Sidney Dell and the Development Dialogue

Abstract

Sidney Dell played many roles in the course of his long career in the United Nations. Many of these have been described in the introductory chapter of this volume. My wish here is to highlight his special contribution to the shaping of UNCTAD, to the substance of its agenda, and hence to the development dialogue in general. His contributions to these matters were in many ways those of an architect working closely with Rail Prebisch, the founding father of UNCTAD. My first acquaintance with Sidney Dell was in Geneva in the summer of 1963 when Prebisch convened a number of economists for a ‘brainstorming’ session preparatory to UNCTAD 1 in 1964. Already at that time, both Prebisch and Dell were reflecting deeply on the strategic themes of the Conference. I had the opportunity to learn more of these themes when Dell invited me to join them in New York in the autumn of 1963.