|
Bhutan Participation in International Organizations
Historically, Bhutan's foreign relations had been
limited
primarily to contacts with Tibet, India, and Britain. A
major
achievement was made in the 1960s as Bhutan began to join
international organizations. It first became a member of
the
Colombo Plan in 1962, which put the kingdom into contact
with
member states throughout South Asia and Southeast Asia for
purposes
of fostering cooperative economic development. Bhutan
joined the
Universal Postal Union in 1969, putting it into contact
with some
137 countries. UN membership was achieved in 1971,
followed by the
gaining of seats in the UN's specialized and related
agencies,
including the International Monetary Fund
(IMF--see Glossary) and
the World Bank. A founding member of SAARC in 1983, Bhutan
had also
established relations with the Coordination Bureau of the
Nonaligned Countries (the headquarters of the Nonaligned
Movement),
the Group of 77, the Asian Development Bank, and the
European
Community. By 1990, Bhutan belonged to 119 international,
regional,
and special interest organizations
(see table 32, Appendix).
In 1975 Bhutan and four other landlocked Asian
countries
(Afghanistan, Laos, Mongolia, and Nepal) were granted a
special
status as "least developed landlocked countries" by the UN
Economic
and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) in
coordination with the United Nations Conference on Trade
and
Development (UNCTAD) and UNDP. Despite these
organizations'
intentions to assist Bhutan and the other countries in
dealing with
international transit problems, Bhutan declined to
participate in
their work.
Perhaps the most significant international
participation Bhutan
embarked on in the 1980s was membership in SAARC. SAARC's
agenda
excluded bilateral issues and political programs from the
organization's debates and confined committee and summit
discussions to areas where member nations must find common
ground
for achieving mutual economic benefit. Bhutan became
involved in
useful working group discussions on agriculture and
livestock,
rural development, meteorology, telecommunications,
science and
technology, health and population, transportation, postal
cooperation, and trade and industrial cooperation.
Heads-of-state meetings of SAARC have taken Jigme
Singye
Wangchuck abroad on several occasions. The integration of
Bhutan
into SAARC activities also involved the country with a
variety of
issues of concern to poor undeveloped nations as well as
increasing
its participation in the Non-Aligned Movement. In Bhutan's
extensive multilateral diplomatic activities in the 1980s,
officials saw their country emerging as an "Eastern
Geneva"
providing a "venue for peace-making efforts in South
Asia."
Data as of September 1991
|
