This issue of Development Dialogue is intended as a testimony to the significance of the ideas of Dag Hammarskjöld and those who have continued the work for international development cooperation – in the case of Sweden, particularly our late Prime Minister Olof Palme with his deep commitment to peace and to the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. It is also intended as a testimony to the strength and vitality of the ideas of Another Development as elaborated in the 1975 Dag Hammarskjöld Report and now guiding and inspiring an increasing number of third-system organizations in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
We are particularly happy to be able to feature His Majesty King Moshoeshoe II:s ‘Clarion Call’ for alternative development strategies in Southern Africa and the Summary Conclusions from the Maseru Seminar on ‘Another Development for SADCC countries’, organized under his auspices in the mountain kingdom of Lesotho. And we are equally happy to be able to publish Jorge Jatobá’s searching analysis of possible alternative resources for grassroots development in Latin America, which are an absolute necessity for future progress on this besieged and debt-ridden continent.
In all of this work, popular organizations, forming what is increasingly becoming known as the third system, in contrast to the first system (governments) and the second system (business), have a crucial role to play and it is only appropriate that this issue should provide an introduction of the subject by Marc Nerfin, who has also in a previous issue of Development Dialogue (1985:1) highlighted the importance of these organizations to the future of the UN system.