Special session on international economic co-operation set for 1990.

• Position: 43rd Assembly - Includes related information

A special session of the General Assembly devoted to international economic co-operation, with particular emphasis on the economic growth and development of developing countries, will be held in New York from 23 to 27 April 1990.

The world body, meeting in resumed session, took the decision on 7 March by a vote of 123 to 1 (United States), with no abstentions, after intensive debate and negotiation in its Second Committee (Economic and Financial).

The session is expected to provide guidelines for a new international development strategy, to be operative during the Fourth UN Development Decade in the 1990s, and should culminate in the adoption of a document on ways of achieving multilateral co-operation in the economic field.

The United States opposed the decision, stating that while it supported initiatives to help developing countries, and would continue to do so, it felt that the proliferation" of special sessions of the Assembly diminished their value, and that the 1990 session would overlap in scope and substance with existing arrangements for dealing with economic matters.

The Assembly, which met in resumed session from 14 February through 7 March, also approved without votes an appropriation of $416 million to finance the United Nations Transition Assistance Group (UNTAG) to oversee elections leading to Namibia's independence (see section, p.4), and another $9.2 million to finance the United Nations Angola Verification Mission (UNAVEM), which is monitoring the withdrawal of Cuban troops from...