UN General Assembly
1990

During the 1980s world economic growth was slow, highly imbalanced and uneven compared to the previous two decades of the 1970s and 1960s. World output grew by just over 30 per cent in the 1980s, more slowly than in the 1970s, when it increased by over 45 per cent and at a higher rate in the 1960s. That slow expansion of the global economy was characterised by great contrast in experiences and performance. While on the one hand it was a period in which the developed market economies witnessed the longest, uninterrupted growth and expansion since the Second World War, the majority of the developing countries, on the other hand, were faced with continued stagnation and declining economies. The 1980s was, for most developing countries, a decade of struggling under unyielding economic crisis, which seriously hindered progress towards the improvement of economic and social conditions resulting in increasing and widespread acute poverty. Yet the global economy experienced increasing interdependence, increasing population, increasing environmental concerns, increasing trade protectionism, increasing development and application of science and technology and increasing flows of financial resources.