Ekonomska osnova i ciljevi nesvrstavanja
The Economic Basis and Aims of Nonalignment

Summary/Abstract: During the period of a total of some fifteen years we have witnessed numerous events on the international political scene on the basis of which gradually but continually the activity of the nonaligned countries has affirmed itself. A series of important international meetings have expressly tied their activity up with the idea of nonalignment and an even greater number of occasions has been used as a means of helping countries which have based their international activity on the principles of nonalignment to realise those principles through mutual action. Were we to make a hasty analysis of the international meetings which gathered together the nonaligned countries, as also those in which the countries, as a group, took active part, we would notice not only specific changes which accompanied the maturation of the nonalignment movement, but also the ever more strongly expressed striving towards economic closeness and cooperation between the nonaligned countries themselves and dependence on their own resources in further economic development. The Belgrade Conference in 1961 has already clearly pointed out the importance of mutual economic cooperation among the nonaligned countries. Nor was this important area of international relations disregarded in the documents of the Cairo Conference of Heads of States and Governments of nonaligned countries in 1964. Along with this, the need for intensive cooperation in the areas of education, sciences and culture among nonaligned countries was further emphasised. It is certain that the Conference of nonaligned countries held in Lusaka in September 1970 gave the clearest and widest basis for mutual cooperation among the nonaligned countries, precisely stating not only the immediate contents and form of economic cooperation, but also defining clearly the obstacles which lie in the way of such cooperation and weaken it; obstacles such as the different forms of colonial, imperialist and neocolonial domination. At this Conference, the participants did not try to place the responsibility for the existing relations, particularly for further economic development, exclusively on the shoulders of the developed, and particularly the capitalist countries, but they pointed out the need for deep internal changes and reforms within the nonaligned countries themselves; primarily political and social reforms. They also came to the conclusion that it is absolutely necessary to give a planned and organised character to their economic development. In its detailed work and results which are of historic importance, the 4th Conference of Heads of States and Governments of nonaligned countries held from 5th to 9th September 1973 in Algiers, an important place was given to economic cooperation between the nonaligned countries. In many points the programme worked out at the previous Conference of nonaligned countries in Lusaka, was reaffirmed. In Algiers, various decisions were made which represent the realisation of the complex functional binding together of the national economies of the nonaligned countries, particularly with the aim of achieving a faster and more co-ordinated economic development. In this process, dependence on one's own resources is, in fact, still in the first phase, while various forms of self-help such as the creation of solidarity funds, are just some of the many potential possibilities. The principle of dependence on one's own individual and collective resources, which was given particular weight in Lusaka, should be particularly kept in mind when considering the economic aims of nonalignment, as that is a principle which cannot be realised if it is not based on real possibilities and needs — on the economic basis of nonalignment.

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