of peasants by economic policies adopted by élitist governments, the loss of

livestock and crops through inclement weather conditions and

central government methods which turn out to be disincentives

to some agricultural workers to produce more food are among the elements contributing to scarcity and spiralling prices. result, a 50 per cent increase in per capita income in the

South may take 30 years to achieve, as in the period since 1950, while in the North the growth rate may be at least twice to three times higher.

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74. Fourthly, growing inflation and unemployment may be chronic in the South, where unemployment may be as high as 50 per cent nationally and be even higher in urban areas. Without investment in what has been called human development including the raising of educational and skills levels and the improving of health and the South finds it difficult to keep inflation down and create sufficient jobs. These problems may already have been exacerbated by the flight of skilled manpower to developed countries.

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75. A fifth element to be taken into account is the ecological deterioration which natural

natural or man-made disasters have wrought. The process of deforestation which has gone on for centuries,

overgrazing, the recent incidence across many areas of the third world of severe drought conditions which destroyed plant and wild life, and damage to the environment in times of war have led to a worsening of conditions in many countries of the South.

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