Brandt Report

The Brandt Report is the report written by the Independent Commissions, first chaired by Willy Brandt (the former German Chancellor) in 1980 to review international development issues. The result of this report provided an understanding of drastic differences in the economic development for both the North and South hemispheres of the world:

Cquote|A new century nears, and with it the prospects of a new civilization. Could we not begin to lay the basis for that new community with reasonable relations among all people and nations, and to build a world in which sharing, justice, freedom and peace might prevail? (Willy Brandt 1983)

The Brandt Report suggests primarily that a great chasm in standard of living exists between the North-South divide and advocates development of the Third World; the North of the world above the Brandt Line being extremely wealthy due to their successful trade in manufactured goods, whereas the countries in the South of the Brandt Line suffer poverty in trade of intermediate goods, where the export incomes are low.

The Brandt Line

The Brandt Line is a visual depiction of the North-South divide between their economies, proposed by Willy Brandt in the 1970s. It encircles the world at a latitude of 30° N, passing between North and Central America, north of Africa and India, but lowered towards the south to include Australia and New Zealand above the line.