Eventful Life

Dr Maurice Odle's professional life as an academic and senior national, regional and international civil servant intersected with the clash of two powerful economic forces, namely the economic nationalism of the underdeveloped world and the profit maximising operations of foreign transnational corporations. While developing countries, in recent decades, have significantly increased their capacity for dealing with foreign investment issues and the nexus areas of international trade, finance and transfer of technology, the West has frustrated them in their efforts to bring about fundamental change in international economic relations and in the neo-liberal rules of the game. For example, the United Nations initiative(s) of the developing countries with respect to a New International Economic Order (relating mainly to trade) fell apart by the end of the 1970s; intensive negotiations on a Code of Conduct on Transnational Corporations were abandoned in the early1990s; and negotiations with respect to 'Financing for Development' (that were supposed to usher in a new financial order) continue to be agonisingly slow; policy making remains essentially the preserve of the Washingtonbased Bretton Woods institutions, like the IMF and the World Bank. Developing countries have been attempting to diversify their sources of foreign capital, but the USA is pressuring them to not accept investment from China which, paradoxically, is at the same time under a USA-led sanctions embargo designed to prevent that country from acquiring investment (or tradeable goods) with advanced semi-conductor technology. The struggle for a more equitable economic order continues.