UN General Assembly
1982

Cooperation and Development at Cancun held out so much promise. We in Barbados think it is deplorable that the search for a solution to the fundamental economic problems of this world should be hampered by lack of action on the part of the industrialized countries. It is even sadder when one realizes that in obstructing global negotiations, those countries are frustrating endeavors to combat hunger and poverty two problems that are endemic to most of the third world and are the natural consequences of the old, unjust order. I believe that the serious obstacles to the efficient utilization of human and material resources for development are a result of the current state of international economic relations. The present economic order must be replaced by one based on equity, sovereign equality, common interests and cooperation. Developing countries, and even some developed ones, have expressed a desire to see the present system replaced. My country would like to see the entire international community summon the necessary political will to cure