Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 May 2014
Ever since Raúl Prebisch, UNCTAD's first Secretary General, called attention to it in his famous 1964 report (UNCTAD, 1964), the commodities problem has been a priority item on the international agenda in the various forums where the North-South dialogue has been taking place. When the First Lomé Convention was signed on 28 February 1975 between the nine countries of the European Economic Community (EEC) and forty-six African, Caribbean, and Pacific (ACP) states, it was hailed as a major achievement, exemplary of the New International Economic Order (NIEO) then emerging within the wider framework of the North-South dialogue.
In particular, much was made of the EEC countries' attempt to come to grips with the commodities problem by agreeing to set up a scheme (known as “Stabex” in Lomé parlance) for the stabilization of export earnings from commodities exported by the ACP states to the EEC. This system, generally held as the most innovative feature of the Lomée Convention, seemed to meet some, if not all, of the demands voiced by the developing countries in the context of the NIEO on the problem of commodities.
Yet, this was by no means a gratuitous gesture on the part of the EEC. In the first place, the Community's acute awareness of its dependence on raw materials imports from the ACP states, as well as of the latter's dependence on raw materials exports to the EEC, tended to make it responsive to the ACP states' demands in the area of commodities.