UN proclaims 1996 as Poverty Eradication Year: progress on 'Agenda for Development.' (includes related article on outline of program for September 5-13, 1994International Conference on Population).

The year 1996 was proclaimed the Year for the Eradication of Poverty by the General Assembly on 21 December. That text was among 52 resolutions and 18 decisions adopted by the General Assembly on the recommendation of its Second Committee (Economic and Financial).

Issues considered ranged from the environment to the international economy, from population and human settlements to international humanitarian assistance.

The Assembly welcomed the intended completion of the Secretary-General's proposed Agenda for Development" this year. It also decided to convene in Japan in 1994 a World Conference on Natural Disaster Reduction.

The concept of development had to be rethought, Nitin Desai, Under- Secretary-general for Policy Coordination and Sustainable Development, told the Second Committee on 8 October.

The world today is not the same as 30 years ago, when the concept of development was originally framed, he said. The urge to rethink development had grown from the gap between promise and results, as well as from interdependence, the globalization of production, the impact of regional integration and the effects of global communication. A development policy had to give priority to health and education, as well as such areas as the protection of the environment.

Furthermore, the Secretary-general reported (A/48/689) in a note on 29 November, traditional approaches to development had failed to transform poor countries and countries in postconflict situations". The assumption of conditions of peace, on which development strategies had traditionally been built, was in stark contrast with the actual situation prevailing in a growing number of countries in Africa and elsewhere.

An Agenda for Development" would complement his june 1992 An Agenda for Peace", by addressing the "deeper foundations of global peace and security in the economic, social and environmental spheres", the Secretary-general said. An open, working Agenda should launch a "new process of dialogue where all States can contribute to the determination of their common future".

Many Member States had referred to peace and development as the major twin themes of international cooperation". An "Agenda for Development" could redress what is seen as a risk of marginalization of the UN system in the economic and social sphere.

However, the complexity of issues to be addressed in an Agenda for Development" required a longer timeframe for elaboration than envisaged by the Assembly when it first...