A complementary facility for commodity-related shortfalls in export earnings

This is the most recent proposal of the Group of 77 at UNCTAD in June 1979.  There they requested that the UNCTAD secretariat in consultation with the IMF staff carry out a detailed study for a complementary facility' to compensate for shortfalls in each commodity, taking account of its financial requirements, possible sources of financing, its financial feasibility, institutional arrangements and the modalities and considerations that would provide adequate compensation in real terms to developing countries ...' it is intended that this should be additional to improvements in the CFF to the IMF and other IFC arrangements.  Most of the OECD nations voted against this resolution or abstained.

If the major worry of the LDCs is fluctuations in their export earnings (and this is what has usually been maintained) the CFF approach offers much greater prospects of success.  There is scope for reforming and expanding it, but not in the direction of turning it into a mechanism for long-term transfers of resources to LDCs.  The criteria for long-term assistance out to differ significantly from the relatively automatic provision of short-term finance to meet balance-of-payments problems induced by export instability.