What can the Asia-Pacific Region Expect from the Nairobi Conference?
Abstract
The contemporary human predicament is marked by some absurd paradoxes. By 1980 the five-fold increase in the price of crude oil in real terms since 1972 had resulted in an annual expenditure of $50 million for oil imports by developing countries. The World Bank, concerned about the considerable strain on the balance of payment of oil importing developing countries, initiated a modest $13 billion program of loans for the development of energy resources over the five-year period 1981-1985. Yet, according to SIPRI, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, in 1980 the Third World spent $80 billion on defense. The ten-year investment schedule for an expanded energy program in the oil importing developing countries, which the World Bank considers desirable and feasible, would require $450 to $500 billion (in 1980 dollars). According to SIPRI, the world spent $500 billion in 1980 alone on defense. Obviously, the energy crisis is not due to an absolute lack of resources but to their misallocation. A modest transfer of ten percent of global defense expenditures--which would not leave any nation at the mercy of its enemies--to an energy resources development fund would advance considerably the modernization of the Third World and also reduce international tensions caused by the sharpening competition for natural resources.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jul 15, 1981
- Accession Number
- ADA118037
Entities
People
- Guy J. Pauker
Organizations
- RAND Corporation