UN General Assembly
1984

17. In this context, we should be able to agree that there is ample evidence that the situation of the developing countries in general is worsening. The statistical data charting the decline are there to be seen. But, as is often the case, the figures do not fully reveal the facts. The situation which confronts developing countries is even more ominous than the statistical evidence might indicate. The sobering truth is that the industrialized countries have already begun to employ the technologies of the future in areas such as micro-processing and bio-technology while much of Asia, Africa and, indeed, Latin America and the Caribbean is still dependent on the technologies of the past. 18. Differences in technological and scientific sophistication, productive capacity and levels of development are certain to grow, not diminish, in such circumstances.