Profile of Kenneth K. S Dadzie

By Geraldine Sibanda | 2025

Publications

1. Kenneth K. S Dadzie, “Trade and Development Report, 1994: An Overview”, https://doi.org/10.1177/0015732515940208.

2. Kenneth Dadzie, “The United Nations and the problem of economic development”, in Adam Roberts and Benedict Kingsbury (eds), United Nations, Divided World: the UN’s Roles in International Relations (Clarendon Press, 1988): 139–157.

Figure One: Dadzie’s Illustrious UN Career

Introduction

In 2015, Ghana’s Standard Chartered Bank established the Kenneth Dadzie Memorial Education Trust Fund in honour of Ambassador Kenneth K.S Dadzie, an eminent diplomat and international economic thinker remembered for his multiple roles (see figure one) within the UN system at the height of which, he was Secretary General of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD)(see figures one and two). Recalling Dadzie's humble background and commitment to poverty alleviation in Africa, the Trust Fund finances underprivileged postgraduate economics and business students in Ghanaian Universities.[1] Born on 10 September 1930, Dadzie joined Ghana’s civil service in 1952, its foreign service in 1955 and eventually graduated with an economics degree from the University of Cambridge.[2] In 1963, he joined the United Nations (UN), first as a diplomat and later as an international civil servant, contributing immensely to the economic thinking of Africa and the global South. Paying tribute to Dadzie, following his passing in October 1995, Rubens Ricupero, former Secretary-General of the UNCTAD (see figure two), likened Dadzie’s vision for the development of the global South to that of Raul Prebisch (see figure two), describing him as a “pragmatic” man driven by consensus.[3] The comparison to Prebisch seemed appropriate in that UNCTAD went through a radical ideological and organisational shift under the leadership of Kenneth Dadzie. Dadzie’s demeanour, on the other hand, is likened to that of Kofi Annan, also Ghanaian and former UN Secretary-General (1997-2006). The comparison to Anan arises from Dadzie’s “soft-spoken” demeanour that earned him a description as a “diplomat’s diplomat” who possessed “vast inside knowledge of the UN and its member states and had a great persistence in seeking consensus”.[4] Dadzie's illustrious UN career depicted in Figure One, demonstrates his commitment to the development of the global South, in general, and Africa, in particular. His work in the Committee of Decolonisation, the restructuring of the UN, his role in advocating a New International Economic Order (NIEO) and, importantly, the repurposing of UNCTAD into the organisation it is today, as will be discussed in what follows, exemplifies such commitment.

Dadzie and the Restructuring of the UN System

Dadzie was involved in the numerous attempts to restructure the UN, particularly in its bid to make it more effective in driving the development agenda in the global South. One of these many attempts was during the second development decade. In 1975, Section VII of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) Seventh Special Session passed Resolution 3362(S-VII) – Development of International Economic Cooperation, which established the Ad-Hoc Committee on the Restructuring of the Economic and Social Sectors of the UN System, and Dadzie was subsequently appointed Committee Chairman. The Ad-Hoc Committee was a product of the recommendation of an earlier Group of Experts on the Structure of the United Nations System chaired by Tanzanian Al Noor Kassum.[5] Of the nine major UN structural problems identified by the Group of Experts in its Report – A New United Nations Structure for Global Economic Cooperation, was the urgent need to align the variegated economic and social sector arms of the UN in a manner that would increase the System’s capacity to solve the development question. Among its extensive proposals to change the UN system, the Kassum Report advocated that the “Second Committee (Economic and Financial) be renamed the Committee on Development and International Economic Cooperation and that certain social development items discussed in the Third (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) Committee be transferred to it. The Third Committee would be renamed the Committee on Social Problems, Human Rights and Humanitarian Activities". This change would be accompanied by a new role in the Secretariat of Director-General for Development and International Economic Cooperation, a role Dadzie later occupied.

The mandate of the Dadzie-led Ad-Hoc Committee, whose membership was open to all UNGA members, therefore, was to develop proposals specifically to restructure the UN's economic and social sectors and equip it to deal with the problems of underdevelopment. Most importantly, because it was a UNGA Committee set up in the 1970s, its mandate included ensuring that the UN system was “more responsive to the requirements of the provisions of the Declaration and the Programme of Action on the Establishment of the New International Economic Order”.[6] The NIEO was a product of lobbying by the global South, actualised on 1 May 1974 by Resolutions 3201 (S-VI) and 3202 (S-VI) wherein the  Declaration and the Programme of Action on the Establishment of a NIEO is contained. The NIEO was premised on restructuring the skewed international system and creating equality between developed countries in the North and developing countries in the South.[7] Primarily in fulfilment of the NIEO objectives, therefore, the Ad-Hoc Committee came up with wide-ranging proposals on the operations of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), regional economic commissions, the UN secretariat, UN forums for trade negotiations, and the financing of economic development in underdeveloped countries.[8] In endorsing the Report, the successful completion of the work of the Ad-Hoc Committee was directed at Dadzie, with the representatives of the European Economic Commission (EEC) and Group of 77(G77) praising Dadzie for his competence, fairness and integrity.[9]

At the tail end of his career, Dadzie was involved in yet another initiative to restructure the UN’s economic and social sectors. In November 1992, Secretary-General Boutros – Boutros Ghali (1991-1996) appointed Dadzie to “assist in implementing the reform of the United Nations Secretariat in the economic and social fields”.[10]The Dadzie Report of 7 February 1993 recommended separating the Office of Project Services and UNDP so that the latter focuses solely on "funding and coordinating development assistance" which would avoid duplication of services within the UN system.[11]  Thus, UNGA established the United Nations Office of Project Services (UNOPS) in 1994.[12]

Dadzie in the era of the New International Economic Order (NIEO)

A significant part of Dadzie’s UN career was dedicated to lobbying for equality between North and South. At the height of lobbying for such equality by the global South, in April 1978, Dadzie was appointed the first Director-General for Development and International Economic Cooperation, a post that arose from the earlier mentioned Kassum Group of Experts and Dadzie-led UNGA committee. There was a lack of consensus in the establishment of the post, with opposition arising from the socialist bloc, which argued that the establishment of such a post would not "in itself lead to greater effectiveness in the work of the UN secretariat…there is [was] no need to establish within the Secretariat, yet another category of high-level officials".[13] On the contrary, in Africa, the news of Dadzie’s appointment headlined the Council of Ministers of the Organisation of African Union (OAU), warranting a whole Resolution with leaders expressing "pride at seeing a son of Africa occupy the high post of Director General for Economic Cooperation at a time when the entire International Community and the developing countries in particular are taking an active part in the preparation and establishment of the New International Economic Order", while simultaneously assuring him of the organisation’s support.[14]

Like many international thinkers from the global South, Dadzie was an avid supporter of the NIEO. As Director of International Economic Cooperation, Dadzie’s job entailed the fulfilment of the ideals of the NIEO leading to his constant condemnation the gross inequality between North and South. His support for the NIEO is exemplified by a lengthy and passionate speech Dadzie gave before the UNGA Second Committee (Economic and Financial) in 1979. Excerpts from the speech reproduced below explain the details of the NIEO and why its successful implementation was important:  

Mr Chairman, the characteristic feature of the Declaration of the Programme of Action on the establishment of the NIEO is based on the premise that systemic changes must be made in the world economy to take the developing countries out of their condition of dependence on the developed countries, a dependence which is not only a result but also an important contributory cause of their underdevelopment…the international economic System might operate in a manner that is far more equitable, as well as efficient, and far more supportive than is presently the case of the development efforts of the developing countries…

   Central to the attainment of these [NIEO] objectives is the promotion of collective self-reliance by the developing countries for the purpose of exploiting the complementarities of their economies, achieving fuller mobilisation of their resources, and strengthening their capacity both to evolve common policies and to take joint action to effect improvements in their relationships with the developed countries. It can thus be seen that the NIEO is based on what are at once a set of principles and set of goals – namely, equity, sovereign equality, genuine symmetrical interdependence, common interest, and cooperation among States, irrespective of their economic and social systems…

     Indeed, if the history of the developing countries in the period since the 2nd WW shows anything, it is surely that political independence is far from being a sufficient condition for the easing of economic subordination, and that developing countries acting individually can make only limited progress in restructuring their external economic relationships…Mr Chairman, political independence and economic subordination may be able to coexist for a time, but they cannot do so peacefully or for very long. Tension between the two is unavoidable. The conflict can be resolved – and eventually must be resolved – in only one way, namely, by establishing genuine interdependence. Hence the need for structural change so designed as to remove the remnants of the colonial System with its distortions and of traditional or pre-colonial systems with their inherent stagnation…

      The resolution of these problems requires far-reaching changes. Simple recourse to monetary and fiscal restrictions, to cutbacks in consumption levels, to protectionist measures or to reductions in aid flows may provide temporary respite for individual countries but is bound to accentuate the underlying disequilibrium in the System as a whole…

Increased collective self-reliance must, therefore be seen as a goal of the NIEO and, at the same time, an instrument for the attainment of that Order, for it will give the developing countries a greater measure of economic influence and thereby help redress the imbalance in bargaining power between North and South…

     …it has become more imperative than ever that the international community should move with vigour and determination, first to mobilise the political commitment to make progress towards the NIEO and translate this commitment into action…[15]

Towards UNCTAD Reform

Figure Two: UNCTAD Secretaries – General (1964-present)

Dadzie made his most lasting impact at UNCTAD where he significantly restructured the organisation to what it is today. Although his pursuit for equality between North and South remained intact, Dadzie saw the 1980s as a time for strategic realignment if the South was to attain the desired equality and once at UNCTAD, he implemented a new vision for the organisation and its relationship with both the North and South. UNGA decisions 40/308 of 21 November 1985, 43/313 of 29 November 1988, and 46/316B secured Dadzie’s two-term tenure as UNCTAD Secretary General.[16] UNCTAD is a UNGA organ created through UNGA Resolution 1785 (XVII) of 1964.[17] The first SG of UNCTAD, Raul Prebisch, responsible for its structural and ideological development, saw the organ as “an instrument of change” and even “a fighting institution” in favour of the global South, he enunciated this vision as follows:

By definition of my mandate, I am looking for arrangements which will favour the position of the developing countries. That is what the mandate of UNCTAD is about. Now, I have to be impartial to all parties in the United Nations community, and we are striving to be impartial at all times. But as for neutrality, we are not more neutral to development than WHO [the World Health Organization] is neutral to malaria.[18]

Dadzie had long been disappointed in UNCTAD’s inability to help the South achieve equality; shown earlier in his career by a proposal, as Chairman of the Ad Hoc Committee in the 1970s, to have UNCTAD replaced by a “new international trade organisation”.[19] Upon becoming SG in 1986, he verbalised his disappointment thus; “While there have been considerable achievements over the 20 or more years of UNCTAD's existence, it must be said frankly that, on the whole, the record has fallen short of the possibilities and expectations”.[20] Dadzie was not a lone voice in expressing disappointment in the under achievements of UNCTAD, an organ poised to revolutionise the international trading system. Reflecting on his interactions with UNCTAD, Pérez de Cuéllar, former UN secretary general (1982-1991), expressed the same disappointment - “UNCTAD was a disappointment. I remember it very well. I had been in touch with UNCTAD when I was Secretary- General, and even before. But it never worked properly”.[21] Dadzie thus made some drastic changes to the operations of UNCTAD. The first of these changes was his support of increased foreign direct investments, particularly in Africa, which had previously been dominated by public investments. Second, and perhaps more importantly, in as far as it triggered wide-ranging changes to the mandate and ideology of UNCTAD – Dadzie’s declaration for support of the “rich man’s club”, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).

U-Turn at UNCTAD: Dadzie and the Significance of the Uruguay Round

Dadzie is credited with being “UNCTAD’s first African Secretary-General who drove its [UNCTAD’s] tactical reversal and transformation”, triggered most glaringly, by his support for GATT.[22] At Dadzie’s instigation, UNCTAD began supporting GATT’s Uruguay Round (1986-1994) of negotiations in September 1986 having previously ignored both GATT and the Tokyo Round between 1973 and 1979.[23] The agenda of the Uruguay Round included negotiations on trade in services, intellectual property and trade reform around agriculture and textiles, making it “the biggest negotiating mandate on trade ever agreed”.[24] Dadzie envisioned that the importance of the Uruguay Round of Multilateral Trade Negotiations would be to “strengthen and revitalise the multilateral trading system”, thereby enabling developing countries to meet their development objectives. [25]For Dadzie, if implemented correctly, the Uruguay Round would result in developing countries expanding their trade on “the basis of competitive export sectors”.[26] To achieve this, developing countries needed “enhanced access not only to markets but also to foreign capital and technology, so as to upgrade their own infrastructure and technological capacities”.[27] To this end, the UNCTAD Secretariat, with the assistance of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), provided “a comprehensive programme of technical support to developing countries” involved in the Uruguay Round.[28] The outcome of the Uruguay Round was the creation of the World Trade Organisation, which today is led by Nigerian international economic thinker Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and boasts 166 member countries. The Uruguay Round, therefore, “brought about the biggest reform of the world’s trading system” since the creation of GATT.[29]  However, UNCTAD’s support of the negotiations was not without consequence.

First, due to the collapse of the NIEO, the now fragmented G77 lacked unified demands on commodity trade during the Uruguay Round. Although previously an avid supporter of the NIEO, Dadzie now believed that UNCTAD and the Global South’s window for achieving such a new international economic order “had closed in 1982, when the debt crisis fatally undermined the South’s bargaining power”.[30] Occupied with the Uruguay Round, Dadzie did not seek to repair the fragmentation of the G77 and by extension, the Group’s relationship with UNCTAD. Surendra Patel, UNCTAD Director of the Technology Division, confirmed the changed thinking and relationship between UNCTAD and the G77 – “In the early days, until the 1986 Uruguay Round, UNCTAD had complete access and high-level cooperation with the developing countries and the G77. UNCTAD was officially invited to their meetings, and we would reciprocate”.[31] Therefore, the unification of the G77 and the symbiotic relationship between the G77 and UNCTAD to the levels of the NIEO era, despite an increase of global South membership at GATT (10 joined in 1993, 9 in 1994), vanished, creating individual negotiations and smaller interest-based alliances across the North-South divide.[32]

Second, through its support for the Uruguay Round, UNCTAD officially abandoned its support for the ideals of the NIEO anchored on the overhaul of the international economic system. Instead, UNCTAD began to support the integration of the South “into a reformed global trade system”. UNCTAD's thinking and programs of work and priorities reflected its practical commitment to “accommodating in future the management of globalisation in cooperation with that cooperated with the existing international economic institutions”, a perspective shared by other international thinkers such as de Cuellar.[33]  UNSG Perez de Cuellar believed:

The New International Economic Order was really absurd. I think that if they had concentrated on trade, for instance, and some aspects that were really important for developing countries, it would have been a success. But they wanted to make a revolution that was tremendously dangerous for the developed countries. I was a member of the Peruvian delegation, and I said what I am telling you now: “What about concentrating on trade, for instance?” I was very much against the NIEO, but my government instructed me to vote for it. But in the bottom of my heart, I thought that it was absurd…[34]

Considering UNCTAD’s new path chartered by Dadzie, essentially abandoning the NIEO and calling for reintegrating the South within a reformed international system, it is no wonder that the historic Final Act of UNCTAD VII was adopted in August 1987.[35] The new UNCTAD position was the compromise position for the North as Dadzie announced “a new spirit in North-South relations”.[36] He was seen as  “instrumental in the adoption of the Final Act of UNCTAD VII, which brought about a new consensus on international development cooperation, thereby breaking through the barriers of the North-South divide”.[37] The conference itself was, for the first time, held in informal committees as opposed to group negotiation. While the outcome, now known as the Final Act of UNCTAD VII, was for the first time by consensus and not by vote as was the previous custom. Dadzie “believed that a consensus text had much better credibility than a voted text to which some countries would not feel themselves to be bound”.[38] To achieve such consensus, the UNCTAD secretariat craftily used the "yes but" strategy in drafting of the Final Act, omitting issues that could not fit into this strategy:

Yes, structural adjustment must continue, but adequate external resources must be made available. Yes, domestic resource mobilisation must be strengthened, but these efforts were being hampered by external economic circumstances. Yes, market access issues must be left to GATT negotiations, but UNCTAD should be mandated to do related studies. Yes, UNCTAD should continue its work on trade in services, but this should not exclude other international organisations or hold up the Uruguay Round negotiations.[39]

UNCTAD’s new path also entailed a commitment to liberalisation and privatisation, reflected even more at the UNCTAD VIII Conference convened in Cartegena, Colombia, in 1992. UNCTAD VIII, for the first time since the organisation’s formation, explicitly “recognised private enterprise and the free market as the central drivers of economic growth”, a significant departure from the pro-South development stance anchored on equitable commodities trade. UNCTAD further resolved to limit its role to “policy analysis; intergovernmental deliberation, consensus-building and negotiation; monitoring, implementation and follow-up; and technical cooperation”.[40]A year later, in 1993, UNCTAD became the central organisation within the UN system for “all matters related to foreign direct investment and transnational corporations”, with the aim to “further the understanding of the nature of transnational corporations and their contribution to development and to create an enabling environment for international investment and enterprise development”.[41]  Apart from the explicit changes at Cartegena, the implied changes in UNCTAD’s mandate were that it had stopped being the platform for trade negotiations and deliberations, and importantly, the organ effectively stopped being the overt mouthpiece of the global South in the spirit of fostering "genuine cooperation and solidarity" between North and South. The divide between UNCTAD and the G77 is best reflected in the fact that "since Dadzie, no regular meetings have taken place between the Group of 77 and an UNCTAD Secretary-General".[42]

Dadzie and the new UNCTAD

In sync with his conviction to claim space for the global South within the existing but reformed structures of the international system, Dadzie lobbied for UNCTAD representation at the Bank-chaired Consultative Group meetings for Least Developed Countries - the  Substantial New Program of Action (SNPA).[43] Although his efforts failed, as the Bank insisted that active participation in the consultative group was limited to “donors and agencies which provide a substantial financial contribution to the aid effort in each country”, he continued to lobby for more equitable treatment of the South by the Bretton Woods Institutions.[44] Such equitable treatment was important for Dadzie where third world debt was concerned.

Under Dadzie, UNCTAD lobbied for third-world debt reduction in the short term to deal with the pressing third-world debt crisis.[45] In the long-term, UNCTAD also advocated writing down Third-world debt owed to private banks.[46] In the long-term, UNCTAD called for “international debt reform, including agreed guidelines that would shape debt reorganisation and relief measures for international debtors patterned after those legally afforded domestic firms in industrial countries”.[47] 

Conclusion

Dadzie was a pragmatic diplomat. Despite his avid criticism of neoliberalism for its "narrow focus" and "dogmatism" and the “damagingly ideological” prescriptions of the Bretton Woods Institutions; it is under Dadzie that UNCTAD adopted a more neoliberal approach in its support of liberalisation and privatisation.[48]His radical nature,  exemplified by his staunch support of the NIEO,  gave way to his pragmatic and diplomatic expertise while also displaying the fluidity of both international thinking and international thinkers. His pragmatic approach once at the helm of UNCTAD, which reshaped the organisation and its attitude towards the global South's development agenda, was a realistic interpretation of the times. The times comprised of, first, the collapse of the NIEO and, with it, the radical ambitions of South-South cooperation and collective self-reliance characteristic of the 1960s and 1970s. Second, the fall of the United Nations as the focal point of development discourse and the development agenda of the global South, a position the organisation held during the first and second development decades. Third, the rise of the Bretton Woods Institutions as the architects of economic thinking and new development discourse in the South, anchored on neoliberal economic thinking, most exemplified by the widespread prescription of the structural adjustment programmes of the 1980s to 1990s. Through his support of GATT and the Uruguay Round, Dadzie's pragmatism provided UNCTAD with a lifeline while steering the organisation into one of its most distinctive phases and reshaping it into the organisation it is today.

[1] See, for example, “Stanchart Endowment Fund Supports 31 University Students”, 8 November 2024, https://www.faapa.info/en/stanchart-endowment-fund-supports-31-university-students/, accessed, 21 March 2025. “Standard Chartered Powers Dream Of Young People With Educational Support”, November 2022, https://www.sc.com/gh/news-media/sc-powers-dreams-young-people/, accessed 21 March 2025. “33 Brilliant But Needy University Students Receive Support From StanChart”, https://www.modernghana.com/news/806554/33-brilliant-but-needy-university-students-receive-support-f.html, 1 October 2017, accessed 21 March 2025.

[2] United Nations Digital Library (UNDL) SG/A/268 BIO/1859, Press Release – KKS Dadzie Assigned as a Personal Representative of Secretary General for Special Missions, 13 January 1982.

[3] UNDL TAD/1805, United Nations (UN), “Secretary-General of UNCTAD Pays Tribute to Kenneth K.S. Dadzie”, Press Release, 26 October 1995, https://press.un.org/en/1995/19951026.tad1805.html, accessed 26 January 2025. For more on Raul Prebisch, see among many others, David Simon (ed), Fifty Key Thinkers on Development, (Routledge, 2006); Matias E Margulis (ed), The Political Economy of Raul Prebisch, (Routledge, 2017); Gautier, Johanna (2023) 'International Economic Thinkers-Profile: Raul Prebisch, ECOINT IET Profile #5, available at: https://www.ecoint.org/post/profile-raul-prebisch-1901-1986

[4]United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), UNCTAD At Fifty: A Short History, (Switzerland, 2014): 76.

[5]For an alternative explanation of the deliberations by the Kassum Group of Experts and the Dadzie Committee, see, among others, David Nicol and John Renninger, "The Restructuring of the United Nations Economic and Social System: Background and Analysis", Third World Quarterly 4 (1), 1982: 74-92.

[6]UNDL A/32/34/Add.1, United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), Official Records of the Thirty-Second Session – Report of the Ad-Hoc Committee on the Restructuring of the Economic and Social Sectors of the United Nations System, 1978:1.

[7] For more on the NIEO, see, among many others, Robert L Rothstein, Global Bargaining: UNCTAD and the Quest for the New International Economic Order, (Princeton University Press, 1979); Patrick Sharma, “Between North and South: The World Bank and the New International Economic Order”, Humanity: An International Journal of Human Rights, Humanitarianism, and Development 6 (1), 2015: 189-200. Nils Gilman (ed), Humanity: An International Journal of Human Rights, Humanitarianism, and Development - Special Issue: Toward a History of the New International Economic Order 6 (1), 2015. 

[8]UNDL A/32/34/Add.1, UNGA, Official Records of the Thirty-Second Session – Report of the Ad-Hoc Committee: 11-26.

[9] Ibid: 40-41.

[10] UN, “Secretary-General of UNCTAD Pays Tribute to Kenneth K.S. Dadzie”, Press Release TAD/1805, 26 October 1995, https://press.un.org/en/1995/19951026.tad1805.html, accessed 26 January 2025.

[11] Speech by Grete Faremo, Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of UNOPS, at the Oslo Forum, Oslo, 13 June 2016. https://www.unops.org/news-and-stories/speeches/making-peace-in-practice, accessed 29 January 2025.

[12] For more on the reform of the UN economic structures and the establishment of the UNOPS, see, among others, Dennis Dijkzeul, Reform for Result in the UN System: A Study of UNOPS (Palgrave Macmillan, 2000).

[13] Ibid: 46.

[14]African Union Digital Archive CM/Res. 652 (XXXI), Council of Ministers Thirty-First Ordinary Session, Organisation of African Unity - Resolution on the Appointment of Mr. Kenneth Dadzie to The Post of Director General for Development and International Cooperation, Khartoum, 7-18 July 1978: 33.

[15] UNDL A/C.2/34/4, UNGA 34th Session Second Committee – Statement by Mr KKS Dadzie, Director-General for Development and International Economic Cooperation to the Second Committee, 1 October 1979: 1-9.

[16] UNDL A/43/866, UNGA, 43rd Session – Appointments to Fill Vacancies in Subsidiary Organs and Other Appointments: Confirmation of the Secretary-General of UNCTAD, 25 November 1988; UNDL A/46/761, UNGA, 46th Session – Appointments to Fill Vacancies in Subsidiary Organs and Other Appointments: Confirmation of the Secretary-General of UNCTAD, 10 December 1991; UNDL A/47/905, UNGA, 47th Session – Appointments to Fill Vacancies in Subsidiary Organs and Other Appointments: Confirmation of the Secretary-General of UNCTAD, 10 March 1993.

[17] For more on the formation of UNCTAD and its mandate, see, among many others, Ian Taylor and Karen Smith, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (Routledge, 2007). UNCTAD, UNCTAD at 50: A Short History: 9-11, 19-24.

[18] UNCTAD, UNCTAD at 50: A Short History: 21.

[19] Ibid: 77.

[20] Ibid.

[21] Columbia Centre for Oral History (CCOH), United Nations Intellectual History Project- Transcript of Interview of Javier Pérez De Cuéllar by Thomas G. Weiss, Paris, 4 April 2002: 13-14.

[22] UNCTAD, UNCTAD at 50: A Short History: 112.

[23] Ibid: 77.

[24] For more on GATT and the Uruguay Round, see, among many others, Douglas A Irwin, Petros C Mavroidis and Alan O Skyes, The Genesis of GATT (Cambridge, 2008); https://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/whatis_e/tif_e/fact5_e.htm, accessed 1 April 2025. Jamie Martin, The Meddlers: Sovereignty, Empire, and the Birth of Global Economic Governance, (Harvard University Press, 2022): 238, 256.

[25] Stanford University Libraries, UNCTAD Meeting at Ministerial Level Brussels, December 1990. Statement by Mr. K.K.S. Dadzie, Secretary-General, 4 December 1990, GATT Official Documents MTN.TNC/MIN(90)/ST/7 and 0733-0762, https://exhibits.stanford.edu/gatt/catalog/bc607xy8424, accessed 26 January 2025: 1.

[26] Ibid.

[27] Ibid.

[28] Ibid: 2.

[29] https://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/whatis_e/tif_e/fact5_e.htm, accessed 1 April 2025.

[30] UNCTAD, UNCTAD at 50: A Short History: 77.

[31] CCOH, United Nations Intellectual History Project- Transcript of Interview of Surendra J. Patel interview by Richard Jolly, Ahmedabad, 18 November 1999: 42, 46.

[32] UNCTAD, UNCTAD at 50: A Short History: 78.

[33] Ibid: 79.

[34] CCOH, United Nations Intellectual History Project- Transcript of Interview of Javier Pérez De Cuéllar: 15.

[35] Bernard Chidzero was Chairman of UNCTAD VII. For more on Chidzero, see Geraldine Sibanda,

[36] UNCTAD, UNCTAD at 50: A Short History: 81.

[37] https://unctad.org/osg/former-secretaries-general-and-officers-charge/kenneth-ks-dadzie, accessed 26 January 2025.

[38] UNCTAD, UNCTAD at 50: A Short History: 81.

[39] UNCTAD, UNCTAD at 50: A Short History: 81.

[40] Ibid: 82.

[41] UNCTAD, World Investment Report, 1995.

[42] UNCTAD, UNCTAD at 50: A Short History: 113.

[43] The World Bank Group Archives WB IBRD/IDA EXC-11-50S, Liaison Files: UNCTAD -Correspondence 01- 1104087, Barber Conable to Kenneth K.S Dadzie, 6 September 1988. Letter.

[44] Ibid.

[45] The World Bank Group Archives Liaison Files: UNCTAD -Correspondence 01- 1104087 WB IBRD/IDA EXC-11-50S, Alexander Shakow to Barber Conable through W. David Hopper, 3 June 1988. Letter.

[46]Chakravarthi Raghavan, “ 'What Washington Consensus? I never signed any'- Camdessus” Third World Network, https://twn.my/title/twr116h.htm, accessed 29 January 2024.

[47] The World Bank Group Archives Liaison Files: UNCTAD -Correspondence 01- 1104087 WB IBRD/IDA EXC-11-50S, Alexander Shakow to Barber Conable through W. David Hopper, 3 June 1988. Letter.

[48] UNCTAD, UNCTAD at 50: A Short History: 77.

Reference anything from this site as:

Sibanda, Geraldine (2025) 'International Economic Thinkers-Profile: Kenneth K.S Dadzie', ECOINT IET Profile #11, available at: https://www.ecoint.org/post/profile-of-kenneth-k-s-dadzie