WINDS OF CHANGE

Finally, I would like to make one observation which takes me back to what I said at the beginning of my remarks. There is no question that rapid economic progress in the developing world can only be achieved primarily by the efforts and sacrifices of the people in the developing countries themselves. But poor as they are, the people in the developing world have aspirations for a higher standard of living. They desire also a life of freedom and dignity, a greater sense of equality between groups and classes and an opportunity to enlarge their general cultural and other horizons for a full and varied life. Economic progress has not only to be reconciled with but made an integral part of this gene­ral progress towards social justice and individual freedom and dignity. This harmony between economic and social objectives. between growth and freedom is not easy to achieve and cannot be achieved in most developing countries without fundamental institutional changes. It will not do to think that the developing world can progress along any pre-determined course merely be­cause some other countries have been able to progress along that course in the past. The problems and the situation in most developing countries today are far more complex. The res­ponse in terms of effort not only of saving and investment but also of imagination and boldness in evolving new institutional and orga­nisational pattern has also got to be much greater. Whether we like it or not, the world partnership that we seek will have to be a partnership based on diversity and indeed of a rapidly changing pattern of diversity. Those of us who are in charge or affairs, whether national or international, whether in private busi­ness or otherwise, will have to answer this call of change not merely passively by adjusting to it but even more actively by anticipating institutional and other changes that come in an orderly and constructive manner. I emphasise this point because I sometimes feel that in our anxiety to create one world and a better world, we often tend to forget that in an enterprise of this magnitude the only unity that is possible is that of diversity.