The International Response

In response to these profound challenges, the industrialized nations of the world mobilized their resources and coordinated as never before. Among their first steps together was a gathering of senior representatives from the wealthy countries' foreign assistance programs at the Tidewater Inn in Easton, Maryland, in 1968. This first meeting of the directors of the 17 different foreign assistance programs was the beginning of a 30-year collaboration to combat poverty and promote decent living standards in the developing world. Working with the governments and people of the developing world, the international community committed itself to collaboratively address the root challenges of development. However, the task ahead seemed difficult indeed.

The Green Revolution

One of the greatest areas of concern for policy-makers in those days was the food situation in India. In 1966 and 1967, India had been battered by severe monsoons. Some estimated that 50 million Indians might die from the resulting famines. To meet the immediate need, the United States and other donors mobilized massive amounts of food aid to prevent mass starvation.

Even more importantly, the international community made the long term investments that allowed India to dramatically increase its own food production. Called the Green Revolution, the use of new seed varieties and agricultural techniques boosted India's wheat production by 500 percent and more than doubled rice production.

Indeed, research - much of it made possible by foreign assistance programs - has increased agricultural yields around the world since World War II by more than the previous 1,000 years combined. The best indicator of success? When India faced a major drought in 1978, it was largely able to meet its own food needs.

The Fight Against Disease

Donor assistance programs, carried out in close cooperation with developing countries, a range of non-governmental and development organizations and concerned citizens, have also been crucial in fighting one of mankind's oldest scourges: disease.

Smallpox is estimated to have killed 300 million people during the 20th century - nearly all poor people, since the well-to-do had the means to protect themselves. Indeed, the basic means to prevent smallpox - vaccination with cowpox - was discovered more than 200 years ago. But even with the vaccine, smallpox continued to rage in the impoverished nations of the developing world.

A concerted international campaign, coordinated by the World Health Organization, led to the eradication of smallpox. This effort offers a powerful demonstration of the benefits of international cooperation. Elimination of smallpox was not the result of new technology or vastly greater health spending. Rather, it resulted from smarter spending and better coordination by the donor agencies, who launched the eradication campaign in 1967, and the tremendous commitment of public health officials in the developing world.

The last case of smallpox was recorded in a small village in Somalia in 1977. Not a single case has been reported in the last two decades.

The benefits of eradicating smallpox went to both developing and developed nations alike. The United States - although it had almost no smallpox cases in the late 1960s - still spent $150 million in 1968 on smallpox immunizations and surveillance. Since vaccination is no longer required, the United States is able to entirely avoid this cost, equivalent to $708 million in today's dollars.

The next success in the campaign against infectious diseases will likely be polio, which has been eliminated from the Western Hemisphere, with global eradication possible around the year 2000.

Clean Water and Sanitation

Development assistance and international cooperation have also been crucial in bringing safe water and sanitation to millions of people. The 1980s were declared the International Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation Decade in an effort to tackle one of the most important problems in the developing world. Dirty water and inadequate sanitation are directly linked to the illnesses that are the leading causes of infant mortality in the developing world, and also provide a fertile breeding ground for malaria-carrying mosquitoes and cholera. The donor community and its partners agreed to make a major push to improve water and sanitation conditions during the 1980s.

During that decade, dramatic gains were achieved. About 1.5 billion more people now had an adequate and safe water supply, and about 750 million gained access to sanitation. A number of new approaches were adopted. As a result of increased awareness of the need to involve women in all aspects of water supply and sanitation, the decade also became a vehicle for the social advancement of women.

Improvements in approach and technology have provided a basis for continued investment during the 1990s. However, about 1 billion people in developing countries still lack access to clean water, and 2 billion people still lack adequate sanitation service.

Oral Rehydration Therapy

Perhaps the greatest life-saving breakthrough in human history can be credited to a simple packet of salt and sugar that costs about seven cents, known throughout the world as ORT

Diarrhea is one of the biggest causes of infant mortality in developing countries, leading to more than 3 million deaths of children under 5 each year. Deaths caused by diarrhea can be easily prevented by simple, cost-effective interventions, notably the use of oral rehydration therapy, or ORT

Scientists from two cholera research projects in Bangladesh funded by foreign assistance programs first demonstrated success with ORT in adult cholera patients in the late 1960s. Subsequent field trials supported by development agencies in Egypt, Mali, Guatemala and other countries demonstrated that ORT had enormous life-saving potential. UNICEF estimates that its use has saved over 1 million young lives a year in the developing world.

From the Green Revolution, to eradicating smallpox, to ORT to providing clean drinking water for a billion more people during the 1980s, international cooperation and the hard work of the people of the developing world have produced some remarkable successes since development ministers gathered at the Tidewater Inn in Easton, Maryland, some 30 years ago. Thanks to forward-looking investments, and the tremendous commitment of the people of the developing world to improve their own lives, the dark forecasts of the late 1960s did not become a reality.