It is certainly better for the poor to be able to earn their living than to be put on indefinite international charity. But unless their access to market opportunities is increased, there is little chance for poor people or poor nations to break out of their poverty trap. The situation looks even more difficult when the widening disparities in higher levels of education, technology and information systems are added to the picture. The combination of technological disparities and limited market opportunities can be a devastating one. The primary responsibility lies, of course, with the developing countries.
Global reforms can never substitute for national reforms.
The developing countries must improve their economic management, liberate their private initiative and invest in the education of their people and in the technological progress of their societies. The basis for such a further advance has already been laid by the rapid strides in basic education and primary health care in most developing countries, as our first two Reports have demonstrated. These countries managed to achieve spectacular increases in their share of the global markets. The share of East and Southeast Asia in world trade doubled between 1970 and 1990, as did that of China. While there is a good deal that the developing countries must do, the Report also identifies a fatal contradiction in the global economic system.