Abstract
At the beginning of the 1960s, the wave of decolonization reached the African continent and swept through it with force. The “African year”, as 1960 came to be known, saw a multitude of countries following the trailblazers Ghana and Guinea into independence. The “wind of change which is blowing through this continent”,1 in the words of British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan that same year, left an indelible mark on the ILO, which notched up 16 new members in 1960 alone.2 By 1965 its membership had more than doubled in comparison with 1947, from 55 to 115 countries.3 This influx of new members was viewed by the ILO first and foremost as another major step towards fulfilling its aim of becoming truly universal. For the first time, the Organization could really claim to be active all over the world.
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Notes
See the list in V.-Y. Ghebali: The International Labour Organization: A case study on the evolution of UN specialized agencies (Dordrecht, Nijfhoff, 1989), pp. 117 ff.
See H.-I. Schmidt and H. Pharo: “European development policy”, in Contemporary European History (2003), Vol. 12, No. 4, p. 389.
E. Luard: History of the United Nations, Vol. 2: The age of decolonization 1955–1965 (Basingstoke, Macmillan, 1989), p. 186.
For a general background, see J. Peters: Israel and Africa: The problematic friendship (Reading, University of Reading Academic Press, 1992).
E.C. Lorenz: Defining global justice: The history of US international labor standards policy (Notre Dame, Ind., University of Notre Dame Press, 2001), pp. 189–94.
See M.F. Imber: The USA, ILO, UNESCO and IAEA: Politicization and withdrawal in the specialized agencies (Basingstoke/New York, Palgrave/Macmillan, 1989).
P.G. Lauren: Power and prejudice: The politics and diplomacy of racial discrimination, 2nd edn (Boulder, Colo./San Francisco, Westview, 1996), pp. 240–41.
See A. Alcock: History of the International Labour Organization (London, Macmillan, 1970), p. 330.
See ILO: Apartheid in labour matters: ILO policy statements and reports concerning apartheid in labour matters in South Africa, 1964–1966 (Geneva, 1966), pp. 1–45.
See L. Emmerij, R. Jolly and T.G. Weiss: Ahead of the curve? UN ideas and global challenges (Bloomington/Indianapolis, Ind., Indiana University Press, 2001), pp. 44–50.
On how the Federal Republic of Germany was incorporated, see also H.-I. Schmidt: “Pushed to the front: The foreign assistance policy of the Federal Republic of Germany, 1958–1971”, in Contemporary European History (2003), Vol. 12, No. 4, pp. 473–507.
See R. Packenham: Liberal America and the Third World: Political development ideas in foreign aid and social science (Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 1973), pp. 59–85.
ILO: The role of the International Labour Organization in the promotion of economic growth and social progress in developing countries (Geneva, 1961), p. 24.
For an outline of the debates surrounding development policy in the transition process from colonial to post-colonial discourse, see Cooper, “Modernizing bureaucrats, backward Africans, and the development concept”, in F. Cooper and R. Packard (eds): International development and the social sciences: Essays on the history and politics of knowledge (Berkeley/Los Angeles/London, University of California Press, 1997).
ILO: A great adventure of our time: Technical cooperation and the ILO (Geneva, 1962), pp. 7–10.
D.A. Morse: “The World Employment Programme”, in International Labour Review (1968), Vol. 97, No. 6, pp. 518–19.
D.A. Morse: The origin and evolution of the ILO and its role in the world community (Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press, 1969), p. 89.
On how the WEP fitted in with the UN’s strategy change towards a poverty-centred approach, see especially Emmerij, Jolly and Weiss: Ahead of the curve?, pp. 60–80;
C.P. Oman and G. Wignarajan: The post-war evolution of development thinking (New York, St Martin’s Press, 1992), pp. 99–100.
ILO: Africa and the ILO (Geneva, 1960), pp. 23–24.
ILO: Contribution of the ILO to the raising of incomes and living conditions in rural communities, with particular reference to countries in the process of development (Geneva, 1960).
See ILO: The role of agricultural organisations in promoting economic and social development in rural areas (Geneva, 1965).
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Maul, D. (2012). A New Power: The ILO and the Growing Importance of the Developing World in the 1960s. In: Human Rights, Development and Decolonization. International Labour Organization (ILO) Century Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230358638_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230358638_9
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