The architects of the post-war international economic system had recognized the need for official financing to counteract the insufficiency of private capital flows and, since the 1960s, there has been an increasing perception of the need to support developing countries, an issue that became embedded in the politics of decolonization and the cold war. The surge of private financing to developing countries beginning in the 1970s and the end of the cold war generated an increasing realization that the era of official development financing had passed. However, the vagaries of private capital flows during the 1980s and, again, since the. | Official development financing 109 Chapter IV Official development financing The architects of the post-war international economic system had recognized the need for official financing to counteract the insufficiency of private capital flows and since the 1960s there has been an increasing perception of the need to support developing countries an issue that became embedded in the politics of decolonization and the cold war. The surge of private financing to developing countries beginning in the 1970s and the end of the cold war generated an increasing realization that the era of official development financing had passed. However the vagaries of private capital flows during the 1980s and again since the 1997 Asian crisis in addition to the increasing marginalization of the poorest countries from the world economy have led to a renewed focus on the critical role of official development finance. The International Conference on Financing for Development was a landmark in this process. The present chapter explores the issues involved. It looks first at official development assistance ODA then at the multilateral development banks and South-South cooperation and lastly at an array of alternatives that should be grouped under the heading of innovative sources of financing . Official development assistance The transfer of resources from developed to developing countries has been at the centre of policies to promote development in the United Nations since the 1950s. In its resolution 400 V of 20 November 1950 the General Assembly had noted that the domestic financial resources of the underdeveloped countries together with the international flow of capital for investment had not been sufficient to assure the desired rate of economic development and that the accelerated economic development of underdeveloped countries required a more effective and sustained mobilization of domestic savings and an expanded and more stable flow of foreign capital investment. Two years later the
