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TABLE 3-1
Net Transfer of Resources to Capital-Importing Developing Countries
  1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985
  (billion dollars)
Net Transfer from Loans (all LDCs)' 30.7 30.6 27.7 0.8 -8.6 -27.0 -41.0
Net Transfer from all Resource Flows (all LDCs)** 41.4 39.3 41.5 10.4 -0.3 -12.5 -31.0
Net Transfer from all Resource Flows (to Latin America) 15.6 11.9 11.4 -16.7 -25.9 -23.2 -30.0
* Net transfers on loans are net capital flows minus net interest paid. All loans, official and private, short and long-term, are included together with IMF credit
** Total net resource flows relate to net loan transfers, grants and net direct investment (less net direct investment income)
Source: UN, World Economic Survey 1986 (New York: 1986).

II. DECLINE IN THE 1980s

8. The pressures of poverty and rising populations make it enormously difficult for developing countries to pursue environmentally sound policies even in the best of circumstances. But when international economic conditions are bad, the problems can become unmanageable. During the 1980s, economic growth rates declined sharply or even turned negative in much of the Third World, particularly in Africa and Latin America. Over the five years from 1981 to 1985, population growth outstripped economic growth in most developing countries.[1]

9. Deteriorating Terms of trade, rising debt service obligations, stagnating flows of aid, and growing protectionism in the developed market economies caused severe external payment problems. The increased cost of foreign borrowing, at a time

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  1. Ibid.